New Mando couple

Yeah, I think the fumes got to your head on that anime kitty picture : )...but it is pretty funny, I'll admit! It does look like its sneaking up on the mask.

Nice armour! Looking forward to seeing the GF's.

Nomad - That's not a mask it's a full plastic skull. I get kleenexs, dip them in liquid starch, then lay it on the skull. It dries and looks all wrinkly. I paint it with mahogany wood staining gel and looks all leathery after. So if you guys want leathery looking stuff...Oh and the girlfriend's armor is just waiting on her to pick her color. But I am also carving her a second plate set to test my bent design.

Commander - For one, nice to hear from you! Glad to see you following my build, since we are closely following yours as well. As for the toothpaste, the way I did it was pour a good lump out on a small plate, got out a fine modeling paint brush and just filled in my damage I did with the dremel. If you don't damage your armor with a dremel, just paint it on the way you want the damage to look. Wait about 15-30 mins for it to harden up some, then spray your color over top of it. Remember, the paste will not get rock hard, which is actually a good thing. If it did, it might fall off when sprayed. Let your color coat dry, then turn the sink on medium warm and rinse it off. Make sure you get all of it rinsed off and do not wipe it off! Wiping will smear your nice new paint job. After being sprayed, the toothpaste basically becomes paint cream. Much cheaper than masking fluid.

Here's a few more pics. My retarded dome & battle damaged plates. I just bought two helmets from a Halloween store and plan to modify them tomorrow to make domes.










Well I have to say I am happy with mine. Tomorrow, gonna blast it with gloss coat, then matt. Hoping that the girlfriend settles on her colors and I can whip her's out. I might go buy two extra cans so we can both have backups. On top of that, I had bought an Evolution set on Ebay and he sent me another FULL set since the back & cod were cracked! Well, minus the knees on the replacements, but he included the flamethrower for the gauntlet....weird.

That dome is salvagable if you're rprepared to put the work into it.

Bondo it and then sand like your life depended on it!

Nice peace of work there vod. And thanks for the info here on the toothpaste. May use it may not. Not entirly sure. LOL! For now thanks you for following my thread in my armor. I appretiate it.

Saz. said:

That dome is salvagable if you're rprepared to put the work into it.

Bondo it and then sand like your life depended on it!

Click to expand...

I'm in agreement here 100%
I have only done 2 buckets, I have #3 in the works, my first one looked all wonkey, but I bondo'd the poop out of it and sanded and sanded and sanded, and it looks nice and battle damaged because of it.
My second bucket came out better.
Now my 'mini' bucket is looking really cool, so what I'm tryin to say is

DONT GIVE IN TO YOUR ANGER
keep workin', you will be successful, just give it a try.

Yeah I think I didn't really do the right technique. I resined the inside and before it cured, I fiberglassed it and then resined it again..all within like 30mins. I only did the inside. I didnt like how thick the resin was so I figured I would just light spackle the outside and now I think it's a weird-o bucket. I am just gonna sand the **** outta it and maybe bondo over it.

I have a question...you can print the WOF templates at different scales right? I might need to make a mini bucket for the girlfriend if the ones I bought don't work.

Looking good so far Gymbeau. Missed you at the party but we'll catch up with you sometime soon.

yeah you can print them at different sizes, but I dont recommend less than 90%... I did and 85 percent and it wont even fit my 5 year old.
So I am turning it into a display for my oldest, then will go back to full size buckets.

lookin' good so far ner vod, glad u're gettin' ur cyar'ika involved!

Thanks, Kal'ika. We went to Fred Meyers this afternoon to get her paint. She used the Mando Builder on the Merc site to pre-vis it. As we were walking out of the store she tells me, "Hey, I'm pretty excited to get my armor painted!" So yeah I think the bug has struck.

So on the back porch is her burgundy chest, neck & belly plates along with her yellow shoulders.




That's of course the first coat. She is also going to have Yellow knees and a burgundy & Yellow bucket. As a last coat we have a pearl coat sealer we are going to use.

While waiting for it to dry, I came up with a quick, easy & cheap way to make gauntlets without doing the soccer shin guard thing. I was trolling at Lowe's like and good Mando and thought about using PVC pipe as the body for gauntlets. I found a weird shaped one, got the appropriate connector and a softer rubber end connector for that size. I squeezed them together and am very happy with the results. Once sanded & primed, they will be ready for mounting various things to make them look good. I have not made up my mind if I should saw it in half or not and mount a hinge. Honestly I don't have to, it slides on and off easily, which I really liked.

Looking good. Great job on painting and great job with the gaunts.

can you get your hand out? it looks stuck

Yeah I can Adonian! Actually that's the real beauty of the way I made that gauntlet. The wrist part that tapers (see the first picture of the parts separate - the one with the big label on it), that part is a soft rubber and stretches. It fits snug, yet I can easily get my fisted hand in and out. Instead of connecting the rubber to the main part just to have it break off, I use the connector piece and it's all together firmly with no glue even needed. I'll be gluing it though, but while sanding to roughen it up to prime, it's staying as is.

