New guy, new armour (pics included)

Hey folks, I'm fairly new here. I've been lurking for a little while, and got going on some armour. I'm holding off on a bucket for a little while, cash flow reasons mostly. Anyways, I'm in love wth the idea of being as Mandalorian as I can be, so I'm going for a set of armour that's a bit unique in colour at least. This is my first attempt at any sort of costuming, and I'd love to hear any feedback anyone has to offer, good or bad, helpful hints and critisisms welcome. I'm actually building this armour for using as paintball armour. I'm working on a flak jacket aswell, that still needs some work however. In the meantime, here's some pics, let me know what you think.

Hey Jim, first off welcome aboard.
The armour looks great so far, interesting colour choice... gonna stand out in the paintball feild..lol
keep us posted of your progress.

yeah, my hope is that i can intimidate before i"m too visible on the paintball field. i'm also hoping to rig up a few CO2 tanks on my back plate instead of the rocket pack. i'll be posting pics of that when i finally, if ever, get around to that end of the project. next on the list is to finish up the flak jacket, attatch the armour, then hopefully get started on a helmet to match the armour.

Is that a copper color? Either way, I like that base color.

yeah, its a copper like paint. i had wanted to do a copper colour with some rusty orange around the damage spots. i still have some touching up to do on it. i haven't done any of the orange on it yet. the grey for the bare metal was whole lot shinier until i hit it with some clear coat. it still needs some work, but thats where i'm at for today.

well, today i nearly got my flak jacket done. everthing is fitted, all of my velcro is secured and sewn in, and all i have left to do is fit it for lenth and trim out the arm holes. my brother in law and i decided to see how the armour would hold up to paint ball at close range. turns out not so good. it pealed the paint back like the shell of a dropped hard boiled egg. so, i stripped it down, (most of it anyways, just the parts that were damaged for now), and sanded and repainted. i really like the way it turned out the second time around. i managed to keep the silver paint underneath nice and shinny, and because i taped it while it was still tacky, it gave it a crinckled tin foil affect. and with applying pain and clear coat a little heavier in some area's, it came out with a somewhat weathered affect. i'm really liking how this is coming along.

I'm gonna hafe to assume you play alot of woodsball as apose to speedball right? If you'd like more mobility, you might think about making the peices smaller just incase you need to run to the next bunker/tree or something, or just so you can move fast(er) in general on the feild.

When you go, be sure to get some pics.!

Seeing this is not a Boba, I am moving it to the DENTED VARIANTS Section.

Do what must be done. dumb new guys eh???

What did you use for the pattern on the flak vest?

-Troy

Welcome to TDH. Love the copper color!

for the flak vest i just used a pattern from a fabric store for some sleepware. i had to modify it a bit........shorten up the shoulders, fit it for length. i think if i ever have to do this again, i'll probably just buy a vest, or have someone make one for me.....someone who knows what they are doing. it took a long time to do, but it was my first attempt. i just finished the vest last night, and i couldn't be giddier about it. i'm going to start working on some gauntlest next. nothing too fancy, but just something for some coverage for now.

Looks good man, keep up the good work!

Were you standing in a dark room? =D

yeah, the lighting in that room sucks.

gauntlets done. well, what i'm calling poor mans gauntlets are done. they don't wrap all the way around the arm, the just strap on and cover the exposed side of the forearm. and i added knuckle gaurds to my gloves aswell. they look pretty sweet together.

Poor man gauntlets all the way brother! I like them actualy

There's nothing at all wrong with those gauntlets!

I especially like the hand armor.

Thanks man. I think everything looks pretty sweet so far. Keep it up!

Is it just me or does anyone else see a slight resemblance? Subtract the sunglasses and add a hat of course.

holy ****, that guy looks like he could be my brother. who is that anyways???

