Nitro's Mandalorian build

[nitro28]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. This will be a thread about my Mandalorian Season 2 build. I have always been a maker and I fondly remember making my first Predator costume from scratch when I was a kid. I bought a 3d printer this summer when I was bored at home with all that is going on. After seeing some of the files that are available, I decided to print a few star wars pieces, one of which was Mando's helmet. I have always been pretty good at finish work and painting so seeing what I could do with this new 3D printer got me super stoked about trying another full costume build which I hadn't done since I was a kid. I am very meticulous and I want to both strive for screen accuracy, but also try to make every part of this costume myself. So with that being said, I am sure some parts of the costume will not be perfect and I am ok with that. As I started to print the armor I realized that there was a pretty big variance in the quality of the STL files. I started with free files, then went on to some from Galactic armory only to realize that they were not very screen accurate. I finally ended up at GreatApe on etsy which is what I am sure most of you are using. I probably wasted about 10 rolls of filament on pieces I didn't like, but it did give me the chance to practice some of my finishing techniques at least. I started the build in Mid November, but really got serious about it over Christmas. I enjoy learning new skills and I also enjoy buying new tools. For this project, I updated my airbrush to a Grex unit with a spray nozzle, bought a leather sewing machine and a bunch of leather working tools, I made a paint booth and have considered adding a resin printer for details like the bottom of the grav charges, which appear to be transparent. Since I am going for screen accuracy, I picked up 8oz of the Alumaluster paint. This was a perfect amount because it allowed me to paint and repaint the whole suit of armor 2-3 times. I really like that paint. Here are some progress pics so far. I just finished the armor. My basic process was print, sand with 120/220, spot puddy sand with 320/400, filler primer wet sand, 3-6 coats of Alclad gloss black base then alternating coats of alumaluster and 2k Clear. This seemed to work well for me. Right now I am working on constructing the belt and bandolier. Completely new to leather work so its been interesting, but seems to be going ok so far. I am also in the process of finishing the right shin, knee and hip plates. For the suit, I am using the season 2 suit from Sky costumes. That is one part I didn't want to try to make!

Here are some pictures of my progress. The one part that really intimidates me is figuring out that left shin leather piece so any advice on that would be great!
-James

 

[bigkidbiggertoys]

Looks like a clean build!

 

[nitro28]

Worked quite a bit more on the build this weekend. Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day making the left shin. It is not an easy part of the costume as I am sure many have experienced. I started with a 3D printed calf but then decided that it was a bit too heavy and big for the look I wanted. I ended up printing a thin Leg shell then attaching foam to mimic the folds in the middle of that shin. The bottom is 6 layers of leather sewn together. both straps and the pleated part have a Velcro close in the back. I will attach the knee once I finish up the paint on it.



I got the knee and hips painted and started to weather both of them. I used Rustoleum Chalk blue spray paint for these parts. With some beige weathering, I think the color looks pretty good. I used a piece of leather to give me a place to hang the hip plates from the belt.



I still need to figure out the paint scheme for the season 2 right thigh. I know it is somewhat black due to being part of a droid. Beyond that It looks like it needs pretty heavy weathering.



I started to work on my rifle as well. I decided to buy a kit for the rifle because frankly, I am tired of printing things for a while. The rifle I bought came with a stock that is in 3 pieces. I am not crazy about having to work to hide the seams and then try to faux paint the stock to look like wood, so I just built a new stock out of a piece of walnut. There is a lot of chiseling and carving of the inside of the stock frame to fit to the rest of the gun, but I still think it took me less time and will look way better than if I had to stick with the plastic version. I got my blaster printed. I printed it with 100% infill so it has some nice heft to it.



I still need to finish painting the right shin and figure out the best way to hold it together. Any suggestions would be great. I am using the Greatape file. I am thinking maybe to glue the whole front and then just use the two straps to hold it together.

 

[MandoOutcast]

Very nice work!

 

[Skeksis]

so good!

 

[SolarFett]

Any updates??