I just put the second coat on the girlfriend's armor. I'm using Krylon fusion which everyone speaks highly of, but the second coat looks like it's starting to orange peel. I hope it evens out while drying cause I bet it's going to be a mess to have to strip the paint with all that toothpaste mixed in too.

Tomorrow I pick up material for kamas, loin cloths & my custom vest.

Alright, many lessons learned, and some things accomplished. The girlfriend's armor was done with painting after two coats of Krylon Fusion and a coating of pearl spray so now it's time to take the plates to the sink and wash off the toothpaste. Here goes problem #1. I don't know if I waited too long to wash it off or if it's just how the fusion acts, but the stuff is not washing off. I took my finger nail and scraped off the toothpaste and I discover the root of the problem - the fusion paint is very stretchy and latex-y. I ended up taking off the silver undercoat by scraping also. I didn't really know what to do, so I figured screw it, I might have to repaint. So as a last measure, I grabbed the dish washing sponge that's got the handle you fill with soap and start scrubbing.





I got lucky and the paint along with the toothpaste started coming off. Some of the silver undercoat still came off but it's barely noticeable. I sat the plates aside to dry and sanded down my gauntlet body to prep it for priming.





Meanwhile, I cut a bunch of pleather from a sheet I got at Joann's Fabrics for $8 bucks. I followed WOF templates and hot glued a demo together. it turned out pretty well, so I glued on the back strap and attached a button snap to finish it.







I spent a couple of hours cutting and gluing and churned out 15 pouches, 6 for the girlfriend and 8 for me, leaving my demo. I was surprised that they were so easy and still usable. I wouldn't say I'm at the level of selling them, but I would feel comfortable trading pouches for stuff to be honest.

To finish off the day, I got out some silver Warhammer 40k paint and touched up the battle damage on our plates and hit the edges on all the plates as well. I had watched a guy on YouTube make armor and he hit the edges of his plates with silver. His theory, which I agree with, is that if this were all real, the edges would definitely be where the paint would be wearing off. The pictures above are after the edging. I'm very happy overall with my progress.

Hey that is looking mighty fine there. The progress you are making is how to say really good. Sucks with the Krylon stuff. Good thing I am not planing on using toothpaste to get more battle damage. I am actually going to fill in with silver and some black to add that more battle damage look along with some rust for my helmet. And then with my armor pieces it will have the same way with grey, silver, red, and black.

Lookin good Gymbeau, yeah the krylon is flexable, I used it as a base coat, but used rattlecan car touch up paint for the layers, I used masking tape for my damage, then a metal pick, I have only tried the toothpaste on a scrap piece and the auto paint chipped away nicely.

Now I see how easy the pouches are, thank you for show and tell I wll make some soon.

They are easy Adonian. You should buy a couple of bucks worth of scrap pleather and give it a whirl. I have to be honest, mine look sortof ratty, but do-able. I burnt myself too many times to count and lining stuff up perfectly is a pain. But as long as you know going in that it's not gonna be perfect, it becomes fun. Oh, and as a tip, once everything is cut out, I glue the sides to the front edge of the body strip, then inverted "s" fold the sides and clamp them down with $.20 spring clamps for a couple of minutes to give you the proper folded shape.then just glue the other edge of the sides to the strip as you fold it to the top to make the front flap.

"All to easy"

Looking good!

Fun updates today. The girlfriend chose her Mando name for when she applies to the Mercs. She is Dralshy'a Atiniir & I am Bes'kad Prudii.

Ok, on the costume updates. I received our t-visors from Ebay today and realized that the person I bought them from was t-visor.com itself! They are very thick and good quality, very impressive.

I slapped on one final, final coat of gloss & matt, so plates are 100%. I had some shopping to do & hit my favorite salvage stores. I made a golden find at one store and found some guns actually labeled as blasters. That must be an omen I say. even though they were cheap no name guns, all they need is painting in my mind. I would tell all of you guys where I bought them, but I would have to kill you. Ok, here's a hit - the store starts with a "big" and ends with a "Lots". LOL Yeah, Big Lots gave up a good find. So if your looking for cheap alternatives to Nerf or just wanna look different, like my motivations, then hit Big Lots or a Dollar Store. Pics tomorrow of the guns before and after.

The next great find for us was at Value Village. I was on the quest for soft parts and looked at a version of Salvation Army we have up here and also Value Village. At the Village I found a cheerleader uniform top. Not a costume, but a real one. $5 bucks and ten minutes of work at home taking off the logo and sleeves and now the girlfriend has an excellent vest!

So it's Monday night and basically all we are waiting on is buckets.