Triple armor project (from a newbie)

armorenthusiast

New Hunter
Hello everyone! I am new here and come with a load of questions. After seeing a ton of amazing Boba and Jango Fett costumes, I finally got my rear into gear and bought some materials. This build started because I wanted to build a good quality Boba Fett armor out of Sintra. I told a friend about it and he said that we should go halloweening together as Boba and Jango Fett. After awhile, we decided to include my sister as a member of Death Watch or just a rogue random mandalorian. I realized that with all three outfits it was going to be way too expensive to make them out of Sintra and other high quality materials. (I am only in highschool and dont exactly receive big paychecks working at the grocery store. I also have to put most of it in the bank. You now know about my financial condition.;)) I now have my first problem. I soon found out I was in charge of making all three costumes. Because I am making Boba, Jango, and a custom mandalorian, I was not sure which thread to post this in. If I can't post progress with those armor builds here than I will just post Boba Fett progress. My second problem is that my deadline is this halloween. Okay enough with my rambling intro, on to building materials...

Because I am not rich, I decided to build most of the armor out of EVA foam. I can see the cringing already... I read some posts about EVA and pople dont like it because it is too thick and it doesnt hold together well. for the thickness problem, I will borrow a page from my wooden swords and bevel the edges of the EVA. In theory, it should look thinner than it normally is. I cant do much about the quality but I wont wear it much. My building process consists of printing out the templates and cutting them out on foam board to see if they are the right size. If they are, I transfer the template onto the more expensive EVA foam. So far I did the shoulders, collar, chest, belly, medallion, and back armor. I think that covers it. Onto the questions...

1.Can I post progress about all three costumes hear or just Boba Fett?

2.What is a Good way to seal EVA to make it look like plastic or Sintra and still have it easy to weather?

3.How many differences are there in Boba's and Jango's armor? I am no expert and aside from the shin, thigh, and boot armor, what other differences are there?

4.How do you attach your knee armor and not have it fall off during trooping?

That should be it for now. I will post pictures in future posts. If I am doing something wrong, please tell me. I will not be offended. If is becomes a quarter as good as some of the armor on here it will be considered a success.Thank you in advance for any and all answers. they will help me immensely.
 
Three costumes in less than two months? Good luck! That's a lot of time and money invested into Halloween imo, considering all the research and build time necessary to make these costumes look half decent. I'm also concerned that your friend and sister just dropped this project on your shoulders. I would suggest that they make their own costumes or at the very least help you out.
As for the knee armor, I just finished mine and used a combination of 1inch elastic band with heavy-duty snaps applied and Velcro sewn onto the flight suit to keep it from dropping down.

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Hey I am back with an update! I guess I was being a little unfair to my friend. I am the oldest out of all of us and none of us have our drivers license yet. (I get mine in three weeks.) I also live six miles out of town. My friend cant really do too much but my sister has no excuse:) Here are some pictures....IMG_3592.jpgIMG_3594.jpgIMG_3596.jpgIMG_3595.jpgIMG_3597.jpgIMG_3598.jpgIMG_3599.jpg
 
There are vast differences between Boba, Jango and Death watch. But with that said just look up the templates and you will find that most of the templates are easy to follow.

Your first set looks pretty good.

Seeing that you are a young person I would highly recommend to do two things. One is have fun creating and two is read a learn as much as you can from this community. If this is something you want to pursue then by all means you need the knowledge base to do it well. And if you are going to set your mind to anything I recommend you try to do it well.
 
Good job and stick with it. Welcome to the wonderful world of scratch building. You have a lot to get done in a short period of time. Good luck.
 
The 501st and Mandalorian Mercs don't allow members' costumes made of foam anymore, but being under 18, you're a little while away from applying anyway. Loads of other costume groups use foam with amazing results. You're off to a great start and you're obviously learning the craft, so later, if you decide to expand to some more complicated and expensive materials, you'll already be ahead of where I was when I started working on sintra 6 years ago.

Good luck. I will be checking back, because as DentedGent said, 3 costumes in 2 months is insane. My advice is to get your other bounty hunters into the armor as soon as possible. Fitting and adjustments are going to take longer than expected.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A
 
Hello everyone. I am really sorry that I have not updated this but I was busy with school, work, and life in general. however I did not give up on this project and I did make a lot of progress since the last you all saw of it. Here are some pictures... the first picture is a holster for the custom mandolorian. It has a nerf gun that I am modifying into a more star wars blaster, (don't worry, I am not bringing it to halloween. Picture 2 is all of the armors together. (the knee armor was not made yet.) The one on the left is my friend's. He has it now at his house and is working on it . Picture three is the knee armor. I like how they turned out. Picture four is the custom armor with a base coat of silver. Picture five is a view of the customs battle damage. Picture six is the main color of the custom armor.

Now for a few more questions.
1. where do you get the materials for your visor?
2. How can I attach the jetpack to the back armor securely? I would like to have it removable.
3. How do you all think I should attach my armor to the flightsuit and flak vest? This is EVA foam and I could use some suggestions.

