Clone trooper costume sites?

OK, fellow Fett heads, I've been enlisted to make a Clone trooper costume. I've got a helmet, so now I just need templates for body armor etc. I'm sure someone here knows a few good websites where I can find the necessary info. Help please.

Thanks, y'all!

clonetroopers.net

Clonetroopers.net is the official 501st detachment site, so that would definitely be the place to start.

Clonetroopers.net & Clone-Empire, both great sites.

COOL! Thanks everyone. BTW, if anyone knows of costume building sites for other Imperial, AT-AT drivers, TIE pilots, etc, please post them. I'd love to visit them also.

Thanks again!

Originally Posted by tubachris85x

clonetroopers.net

Originally Posted by Foxbatkllr

Clonetroopers.net is the official 501st detachment site, so that would definitely be the place to start.

Originally Posted by MandalorianWarrior87

Clonetroopers.net

Clonetroopers.net
Of course

Originally Posted by Southern hunter

COOL! Thanks everyone. BTW, if anyone knows of costume building sites for other Imperial, AT-AT drivers, TIE pilots, etc, please post them. I'd love to visit them also.

Thanks again!

Go to 501st.com and look up the detachment homepages. Every costume type has something listed there.

i'm more of a clone-empire.com guy myself. they have a lot more activity in the episode 2 clones than clonetroopers.net.

Thanks everyone for the websites. I'm a little frustrated, though. I want to build from scratch, not BUY an armor kit, but my searches for WIP turn up threads that start off with armor. A search for templates and blueprints turned up blaster rifles and pauldrons. What gives? SURELY, someone has made a decent clone trooper costume from sintra or by vac-forming.

I'm asking you guys and gals here on TDH before I go posting newbie questions on Clonetroopers.net. Might save some embarrassment and frustration.

Any ideas, comments or suggestions?

honestly mate - as already said - check out clone-empire as well. remeber that clone empires is not 501 affliated

lots of builders there - and if u are wanting to scratch build - lots of people to talk too, lots of builder post on there.

on CT.net - R2lass from casters inc is currently making new molds.

Unfortunately - as each kit so far is artisit impression of the CGI suits - think most people self sculpt, not sure if there are blueprints available out there.

Certainly one guy was trying it out just to quech his inner builder (UNK)

Nate

Originally Posted by Southern hunter

Thanks everyone for the websites. I'm a little frustrated, though. I want to build from scratch, not BUY an armor kit, but my searches for WIP turn up threads that start off with armor. A search for templates and blueprints turned up blaster rifles and pauldrons. What gives? SURELY, someone has made a decent clone trooper costume from sintra or by vac-forming.


Any ideas, comments or suggestions?

I do have a little experience with this, and I will tell you that if you are trying to build a set of clone trooper armor from scratch, It would be a good idea to draw your own templates to the size of your own body. There is no reason to assume that someone else is going to do a better job than you. You can't always trust something you find on the web.

That having been said, a project like this can cost $2K-$3K, take up an entire garage for 2 years. There are around 33 individual pieces to the armor. That is 33 sculpts, 30 molds, 30 casts for bucks, 30 pieces of vacuformed plastic - just to get started. Next you must assemble all those piece of plastic into a suit of armor, and that is if you have done everything perfectly from the start. Only after you have gone through all that will you know if you made a piece the right size and if you need to rework the molds and start over again.

How much experience do you have at this sort of thing? You might like to start with something small, perhaps even 1/4 scale to get the feel of it.

Thanks, bro. Or should I say "cheers mate"! Looks like I was barking up the wrong tree, uh, website. Sounds like a ton of work. No wonder people buy Stormies and clone armor instead of making it.

Originally Posted by Southern hunter

Thanks everyone for the websites. I'm a little frustrated, though. I want to build from scratch, not BUY an armor kit, but my searches for WIP turn up threads that start off with armor. A search for templates and blueprints turned up blaster rifles and pauldrons. What gives? SURELY, someone has made a decent clone trooper costume from sintra or by vac-forming.

I'm asking you guys and gals here on TDH before I go posting newbie questions on Clonetroopers.net. Might save some embarrassment and frustration.

Any ideas, comments or suggestions?

i think if you ask him real nice, skup might be able to do up some pepakura (however you spell it) off some good screen caps of clones.

Originally Posted by Heatshock

honestly mate - as already said - check out clone-empire as well. remeber that clone empires is not 501 affliated

Nate

in an official capacity, tdh is not 501st affiliated either, but as far as i can tell this site is more popular than the 501st official bounty hunter site.

Originally Posted by clonesix

I do have a little experience with this, and I will tell you that if you are trying to build a set of clone trooper armor from scratch, It would be a good idea to draw your own templates to the size of your own body. There is no reason to assume that someone else is going to do a better job than you. You can't always trust something you find on the web.