It's me.

nice to know i'm not the only beefy looking guy in a mando get up

I think he just called you beefy!

i mean beefy in the nicest way possible........in that "don't mess with me, i'm fully capable of tearing you limb from limb" kind of way.

not bad for a sharpie. it's too bad i'm still going to strip this plate down and repaint it.........i just got bored, and excited today.........not bad for a sharpie

I'm not offended by bieng called beefy. I'll be the first one to say I'm a BIG boy. I'm in the process of building new XL set of armor right now cause the set I bought was way too small. It would be great for someone smaller.

i decided to go for a slight personal touch to my gauntlets. I am Canadian, and i'm fairly proud to be so, but i'm also in love with the Mando culture. so i thought i'd blend the two a little. i figured i'd mark one culture with the other.

Thats pretty interesting and very patriotic =D

Well, since I plan on using my armour for paintball, I also plan on making my paintball marker look like a prop. Being a big fan of not only Mandalorians, but the Republic Commando's aswell, I'm going to mod my gun to look somewhat like the DC-17. Wizzard Of Flight responded to another post I had started inquiring about specs and pics of the Deece. He has some great autocad pictorials of the gun, so I've spent my evening scalling these pics to my current paintball marker. So far so good. I'm not going to be doing every little detail right of the bat. Just the basics for now to make it seem more like a weapon from the Star Wars realm. I'll probably be spending a good chunk of my day tomorrow building the first parts of cardboard, seeing how it will actually line up, and using those as my templates. I'm hoping to make the peices out of PVC, which is what I'm planning on making my helmet out of aswell (one of these days). Speaking of which; anyone out there from the southern Ontario area that knows where a guy can get PVC in sheet form???

Not to go OT. But do you mind me asking what kind of marker you shoot?

right now i've got a Zap AMP Reactor, but i'm hoping to move up to a
BT-4. I'm not sure yet how I'd want to dress out the BT-4, but it's a ways off for me anyhow. I love the way that the Reactor functions, i just don't like having the top mount hopper. I want something with a cyclone feed so I could mount a scope on the top and sight down the barrel. however, next on my list is the Tiberious 8 pistol.

Yeah the BT-4, Tippmann's, etc. are realy cool senario guns, when I play senario I use a Spyder MR-2, and an Ariakon Overlord pistol. I didn't want to be striktly military, and both sorta remind me of more Sci-Fi esq. gun. Sence I like Sci-Fi I was sorta drwn to both, lol.

But The Tac-8 has to be one of the coolest paintball markers in a long time senario wise, but the price is sorta a turn off. I sometimes wish I would of held out and bought one as apose to my Overlord though.

I play mostly Speedball though, so I didn't want to spend "alot" of money making a Tippmann marker look like a gun, because I also play airsoft. Do you play stricktly senario/woods, or have/do you also play speedball?

I haven't played much speedball.....which is somewhat of a shame seeing as the Reactor is pretty much made for speedball. mostly we play a lot off scenario in the woods. i'm looking at puting a longer, rifled barrel on my marker to give me a little more distance and accuracy for woodsball.

okay, here's what i got working on today. It certainly won't be an exact replica of the Dc-17, but it will at least look Star Wars enough to go with my armour for paintball. I've come up with a piece for a shoulder stock, nothing fancy, but it flows with the lines of the gun.......or at least, what the gun will be. I think i've even figured a way to attatch the stock once i get the rest of the cladding done for the gun. I'll keep posting as I keep working on it.

Almost looks like the old auto-cocker/auto-mag.

Makes me want to buy a paintball gun to mod

Jate bora!

I look foreward to seeing how your mods go!

Yeah, I use a SP Ion for speedball, I prefer it as apose to woods play, but I'll just about do anything.

Looks good. I don't remember if you said before or not, but... What are you using to shape the plastic?