I will try to post another update as soon as I make significant progress. My armor is drying from being sealed.

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Looks like you have been busy. Looks good. I got my visor at a welding supply shop and just cut it to shape. Check the forums for jet pack harness ideas. Since you are using foam I think Velcro would work for attaching the armor to the flak vest.
 
Welding visor is gonna be dark and hard to see thru Halloween night if that's what the costume is for. I suggest a clear visor from Harbor Freight ($4) with window tint from Auto zone ($6 for more than you will ever need). In fact, I have one with mirror tint on it and plenty of car window tint that I would be willing to donate to help you along. PM me if you want it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A
 
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Here is a prop helmet I made awhile ago. My question is if it is too big or if it is fine. The first picture is me and the second is my sister fooling around. Third picture is the camo pattern on custom armor. The last picture is the color of boba's armor. I know it is not completely accurate and I will change that eventually, but my deadline is coming up fast. Also, due to time constraints, I am not making screen accurate gauntlets right now. Do you think that velcro would be strong enough to hold the backplate and jetpack on securely? Thank you all for your advice and answers. More updates coming soon.
 
Depends on how heavy the jet pack is. You might want to do straps over the shoulders to be safe, rather than the whole harness Fett has. Honestly, if time is an issue, I would skip the jetpack. You're going out on Halloween to have fun. Gauntlets and jet packs are gonna get in the way. If you're not worried about 100% accuracy, drop the stuff that will keep you from being able to walk around.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A
 
New update with only six days left. It is going to be close! Thank you all for inspiring me to keep going and for the great advice. The custom armor is completely done being painted, battle damaged, and blackwashed. I am jealous how awesome it looks. The camo pattern was done by me and all the battle damage was done by my sister.


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My sister decided to repaint the prototype helmet and use that for now because halloween is so close. My helmet is about halfway done and my gauntlets just have to be painted. I finished painting my knee armor and I am pretty happy with it. I might give it another coat of blackwash to make it darker. I do wish I would have put an actual dent and gashes in it but I forgot. I really didnt want to have to seal the entire thing over again. I think I will fix that after halloween. We have begun to attach the custom armor to the vest. If you have any questions, advice, concerns, or comments, please tell me. I would like to hear how I could improve this.
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SUCCESS! After working hard literally last minute, we got it done in time. My parents decided to go an hour early so you can imagine how frantic we were. I live in North Dakota and on halloween it is either freezing, windy, or both. This year it was the perfect temperature! We did not get too hot or cold. However, it was drizzling the entire time. As you know, the armor is made out of foam and foamboard so I was not sure how well it was going to hold up to the wet weather. I held up surprisingly well. On some parts of the armor the rain wore away a small part of the paint and peeled off a little bit of paper on the gauntlets. It was pretty minor. If anything, It added to the battle worn look. I will glue the parts back on tomorrow and post some pictures. Unfortunately my friend did not finish his armor in time. He bought himself a mask and went as a sith instead. It worked out in the end and was lots of fun. Getting a big "bounty" helped too. I know I sure felt awesome being Boba Fett. I did have some problems with the visors not sticking in the helmet so I used the foil instead. It did not go on as well as I would have liked. I do have a question about the visors that I was having trouble with...

How do you prevent fogging up the visor? It would fog up every so often and was a big pain.

Thank you all for answering my questions! I could not have done it with out you. Special thanks to NegativeEleven for the visor materials and the awesome mythosaur stickers! Pictures coming soon.http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/members/negativeeleven/
 
SUCCESS! After working hard literally last minute, we got it done in time. My parents decided to go an hour early so you can imagine how frantic we were. I live in North Dakota and on halloween it is either freezing, windy, or both. This year it was the perfect temperature! We did not get too hot or cold. However, it was drizzling the entire time. As you know, the armor is made out of foam and foamboard so I was not sure how well it was going to hold up to the wet weather. I held up surprisingly well. On some parts of the armor the rain wore away a small part of the paint and peeled off a little bit of paper on the gauntlets. It was pretty minor. If anything, It added to the battle worn look. I will glue the parts back on tomorrow and post some pictures. Unfortunately my friend did not finish his armor in time. He bought himself a mask and went as a sith instead. It worked out in the end and was lots of fun. Getting a big "bounty" helped too. I know I sure felt awesome being Boba Fett. I did have some problems with the visors not sticking in the helmet so I used the foil instead. It did not go on as well as I would have liked. I do have a question about the visors that I was having trouble with...

How do you prevent fogging up the visor? It would fog up every so often and was a big pain.

Thank you all for answering my questions! I could not have done it with out you. Special thanks to NegativeEleven for the visor materials and the awesome mythosaur stickers! Pictures coming soon.http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/members/negativeeleven/
I wear a cotton balaclava under my helmet and it only fogs up if you breathe through your nose.

The fix for that is to buy a can of no-fog type spray from a scuba shop online and spray the inside of the visor.

Alex
 
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