Bo Katan Building Bo: Adventures with Worbla

Mockingbird

New Hunter
Finally, a build thread! Now that DragonCon is over I've finally got the chance to sit down and actually post all the progress I'd recorded of my work over the last couple of months. I've always wanted to do a Star Wars costume but there were no canon female characters I wanted to do, as I wanted armour. So, already being a huge Clone Wars fan, when Bo-Katan came along I was sold, but it took a while to pluck up the courage and determination to do it. Having now worn it around at DC I'm excited to continue working on this build and upgrading it for next time. I went to the Costuming Insights panel on the Saturday and was pleasantly surprised to hear the panel discussing the new thermoplastic Worbla... as I'd actually used it to make several of my armour pieces and plan to remake the rest of them out of it too. Since there was interest in the material it gave me more of an incentive to post. :)

I got my helmet from Skirata Arms and my original armour kit from The Mandalorian Arsenal, but most of the kit did not fit my body properly (I'm a towering 5'4), hence my replacing pieces using Worbla. It did however make a great starting point for me and helped me learn a lot.

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Here's everything post-sanding and priming, and with a stainless steel coat of paint applied. This was before I chose not to use several of the pieces seen in the photo.

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For weathering, I used rubber cement to seal off the areas I wanted to appear particularly worn, and then used different consistencies of acrylic paint to add a dirtier look to replicate the animated style a bit more. In what other little free time I have I'm a fine artist who works with acrylics, so I had a bit of fun with that. Last picture shows some weathered, some not.

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Onto the holsters! The second image shows the original TMA piece, the shape of which didn't fit well on my thigh and couldn't be trimmed to size, and it also didn't fit the blasters I was working on. Next to it is the first one I made from Worbla. In the first picture I'd already made a craft foam base and used a heat gun to get the Worbla to its activation temperature, shaping it around the foam and then placing it on my actual thigh to get a closer, more accurate fit. I then made a holster out of comic book backing board and shaped more Worbla around it before placing it on the thigh plate (Worbla will adhere to itself when heated). Once both holsters were made I used spackling to fill in the edges where they connect to the plate, but forgot to take a photo. The third picture shows post-spackling, and with the first couple of coats of gesso applied. Worbla has a slightly rough texture to it, so applying a few layers of gesso and then sanding it down gives it a much smoother surface. Fourth picture is after priming, and last picture is complete (minus the belts)! I really enjoyed working on these. Also, we were working on my husband's Captain America at the time...

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I made the boot armour from Worbla too, using a two-layer craft foam base to shape it onto. First image shows the first layer of gesso on the left, second images is primed, third shows heels finished and the other two parts with a stainless steel layer on top.

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Blasters! I found those dreadful Rubies Pre Vizsla blasters and used them as a base. The first picture shows that horrible gluey mess they were originally. What I did was create Worbla templates to cover those rough parts and use spackling to fill in the gaps in the plastic (like the little speakers). The last picture shows them primed and before adding the two little notches on the base, and apparently I forgot to take a picture after finishing them. Still a bit rough, but certainly an improvement.

Part 2 incoming...
 
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Special delivery from Cruzer! His jetpacks are astounding quality and I was so excited to be able to add this to my build. Note: I kept looking at an early Bo concept that had the stripes bright yellow... and apparently got distracted and made them way too bright. After finishing all the weathering shown in the last picture, I went back and repainted the stripes to tone them way down, matching the muted yellowish colour in the series.

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I wanted to have the option of being in full costume without having the helmet on all the time, so I made the headband out of Worbla with a foam base, pushing the heated plastic into the grooves. My plan orirginally was to install lights on the edges like she has in the series, but I ran out of time for that so I used tiny strips of reflective tape, which gives the same idea when a flash goes off. Next time!

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And speaking of helmet...! This whole process was slightly terrifying, as I dreaded making a big mistake. After applying the ivory layer to the front I hand painted on the symbol by dabbing almost-dry acrylic on with a tape stencil. It was around this time that I actually woke up one night in a cold sweat, having dreamt that I'd attached the range finder to the wrong side of the helmet. Gah! Padded the inside of the helmet, and my lovely husband made a fan for it too (although we're about to switch it out for a squirrel fan for extra comfort).