Exceptional job do far Jim! Those leg pieces look awesome!

t_bone, all i use to do any shaping is a heat gun and some gloves. I'll use the occasional bit of lumber or sometimes my two foot level for some straight edges for hard bends, but other than that, i just heat it till it's almost melty, and hold it in the shape i want until it cools.

well, i tried out the armour in paintball today. I was curious to see how my second paint job was going to hold up, and it did really well. there wasn't any paint chipped off of it at all. the only problem i did have was the medalion on the chest armour that i welded out of two peices with a soldering iron broke apart. I'll have to figure out another solution for that, or just make sure the weld is much stronger for next time. other than that, everything held up well.

Did you play in it, or just test your own marker on it? I'm curious to see how people react to a set of Mando armor on the playing feild. It looks like it held up preety well either way though.

we didn't actually get a chance to play today. we were supposed to, and we hiked three miles to get the what was supposed to be the perfect paint ball spot. once we got there, only about three of us wanted to play, and the rest just wanted to set up tents and drink until tommorow. so the three of us who were interested decided to test the armour. as far as how people react to mando armour on the feild, i can only speculate at this point......and i speculate fear. and why shouldn't they fear it. itt holds up well. instead of getting massive welts at close range, it just feels like someone is gently poking you. that may also have something to do with the half inch foam padding that is lining my flak vest.

Aw man, I had started awhile back, just a set of mando chest armor for the same thing, for paintball. Just never got around to making a vest for it.

-tubachris

nice armor

well, i know i said i was going to wait until i could find some pvc to build a helmet out of, but i just couldn't take it anymore. so i began to build one out of fibreglass. i used Wizard Of Flight's helmet and dome templates, built one out of some rigid paper, then i coated it with bondo to give it some stability. once that was done and dried enough, i put a layer of wax paper over the dome, so it would sepearate easily enough, and started to hit it with some fibreglass. I've only done the dome up to this point, because, as i've said before, i want this helmet for paintball. so i didn't want to build the whole thing only to find out i'd wasted my time and my money. so for now i just went with the dome. as soon as i got that part of it done, i took it out back, and my brother in law and i hit it with about two hundred rounds at point blank range. and it held up just fine. not a crack in the thing at all.........well, there was one little piece that chipped off near the bottom, but i could have flicked that off before i even started shooting at it. I'm really happy with how it's coming together, and i'll keep posting as i keep working.

well, i ended up having to work longer than i thought today, so i didn't get to spend any time on the helmet like i'd hoped. i did have a little bit of trash can left over, so i decided to do some knees. they were about the only part i had missing, other than the helmet, but certainly not the only part unfinished. i've still got lots of work ahead of me, but i'd like to try and get everything as ready as can be so i only have to set up for paint one more time. the knees are not exactly screen acurate, but this is a custom, so i'm not terribly concerned.

how did I miss this topic? your armor loox pretty sweet!

hey thanks man. and thanks everybody actually. i've gotta say, for this being my first effort at any sort of costuming, everybody here has been nothing but encouraging. i really do appreciate everyones support and input. this is probably the friendliest community i've ever been involved with.

The kneepads appear to look a little deformed, do you think you can fix them up a little?

yeah, the knees definetly need some reworking. i'm thinking i may just start over on them.

I would heat them up and flatten them again. Then I would form them over a paint can or something of that size.

i know that this isn't a mando helmet, or mando anything for that matter, but this entire thread has been about my paintball gear. so until i set myself up with a mando helmet for paintball, i use this one. and i'm personally very happy with how my little mod has worked out today. i disassembled an old xbox headset, and re-assembled it to my paintball mask. it doesn't put any pressure on my ear, the way it did when i just wore a headset inside of the mask, it fits well, works fantastic, and is all set to hook up to a two way radio. and you can't see it at all from the outside of the mask.

Hey that's looking good. Your definitely right about having it protect well for paintball. I was into paintball when I was in high school, me and 2 buddies started a local team. Still have my old F1 Illustrator, and one of our mates had a modified VM68. That mug sounded like an M60 when you fired it rapidly, and it hurt when it hit.

that's exactly why the flak vest has a half inch of foam padding lining it. between that and the armour plates, i can barely feel getting hit with shot of paint.