So, I'm working towards an ESB Boba Fett and I recently came across BatNinja's fantastic tutorial on how to make your own ammo belt.
I was super happy to find this as I am very competent with a sewing machine and as I make and sell vinyl leather bound foam padding for stormtrooper helmets, this kind of thing is right up my alley and I want to make one as accurate as I possibly can, using actual leather if possible.
Most of the belts I've seen look great but I'm yet to see one where the material used looks like a match. Most vinyl leather has a texture to it like this:
So this kind of thing won't do for a screen accurate belt. Even when you start looking at real or 'genuine' leather (which is actually a worse grade of leather than full or top grain FYI) it's hard to find one with no texture or surface pattern at all.
From this ESB screen grab, with the light hitting it. it's clear to me that the original belt had no raised texture or pattern:
It's clearer in this one too:
In fact, it looks more like a kind of PVC material here to me, but I don't think it is. If it was, I would expect to see way more light bouncing off of the pouches on the right. So what if that was an artifical shine caused by varnish/polish/oil?
I next look at nubuck leather because of the uniformity in the finish. Nubuck is essentially still leather but with the top layer "shaved" off which is why it has a suede like feel, I know - obviously wrong but you can treat nubuck with wax or oil to give it the appearance of a polished leather. These images are from a Reddit post where someone had converted a pair of nubuck boots into polished leather:
Before:
After:
Look at these reference images, granted these are from the AOSW which I believe is the Jedi suit/costume with the ESB helmet but still, if it's not the same belt I have to believe it was either made around the same time or the same materials and/or processes were applied.
The red boxes show areas of wear but it looks to me like that could be where wax/oils have worn away as opposed to the leather itself.
What if the belt was made from nubuck leather, then treated with wax and buffed before being hit with a gloss sealant? The area I've highlighted in the blue box looks like marks from where the belt was handled while the gloss wasn't fully dry.
I will admit, there are a lot of assumptions being made here and possibly a few stretches of imagination but this seems plausible to me. Leather is difficult to weather and I wonder if it was simpler to start with something like nubuck and manually darken/polish it until it looked sufficiently "used."
What does everyone else think? Regardless of whether or not this is how the original was made, I think this approach could yield a more accurate result.
I was super happy to find this as I am very competent with a sewing machine and as I make and sell vinyl leather bound foam padding for stormtrooper helmets, this kind of thing is right up my alley and I want to make one as accurate as I possibly can, using actual leather if possible.
Most of the belts I've seen look great but I'm yet to see one where the material used looks like a match. Most vinyl leather has a texture to it like this:
So this kind of thing won't do for a screen accurate belt. Even when you start looking at real or 'genuine' leather (which is actually a worse grade of leather than full or top grain FYI) it's hard to find one with no texture or surface pattern at all.
From this ESB screen grab, with the light hitting it. it's clear to me that the original belt had no raised texture or pattern:
It's clearer in this one too:
In fact, it looks more like a kind of PVC material here to me, but I don't think it is. If it was, I would expect to see way more light bouncing off of the pouches on the right. So what if that was an artifical shine caused by varnish/polish/oil?
I next look at nubuck leather because of the uniformity in the finish. Nubuck is essentially still leather but with the top layer "shaved" off which is why it has a suede like feel, I know - obviously wrong but you can treat nubuck with wax or oil to give it the appearance of a polished leather. These images are from a Reddit post where someone had converted a pair of nubuck boots into polished leather:
Before:
After:
Look at these reference images, granted these are from the AOSW which I believe is the Jedi suit/costume with the ESB helmet but still, if it's not the same belt I have to believe it was either made around the same time or the same materials and/or processes were applied.
The red boxes show areas of wear but it looks to me like that could be where wax/oils have worn away as opposed to the leather itself.
What if the belt was made from nubuck leather, then treated with wax and buffed before being hit with a gloss sealant? The area I've highlighted in the blue box looks like marks from where the belt was handled while the gloss wasn't fully dry.
I will admit, there are a lot of assumptions being made here and possibly a few stretches of imagination but this seems plausible to me. Leather is difficult to weather and I wonder if it was simpler to start with something like nubuck and manually darken/polish it until it looked sufficiently "used."
What does everyone else think? Regardless of whether or not this is how the original was made, I think this approach could yield a more accurate result.
Do we know what material they were?
