T's ESB Boba Fett Build

I love getting Boba Fett stuff in the mail. Its like Christmas when that brown box arrives. This week, I received my finished shin tools and flight suit/gloves weathering from 22ssplt. @22ssplt thank you for your time and effort, I am very pleased with the end product. Here is his commissioned work:

Flightsuit Before:


Flightsuit After:


Shin Tools Before:


Shin Tools After:


I really recommend 22ssplts shin tool work and weathering . On top of that, he is a swell guy to work with.

The weathering looks really good. That will be one heck of a ESB Fett.

With the addition of the Flightsuit and Shin tools, I was finally able to put on most of my suit. The things I am waiting on include: Jetpack, EE3 and ESB Helmet. Overall, I am almost there. This was my first time at putting everything on at once and man there is a ton of stuff to get on. I had my Girlfriend assist me and take photos and with that I observed a few things that need modifications.




One of the 1st things I noticed were how much the knee armor actually moves and shifts while walking with just the velcro strap. I am likely going to go with velcro or magnet attachment in the front to help ensure the knees stay center


In addition, I still need to add either square foam pieces or old VHS boxes into the pouches. Does anyone have any other light weight options to fill and square off the pouches?

The next thing is the wookie braids. I originally attached them with twine, but end up placing them to low, so I have to move them up and not only secure them in the middle but also towards the lower ends to keep them from flapping around too much



I am also going to add a bit more black to the weathering of the lower legs, pouches and upper sleeves. The flash or light drowns it out.


Overall, my Bully "Biff" approves of the progress so far, but still more work to do


But this is what I learned from my 1st attempt of getting suited up:
1) You need to have an organized system of how to put on your equipment. I started with the flightsuit, boots and then worked my way up to knees, cod piece, girth belt, ammo pouch, harness, vest etc.
2) Make sure the gauntlets are the very LAST thing to put on. I did not realize how much they limit your range of motion. Having to make adjustments with them on was challenging with the limited mobility with your hands, especially the left gauntlet.
3) Teach and show the person assisting you in getting dressed how to properly remove gauntlets and how items should be positioned and attached. As you can see my cape was attached under the top shoulder plate. It is alot of stuff to attach and put on alone, so an extra set of eyes really helps.
4) Fans people, helmet fans make a huge difference.

Is it bad that I kinda dig the ROTJ bucket on this get up? Really coming together nicely man.

syllander, I was thinking the same thing. I have gotten so use to this helmet, the ESB bucket is going to look weird now.

Great job so far. Having a helper that knows what it should look like and how the suit goes on is a huge help. Lastly, I love your dog, I want a bullie really bad.

Thanks man. Our bully is a great supervisor. That is all he does though. Supervise.

T a couple of things I just found out that might help you.

1) 22split did the weathering / dying of my suit and I ended up having to darken the pant bottom up more. He does an awesome job but for some reason sun seems to drown out his good work.

2) For the knees I recommend 2 fixes. First, put your knees on with your suit pants pulled as high as you can and mark where the position is where the knee armor should be located. There should be no baggy slack at the bottom of your suit near the boot bottoms. Then mark where that point is and put some velcro on at that point ( I used 2, 2 inch vertical strips) . I used some NoSew glue on the back of the velcro that I attached to the pant legs and its held like a champ. Second, my MOW pants gradually begins to slide down inch by inch the longer you have it on due to the weight of the knee armor. I am stopping this by putting 4 buttons that will attach the pants to the flight suit (2 back 2 front) that will hold if firmly in place. The GML for my garrison actually sewed his pants to his top once he found the right fit...but I think the button option is a much safer bet.

3) It might be the angle of the photo but it looks like your right breast plate is a little cockeyed from the rest of the armor on the vest.

4) I think there is supposed to be a little bit of vest under your bottom armor chest piece, between 1/4 of an inch but no more than 1/2 inch.

5) You will need to stuff your cargo pockets on your 4 pouches. I simply used some old army socks I had lying around.

6) You might want to darken the souls of your boots a little more, they seem a little on the white side but it might be the lighting.

7) Its a positional thing but you might want the scuba belt up higher on your waist. On canon photos its not even visible.

http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/gall...65-boba-fett-empire-strikes-back-costume.html

Here's Death Voorhee's setup on the 501st site.


Notice its barely visible on him.

8) Last thing on the canon photo I linked it appears the cap is attached OVER both the armor pieces under the stud, but some rear photos suggest otherwise possibly. Others here probably know better than me.

Great job overall, you are almost to the fun part jet pack harness attachment.