That having been said, a project like this can cost $2K-$3K, take up an entire garage for 2 years. There are around 33 individual pieces to the armor. That is 33 sculpts, 30 molds, 30 casts for bucks, 30 pieces of vacuformed plastic - just to get started. Next you must assemble all those piece of plastic into a suit of armor, and that is if you have done everything perfectly from the start. Only after you have gone through all that will you know if you made a piece the right size and if you need to rework the molds and start over again.

How much experience do you have at this sort of thing? You might like to start with something small, perhaps even 1/4 scale to get the feel of it.

it takes a special kind of crazy to undertake sculpting your own full body armor. i'm not saying it can't be done, i'm just saying it takes a special kind of crazy to make that kind of sacrifice time, money, and storage space. but i bet it'd be incredibly rewarding once it's all done.

clonesix - its my cloning god!?!?

*genuflects*

I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!?!?

*runs off screaming into the distance*

btw Mr Hunter - I am abt to start a clone build, and from the looks of various WIP; even when u have a kit, it looks like a major undertaking. Lots of fitting, customising and modding.

even if there isnt that satisfaction of a scratch build - I've been told a well assembled clone armour is still a big achievement! I am kinda looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time!

Good luck on ur search!

Nate

Originally Posted by Heatshock

even if there isnt that satisfaction of a scratch build - I've been told a well assembled clone armour is still a big achievement! I am kinda looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time!

heck yeah! i think 3 times already i've thought "why??? why am i doing this??? i stopped wearing my TK for a REASON!!!"

and i've only been working on it for a week!!

argh! stormtrooper guy is following me
so this is where u normally post huh
nice Hasb mode matey - but remember "post CLEAR NON DARK pics of their work" pls heh

btw its Nate (Heatshock) form CE forums

Yeah, I kind of wondered about buying a kit in the first place. I mean do they come Small, Medium, Large, Ginormous or One Size fits most? Either way there's got to be a lot of fine tuning involved.

Honestly, the Clone trooper project is for my daughter's Halloween costume for NEXT year, so my standards are not too high for the costume. I just don't want her wearing a vinyl jumpsuit from Fleabay as her armor.

I'm finishing up her "Angel Fett" soon. Gauntlets, knee armor are about all I've got left for it. BTW, we did go in costume to Clone Wars, but I haven't posted pix yet. I'll be posting pix later.

We had a blast!

Originally Posted by Heatshock

argh! stormtrooper guy is following me
so this is where u normally post huh
nice Hasb mode matey - but remember "post CLEAR NON DARK pics of their work" pls heh

btw its Nate (Heatshock) form CE forums

haha! yeah, the clone thing is new to me. i've been working on my fett for almost 4 years now.

i've been trimming and gluing and sanding and... i think the clone has been more work than my first boba was! 'course it will look a LOT better than my first boba did!

Building a good clone, and I mean a good looking clone, takes work. It is nothing like assembling a TK. A quality clone build is likely to be the most labor intensive costume assembly you wil take, and that is with purchasing the armor, not creating it form scratch. I found it much easier to create a decent Jango that a clone. For the Fett, quality parts can be bought and with some limited attention to detail in assembly, you can get good results. You can purchase the best clone armor out there and with similar attention to detail such as with a fett build, your clone won't look as good. It takes extra work from the end user to make the clone stand out. Special attention in fitting the parts to YOUR body and keeping them in proportion to each other is key to pulling off a quality clone costume.

Hey S Hunter Steellitz really knows wot hes talking abt - he's kinda 1 of the "big boys" in clone world

* psst -nudge nudge - hit him up for a quality foam belt too*

Small, Medium, Large, Ginormous or One Size fits most?

one of the biggest probs is that the Clone kits are based on sculpts that try and mimic the CGI look. As a whole think kits were meant to fit someone abt 5'11'' - 6'1' ish although recently a makers has come out with a "short" kit. I know of at least one guy who shaped his kit to kit a 5'5'' frame and still looked good! Also as SB already said - its a less forgiving armour; and maintaining proportions is the key. I have set aside abt 1 year to 1.5yrs for my clone build - and I have been told thats abt right (I'm 5'9'' 180lbs)

If u are doing this for ur daughter - I know on CE theres a WIP thread with a guy who did a foam build for his kid that looks quite good really!

Hope that helped

Nate

Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Information overload!

OK, so what I've learned is:

Clone kits are usually for 6' people AND require major modifications to fit even that size person, nevermind someone my height and I'd have no idea where to start for a seven year old. BTW, I did learn that for her MANDO costume, the adult templates for gauntlets should be reduced to about 55% - 60% however, the helmet was just reduced to 85% of adult scale using Wizard's templates.

