Custom Mandalorian Armor

[GrimMandalorian]

I've been looking around on this sit for a few weeks, and now that it's Spring Break, we decided to start work on my armor - I was going to wait, seeing as I'm not even finished growing, but was goaded into it by the mention of making one set cheap to get some practice.

Due to a lack of Sintra, Foamex, etc., we bought the biggest, cheapest storage container we could find. We bought a material that was very leather-like for the vest. We traced out the rough size of the armor using several pieces of paper taped together. Once we were happy with the shape of the armor, I traced it onto the storage container and with some help cut out the armor pieces. Next, I scrounged up a heat gun, and we shaped the armor with a curve to conform to me. After we let them dry, we spray-painted the armor with my red of choice, and we will rivet the pieces to the current vest, and then we'll move on to the shoulder pieces, and eventually, the leg armor. At the moment, we cannot find a helmet to use for a Mandalorian helmet, so we will likely be ordering a helmet to work on later. At the moment, we are going to use a one-piece Rubies Jango (which barely fits me) and we're going to spray-paint it, etc. for the moment. I will post pictures as we go.

 

[GrimMandalorian]

On a side note, I don't bite.
Comments? Criticisms?

 

[Solo]

The only thing I'd suggest is that depending on how the armor actually fits, you might consider trimming the ab plate a little from the bottom. Since it is taller, it looks like it is going to sit very lower on your abdomen which means you won't have a lot of forward flexibility.

One more thing, I can't exactly tell but in the pic it appears that there are splotches of paint on your armor. I am guessing it may have come from a clogged spray nozel? If you're going to use it as weathering, cool. If not, you might want to wet sand those areas smooth and add another coat or two to even it out while remembering to spray a scrap piece of cardboard or something with a swipe or two of the rattle can and then move directly to your armor. It'll spit all the blobs of paint in those first two passes and leave a better finish on the armor. Do that each time you start/stop a spraying pass.

Otherwise, looks like you're good to go!

 

[GrimMandalorian]

Yeah, I'm happy with how that happened, though it was an accident. We'll see how it looks when I finish the weathering, and if it doesn't look good, I'll definitely sand it off.
As for progress, I've added a bit of wear to the chest armor, made the shoulder pads, and stenciled the Mythosaur symbol on one; also started painting the helmet and adding wear.

Here's the site for the pictures: http://pbckt.com/sS.YUy

 

[GrimMandalorian]

Close to finished on the chest armor and shoulder pads, along with the helmet.
Me in the armor so far, taped to the vest:
http://pbckt.com/sS.YAT

I'm a bit down that the weathering is so hard to see in the pictures - will post close-ups later, and will most likely make the weathering more noticeable.

 

[NovallTalon]

Looks like you need to put some more curve into the armor so it conforms to your body a bit more. You need to totally replace the stock T-visor in that Rubies helmet with a full t-visor if you want to give it a professional look.

 

[GrimMandalorian]

Yeah, I think I'll start looking on visor tents now, actually. I wasn't happy with that plastic at the bottom, was considering painting it and cutting some lines into the plastic for a ventilator, but I think I'll stick with a full T. I was running on the idea that once riveted down, the armor would conform to the vest, which I made to fit me pretty well, but I'm starting to doubt it, so I'll break out the heat gun.