General Budget Jango Costume Build

[jangobobango]

I started trimming and heat shaping the chest armor.

Stock armor, before trimming

Rough marks where to cut with sharpie and masking tape.

After trimming. I tried to make the armor shape match Jango’s better, as well as make it a little smaller to fit me.

Test fit with the cod armor too, using masking tape to secure the armor on the vest. Not bad, need a bit more heat shaping and maybe a little more trimming on the collar and stomach plate. I also heat shaped and trimmed a thick return edge that was on the top edge of the cod plate.

Decided to test fit all the soft parts so far just for funsies. I’m going to use this balaclava that tucks into the flightsuit to hide my long hair and neck. The pouch belt is from Amazon. It’s really nice quality.

Also tried it with the helmet too. I re-masked the blue areas cause I will be testing a polyacrylic clear coat over the rub n buff.

 

[jangobobango]

So, big setback. I tried the Minwax polycrylic clear coat on the rub n buff, and it looked fine and no more silver rubbing off.

However, with the slightest scratch the clear coat would come off. This would not do for me. And then I tested some Rust-Oleum bright coat metallic finish on some scrap pieces, and it looked even shinier than the rub n buffed pieces.

The cod loop is sprayed with rust oleum in this pic.

So I decided to entirely redo the rub n buffed armor pieces. At this point I had already clear coated the gauntlets too, so I had to sand through that as well. Annoying, but nessecary.

On a positive note, I finished putting the rangefinder together. I painted the little view screen black and used the original rubies screws to put it back together. The stalk, and gauntlet greeblies use rust-oleum custom premium chrome paint, and is a bit duller compared to rust oleum bright coat metallic finish but I think the contrast between silvers might be more visually interesting (translation: I don’t feel like spraying them again).

Also did some more fitting for the torso armor. My heat shaping job isn’t super smooth but not a huge deal.

 

[jangobobango]

Added ropes to the girth belt.

Really happy with it, but I made it a little too short. A lot of velcro shows. I’ll extend it a little, and maybe make some strips to cover the loose ends of rope. The leather loop that covers the closure will have to be a little wider than it’s supposed to but no biggie.

 

[jangobobango]

Did some more trimming, then cleaned up and sanded the chest armor. Mounted them on the vest. Super happy with the fitment.

I decided to use adhesive Velcro. I didn’t expect it to stick that well to the vest but it actually feels pretty strong.

For the chest slots, I cleaned them up with a file then heat-shaped and superglued a scrap piece of plastic behind it. Used e-6000 on the edges, that thing isn’t going anywhere. I filed the top slot a little too much and it looks the same size as the bottom one, but no big deal.

To heat shape it to fit behind the armor perfectly I heated it up while magnets were holding it to the armor so it would sorta settle in to place as it softened. I adjusted the edges with my fingers while it was still soft. I think this worked really well to make it sit flat.

 

[jangobobango]

Gauntlets have been primed, wet sanded, gloss blacked, and sprayed with rust oleum bright coat metallic finish. I started assembling them too, coming along nicely. Some parts I messed up and had some runs and mistakes, repainting those. Had to do that multiple times.

Flamethrower box. Wooden rods hot glued in. Buttons also glued for extra support.

Repainting the interior of the helmet, since a ton of rub n buff smudged off on the inside. I first tried to prime it again without sanding but the coat got all wrinkled. So I used paint thinner and sanded then primed again, all good now.

Primed and wet sanded the chest armor.

 

[jangobobango]

Had a big oopsie. Forgot to clean the gauntlet before repainting. Going to sand it down again. Grrr.

Epoxied the hinges on the gauntlets. Used a piece of soft Velcro to cushion the magnets I was using to hold the hinges in place. The magnets still left marks on the paint though.

Did the same for the opposite half of the left gauntlet, and epoxied the flamethrower box cover, then riveted the left gauntlet and flamethrower.

Installed everything else on the left gauntlet. Super happy with how this came out. Adhesive Velcro to close the gauntlet.

Wrist rocket is a little crooked but one of the screws isn’t coming out so can’t really do anything about it. Not a big deal.

Once again, don’t mind the recently moved into basement.

Just need to add padding and the left gauntlet is pretty much done minus arm tubes.

Finished the girth belt too. I incorporated the leather loop cover as part of the belt for simplicity. I think it worked pretty well.

Gloss blacked the front torso armor. Going to let it dry another day.

 

[jangobobango]

Had a few more big oopsies. A piece of hair got into the collar armor while I was spraying the silver paint.

So I sanded the piece down, and reprimed it.

However, when I reprimed it, the primer cracked still, just like on the gauntlet even though I cleaned it. I then realized it must be a paint reaction between the primer and silver paint.

Glued down the edges of the adhesive Velcro on the vest with e-6000 for more stability cause I noticed the Velcro would start peeling off when the armor was on it for an extended period of time. While doing this, I put the armor behind the vest to keep the vest flatter. However, the e-6000 bled through the vest and make marks on the armor.

So I sanded, wiped with mineral spirits, and sanded again to strip some paint layers off all the oopsie pieces. I used too low of a grit on the first sanding pass and left some gouges, so I’ll have to do multiple layers of filler primer and sanding to get it smooth again.

And also added foam padding in the finished gauntlet. It fits very nicely now.

 

[jangobobango]

Started fitting the leg armor. Here’s before mods:

And after:

Knees heat shaped to better fit me and knee rockets installed, shins heat shaped and trimmed heavily for jango accuracy. Knee rockets installed with screws.

Didn’t do anything to the thighs. The plastic on them is a lot thicker so it’s harder to heat and trim. Just decided to leave them as is cause they’re close enough, fit okayish enough and I don’t have the gorilla strength to bend the thicker plastic well enough.

 

[thebountyhunter]

nice work man

 

[BrandNewMando]

This is looking great! Keep us updated!