Her armor was very easy to make. I used the child armor templates here on TDH. Once again, thank you Mr. Sinclair (Wizard of Flight) for your templates.

awww, she's totally cute bud!

I second all the comments from these fine folks. Clone assembly is tough, and requires alot of attention. Sizing it to fit you, in such a way that doesn't lose detail, and loss of scale, is difficult. One major screw up and you are looking for replacemnet parts. Forget starting from scratch with molds, not unless you are made of time and have the dough. Here are couple of images of my last build. I actually bought mine used, from a fella who is 6"+, and was 220lbs.(I am 5'10" and 168lbs.) I had to strip down his original paint work (painted in AOTC Sergeant olive-green) then re-crack all the seams, re-trim a ton of excess plastic (based on my body dimensions). All the while I was losing weight too, so I had to "project" where I would be size wise, 90 days in advance (built this for CIV) I am building one more of these, then I am done.

(This costume now belongs to Whistle8mp )

I thought these would be pretty easy, or similar to a TK, thanks for the heads up and the ref photos. Best of luck SH.

Yeah not even close to a TK. It took me many months to put my clone together. By contrast, I put my FX suit together in a day.

here u go hunter - foam armour with modded Hasb helmet me thinks


http://www.clone-empire.com/forums/i...showtopic=1466

very cute kid, gret colour scheme for mando armour as well

wow very nice armour voltaire

think people who are assembling CT are also holding to a higher standard as a rule. Its like 30s years of TK building having distilled all the trial&errors and CT builders only using the best bits. eg although not required - most people go for a seamless build.

Also, lots of others mix and match bits of armour to get best look eg I got mixture of MG/OSCS armour, C6 bucket, hoping on a SB/SF or even maybe a OSCS foam belt. Then u got to think of shoes - which need modding as well. Weapon(s). And ofc - if u wanted a Cmdr of somesort - all the extra helmet mods as well.

Helluva fun, but serious strain on sanity, pocket and lungs (sand sand sand)

Nate

I've done it... built Clone armor from scratch. I'll echo what Clone6 said. Expect to spend years and thousands of dollars. I'll also mention www.clone-empire.com, since it's not Legion affiliated and centered solely around the hobby of making props and costumes... sorta like TDH.

Here's a few photo galleries that showcase some of the WIP...

http://gallery.mac.com/mikeharrison#100177

http://gallery.mac.com/mikeharrison#100201

And here's some of my final builds...

http://gallery.mac.com/mikeharrison#100162

http://gallery.mac.com/mikeharrison#100209

Originally Posted by Southern hunter

Honestly, the Clone trooper project is for my daughter's Halloween costume for NEXT year, so my standards are not too high for the costume.

This sheds new light on the issue.

Honestly, I don't think you daughter is going to be as picky about acuracy as an adult (me) would be. If she gets to run around and get candy in something close, she will be happy.

A Rubies costume would suit her needs just fine. You could add some small details to amp it up like a pauldron or kama, and hide tha it's a Rubies. And to be perfectly honest, I would worry about my child being encapsulated in hard plastic and wandering around on Halloween in the dark. I would fear that if she were to trip and fall, she wouldn't be able to catch herself. It would be a one way ride straight to the pavement. Remember: plastic edges can be very sharp!

Here is an address for some EVA foam yoga mats that a clever individual could make some cosume armor out of: http://www.foamorder.com/closedcell.html

Oh, and Voltaire, that suit is just so bad @$$, it just brings a tear to my eye.

Originally Posted by clonesix

Oh, and Voltaire, that suit is just so bad @$$, it just brings a tear to my eye.

+1

I think Bacara would be the only Clone I'd put my time and money into. So good!!!

Originally Posted by Foxbatkllr

Yeah not even close to a TK. It took me many months to put my clone together. By contrast, I put my FX suit together in a day.

I think I've spent longer on trimming and shaping that pieces of my clone than I did on the entire TD suit that I just sold... including the weathering, backpack, etc...

so do ya think i could make a suit outa trash can?

Originally Posted by arctrooper

so do ya think i could make a suit outa trash can?

is this a serious question? i don't mean to sound like a jerk, but after reading this thread i'd think the answer would be pretty much evident.

honest answer? - no, i don't think good looking clone armor can be made from a can.

fett armor can sort of work that way since it's relatively flat. clone armor is VERY complex. it took me about 2 weeks of sculpting to get the shins where i was happy enough to vac form tests off of them. and that's just the shins, in a pretty well stocked workshop.

trash can plastic doesn't glue well, doesn't hold bondo well, and doesn't really take to reshaping.

even making it out of sheet styrene or something would be tough due to all of the curves and odd angles.