Custom Mandalorian (SWTOR based) Mando. Currently in CAD design phase.

Valkir's WIP Late Crusade armor (SWTOR based)
I work in CAD making miniatures for table top gaming as my day job, so when I wanted to feed my Boba Fett-ish it seemed a natural choice.

I am tall, 6’5” so I am a bit large for a canon Boba, Ihave no interest in making a Vader or Wookie costume…. Poking around I found you and the Mandalorian Merc group, and as I sometimes play SWTOR I had just the thing in mind.

I wanted to make sure using a specific model from SWTORwas acceptable before I began work as this will be an intensive build in timeand money.



http://mercs.firespray.net/forum/index.php?topic=92867.msg1358382#msg1358382



I have started the CAD side of my Late Crusade armor, I wanted to make sure using a specific model from SWTOR was acceptable before I began work as this will be an intensive build in time and money.

I will use an FDM printer to bring the CAD files into thereal world as wearable armor. Here is my ultimate goal. I wanted to keep it astrue to the original model as I could so I made a set of cardboard calipers andstarted measuring my knoggin. 10” deep tip of the nose to back of the skull, 7.25” wide ear to ear and 9.5” tall chin to top of head.

I took a CAD human dummy and started my tweaking there, this provided me with a 3D representation of my head dimensions. As I use Rhino3D for my CAD work, it provides accurate measurements down to the micron. I useZbrush for most of my organic modeling but nothing does hard plate armor likeRhino.



This is where I begin my journey… Using screen grabs from the game I start roughing in the initial shape, knowing full well a bucket with tapered sided was not the final goal.


You can see me working through the process, refining theshape. The shape is a little more complex than you would think, there is achange in form at the front of the helmet, it’s not just a cut the nose off kind of thing. After a couple hours of tweaking I have the basic form where I want it but I need to go back and rebuild the face area from scratch to refine the eye slot and the nose area and make the design fit as close as I can get itto the in game model.
While working through this process, I discovered the earswere not in the right place for a human… I had to move their position andrefine the helmet details to match their revised placement.

Here you can see a 95% completed helmet.
I threw some quickie textures on it just to give it a spin. As Shea Viz has some great close up art I patterned my mic tips? off of hers. I tried to copy every detail present in the game model. The game model is fairly plain but that’s fine by me as it more closely matches Fett, where Shea Viz ismuch more busy and the shape of her helmet more curved and form fitting.







I will keep this build log rolling until the entire armor is complete, I thank you for stopping in and viewing my WIP. Please feel free tomake suggestions or ask questions.

All the best!
NG

Cool to see some CAD going on! I'm thinking about making the dome to my bucket by 3D printing it. What type of FDM printer do you have?

Bumblebi said:

Cool to see some CAD going on! I'm thinking about making the dome to my bucket by 3D printing it. What type of FDM printer do you have?

Click to expand...

At the moment none Come Nov (or so) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nea-3d-stylish-upgradeable-3d-printing-for-all/x/10779583#/story. 14" XY and 15"Z with heated bed pretty much sealed the deal for me.

I like the way your outside the normal T shaped visor box. Would love to have a go at making one if you ever release the templates

Look forward to seeing your progress

Sent from my SM-G920V

The first printer fell through but I was lucky enough to stumble on another 3d printer... very happy with it, so not the build begins!

The long wait for the Kickstarter printer is over!
My Raise3D N2Plus arrived in good condition. After a few small test prints to get the feel for the software, printer and materials I finished up the helmet and jumped right in.

I settled on PETG as my build material, it has some flexibility and is very impact resistant. PETG can be a pain to print in and there are very few solvents that can be used to glue parts together, lucky for me, this is a monster sized printer.
I needed to do a bit more work on the CAD model and shell the model for the proper wall thickness, I tried to keep it at about 1/4 inch thickness for strength.

I removed the ears and mic. to print them separately, I made the ear sections hollow so that I could put some screening over some small detail holes to aid in hearing while the helmet is on. I may take apart some shooters ear muffs and put the electronics in to use as amplifiers.





Here is the first shot of the helmet being printed, we are about 24 hours in on a print that will take nearly 200 hours to complete. I could have easily done it in a quarter of the time but that would mean a less desirable finish and more time spent on cleanup... Plus this gives me a good chance to work out if there are issues with the printer as a torture test will show if there are mechanical issues I need to worry about.

I have been busy with a few other things so my posts arenot as timely as I would like.

Here you can see the helmet nearly complete, this was mythird attempt at printing, I had turned it the other way but had a nozzle clogand some support issues. It wasted a lot of support material when it wassitting right side up so I decided to change the type of support to a morerobust format, this would make cleaning more difficult but the supports wouldbe more secure. So I flipped it over and started again.

I had some issue with Y axis wobble in the print, leavinga wobbly print the closer it got to the door (termination of the Y axis) Not abig deal as I can clean that up but certainly not ideal… I will be looking forthe cause and fix shortly. Likely it is a loose screw or belt on that axis thatI will need to look after.

Happy to see a completed print, I removed it from the bedand got to work removing the supports and putting down the first layer ofprimer to start the surface cleanup… Lots of work to be done. I ordered somefiles, which are on the way to assist in cleaning out some of the areas such asthe ridges in the helmet.









While I wait on the files, I started printing the earsections.

I really liked the helmet when I seen it. I have seen other armor pictures from Google's swtor images. They were not as heavily armored, but not a light armor either as you would find on a Fett. Since you play, ( I don't), what are the choices for armor with this helmet?

southern Indiana
scott

sprktaf said:

I really liked the helmet when I seen it. I have seen other armor pictures from Google's swtor images. They were not as heavily armored, but not a light armor either as you would find on a Fett. Since you play, ( I don't), what are the choices for armor with this helmet?

southern Indiana
scott

Click to expand...

The armor you see in my first shots is acceptable, it is the same style as the Manadalorian Fire Commando https://swtor.jedipedia.net/en/npc/mandalorian-fire-commando I chose to use a heavier leg style to balance out the suit a bit. You can see more up to date pics and the body armor in progress here: Valkir's WIP Late Crusade armor (SWTOR based) 3D printed armor


This is another style that is completely acceptable https://swtor.jedipedia.net/en/npc/tiru as is this https://swtor.jedipedia.net/en/npc/mandalorian-tech-commando-2

If you wanted to go a bit lighter you could go this direction https://swtor.jedipedia.net/en/npc/mandalorian-warrior-7


If you go here https://swtor.jedipedia.net/en/search?q=mandalorian&patch=0 and scroll through the 'NPCS' section with any trooper that has the tag 'Mandalorian' it should be (likely will be) acceptable for a Late Crusade portrayal. but if you want to use it for the MMCC it is always best to check with the approval committee before you start a build.

Thanks. will check them out. Yeah, MMCC is pretty open about late crusaders, but good idea to run past them.

southern Indiana
scott