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The gauntlets were a bit of a challenge, as it was rather late in the game that I decided not to use the pieces that came with the kit (I have tiny forearms). I wanted to install a light kit and have accurate darts etc, but we ran out of time so I did the best I could with what was available. So Worbla it is! I constructed each gauntlets by creating layers of boxes (again, comic book backing board with Worbla on top) and craft foam to simulate the buttons on top. These are top of my list to replace and upgrade, but it worked for the con and I learned a lot in the process. Second-to-last photo looks like they're completely different sizes, but I was holding them weirdly.

Part 3 on the way...
 
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Onto the shoulders! After a tape stencil failed, I freehanded those suckers.

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For my flight suit I went with Eastbay heatgear, which was awwwesome. As someone who has worn one-piece superhero spandex suits for six years I was THRILLED at the option to have separates! I had spent ages fretting over not being able to find anything to use for the greyish colour of her flightsuit in the series, but then reminded myself that what I was imitating was stylised animation; other things in the series that are “black” actually look grey, so I was content to use black. For the top “t-shirt” looking piece I modified a turtle neck, cutting the sleeves and adding the grey hem, which also gave me a neck seal.

The final addition to the build, of course, is her sneer.
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And here we have it! First full run at DragonCon, alternating between having the helmet on and wearing a wig. On the Sunday I ended up chatting for a long time to a lovely McQuarrie Stormtrooper named Jon, who had actually been a CG modeller on The Clone Wars for six years. It was an honour to talk to him, as well as all the kind 501st members and Mercs who complimented me over the weekend. Thank you for being so welcoming to a brand new Star Wars costumer. :D
 
Great build , I was considering using Worbla to build my daughters kit , she is six.
Have you got any pics of how you used it with the foam ?
 
WOW!! That all looks amazing! Great job!

A compliment from you is AWESOME! Thank you. :)

Great build , I was considering using Worbla to build my daughters kit , she is six.
Have you got any pics of how you used it with the foam ?

Thank you! I just had a look through all the pictures I took and I don't have any of the actual forming process, as I wasn't able to stop partway through to do that (you know what it's like to be in The Zone!). But we also used Worbla on my husband's new Captain America build, and he took a lot of pictures of that process with the same method. Flickr's down right now but when it comes back I'll grab the link for the album he made for it.

Basically the idea is to use the craft foam as a base, getting the size and shape you need, and then covering it with a similarly shaped (but slightly larger) piece of Worbla you have just heated. You then fold it around the edges of your foam base and form the shape you need as it cools - it'll harden and retain that shape. It's a really fun material, and though the sheets are expensive, you can reuse all the scraps so you don't actually waste a single piece.
 
So do you think if I used a pep file to size I could Worbla over it? Or should I use the foam for strength? Especially for the chest plates ? But I will look forward to your link .
Great job you have done .
 
The pepakura files would give you the sizes you need, but putting Worbla over it could mean losing the smaller details... but I'm a trial and error person myself, so you may want to try!

Here's the album my husband made of his Cap armour, which shows the progress from paper templates to Worbla shaped over his chest/back, to the foam layer he made for the scales, and the layer over that. Let me know if you have any other questions about it! There are some good youtube tutorials covering this method too. :)
 
Sweet ,so Worbla , foam , Worbla Great thank you .
How thick is your armor?
Sorry to ask so many questions , I do apreciate your time
 
Questions are great! I appreciate your interest and hope I can help. You don't need to have two layers of Worbla - it depends on what you're doing. For my thighs/holsters for instance, the foam was the base and there was only one layer of Worbla on top of it. But because my husband's Cap chest armour had to have the scales, we used a Worbla piece for the base as well.

The Worbla pieces of my armour are only barely thicker than the pieces from the kit, but it's not noticeable. Still very lightweight too! This image of the thigh plate shows what it looks like when held close against me:
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Its funny Iam always helping others with their clone builds but with this itsa back to basics and leani g, I love it and tha k you for your time , What foam did you use, and did you use itin all your bits? That thigh piece does it have foam at all in it? I see what you mean re thickness
Thanks again
 
That is some awesome armor! I'm not on here all the time so you're the first person i've seen use worbla. I think i'll have to give it a whirl:D
 
Hi there ^o^

Do you know how to contact with Skirata Arms or Mandalorian Arsenal, to make a full armor kit?
 
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