Edit ----

I did one more look at your setup and it might be your vest is too short for you possibly. Your neck piece and back plate armor is riding high currently but will definitely go lower when the weight of the jet pack is on. You might want to put the flak vest and armor on yourself (without anything else) and attach some simple weights to your jetpack harness to drive your armor lower and see what happens. I am saying this because you might have to raise your bottom armor up a little to give you the cushion of 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of vest showing below the bottom armor piece that I stated above.



While crude the red lines in the image above are exactly the same length and should give you an idea how much lower the armor may go..

So nice bro!

The suit looks awesome and you wear it very well! I think you've done a great job with the weathering. Nice and dirty. Can't wait to see you with the ESB helmet and jetpack

Thanks all for the encouragement. I made a few quick changes before the weekend was over. I added a touch more weathering to my suit and I decided to use my left over Pelican pick n pluck foam I had from my photography equipment to square off my pockets. The great thing I love about Boba Fett are all his pockets, on any given day off of work, you can always find me wearing cargo shorts or pants-the more pockets the better! The cool thing about the pick n pluck foam is you can mold it to fit objects. So I decided to mold one to fit my wallet and the other my phone.




Easy fix, light weight, it keeps my stuff from shifting around in the pockets, plus I get a nice square fit.

While I still just have a small pile of parts to work with- as far as the pouches go , on my biker scout I used empty pasta boxes trimmed down. Works well for keeping all my stuff in as well. Enjoying watching your progress !

Lol I love the wallet and phone holders Ted! I love the look of the pouches with padding. You didn't over do it. It bugs me when guys look like the are smuggling library books. I use old t shirts and padding for mine.

22ssplt LOL...library books, sounds heavy.

Amazing! Fantastic job. You have a great eye. The wallet and cel phone idea is the best!

During my first fitting run, my gauntlet hose kept popping out of the sleeve. This was expected because I did not tie it down or affix it to anything. I know alot of guys here have gone with the hook or carabiner option. But I have actually been getting alot of good use out of industrial strength extreme velcro. The industrial hold is alot stronger than average adhesive velcro, it is water resistant and it holds on to fabric surprisingly well, which is great because I have less than average sewing skills. I used it on my pouches successfully and decided to use it to attach my gauntlet hose.


First I turned my sleeve inside out and placed 2 industrial velcro strips across the back seam area where the hose will end up. I also added just a few drops of gorilla glue "just incase" on the seam.
Doing this eliminates you having to sew the velcro on the sleeve and creating unwanted stitching marks.


Next I added the velcro to the hose



Shazam! pretty easy to push it in to catch on and it holds good during movement. Just another idea or option for the tool bag when trying to decide how you want to attach your hose.

Great idea! You also uses Velcro to attach the gauntlet on the arm?

For the ESB version of Fett putting the velcro on the outside might work, but its better to put it on the inside sleeve of the flight suit. For RoTJ we already have an immense amount of pull going on from the 3 tubes we must have running up our sleeves. I really like your idea and plan to try it out...but will do so putting the velcro strip on the inner sleeve. I also use a sewing glue made especially for fabric called "NoSew." Its pretty easy to remove if you mess up or want to change things around (and doesn't hurt the fabric).

vador68 said:

Great idea! You also uses Velcro to attach the gauntlet on the arm?

Click to expand...

If you went pure screen recreation then yes you would use velcro.



Found here (http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/gall...ition-2008-07-22/p7540-boba-fett-costume.html)

I don't use velcro on my armor...I use a combination of magnets and pins to secure my gauntlet. I do this because velcro is pretty easy to detach as seen in the image above...so I don't want my gauntlet falling off because I move my wrist. Simple pressure is enough to keep them on your arms if you do the padding correctly.

I decided to upgrade my resin flamethrower and picked up @CombatBaby Aluminum Flamethrower:


Nice, shiny, and clean. Too bad I have to dirty it up. This thing is quality and the great thing is that it's easy to take a part and put back. So here we go.

Quinn told me that the metal was already machined finished, no need to primer, so I taped off the parts I wanted it clean and blasted it black paint.

To give the nozzles a dirty look, I smeared black and a bit of grey paint all around it

Then I used a paper towel to wipe the excess and selectively left spots of paint on it

To get a more spatter weathered look, I frayed a brush and dabbed on black paint to the metal pieces.

After I painted the nozzles and let it dry, I used the tip of a screw to make scratches in the paint.

I used trusty sandpaper to get some scuff marks around the entire flamethrower

Lastly, I used an airbrush with black wash to give a burnt look and topped off with a light spray of clearcoat


There you have it, my Combatbaby Aluminum Flamethrower Paint up.