Mandalorian Armor

So, once again I have gotten Lisa into some crazy stuff. I love Star Wars and after reading Karen Travis' Republic Commando books, I have found a whole new appreciation for the Mandalorians. For those of you not in the know, Boba Fett is the basic example of a Mandalorian. His armor is their type and he traces his lineage back to them from his "father" Jango Fett. I joined two forums dealing with custom Star Wars costuming and soaked up as much knowledge as I could. Amazingly, I have spent less than $50 bucks for me and Lisa's costumes so far. The armor is made from trash cans. As with all my pages - click the pictures to make them larger!!

This all started with me buying a set of Boba Fett armor from a guy on Ebay named Evolution Toy Store. He is out of Argentina. He took forever to ship it to me, but when I finally got it, the back plate and cod piece were cracked. The paint job was terrible and the armor itself was very flimsy. I had also bought a vest from a guy named cucblack on Ebay, but saved a lot of money buying a coverall from the local military surplus store.

I Googled some stuff to try to see how I could make it stronger and discovered the forums. I was told to fiberglass and resin the armor (which I will eventually do), but I found many tutorials on how to scratch build my own. One of the forums is similar to the 501st, which is a Star Wars costuming club that do public appearances, most recently the 2007 (I think) Rose Bowl parade. The Mandalorians have their own group called the Mandalorian Mercs. You have to meet their costume criteria to join. I read on in their forums and thought they were a neat group, they do comic and other conventions and charity stuff too. So I decided to join and Lisa is following suit. I have so corrupted her ever since the G.I Joe movie premier that we did in costume! So, anyways, on to how I'm doing this. The templates are online so I printed out a set and realized that my armor was way too small. I then stumbled on a tutorial on how to make my own set out of a trash can found at Wal-Mart. $13.00 for the large can and $7.00 for the small one needed for the shoulders and I was off to making armor. I cut out the templates and taped them to the trash cans.

After taping the templates on, I got out my sharpie and traced the patterns. Peeled off the templates and set the cans aside for cutting. I was lucky in the fact that Lisa is so small. I was able to place her templates as well as mine on the same cans to save money. I ran back out to the store and picked up a few more supplies. I got a 400 series Dremel, a 2263 Singer sewing machine and a few more small odds and ends to go along with existing stuff.

Cutting the cans was fairly easy I picked had used the cutting wheels that come with the Dremel, but I felt they were not sturdy enough so I got the metal cutting ones with the E-Z Lock attaching system.

I may have come close to burning out my Dremel, it was smoking and very hot. The plastic from the cans was melting as much as it was being cut. In only an hour, I was able to cut out Lisa's and my armor. I took some sandpaper to the sides to clean up the edges, but my Xacto hobby knife worked better while just scraping off the excess melted material.

Now that the plates were nice and uniform, it was time to get bold. No one likes a nice minty fresh Mando, so I whipped out the Dremel and added some battle scarring to the plates. Most people do this in paint only. I wanted the three dimensional look for realism. I took advantage of the melting tat the Dremel did while cutting and scored some cuts and grooves. Then I chipped some of the edges, followed by putting on a cone shaped buffer to bore down some dents. The damage is hard to see unpainted, but you can see it better later on when painted.

I feel pretty happy with my battle damage, so the next step is to prime the armor. I just used a basic Rust-o-leum auto primer in grey.

Once the primer is dry, time to lay down my base layer. I put on a layer of Krylon "Quick & Easy" silver to simulate the armor being metal. It should also help with the next and final layer of color.

In the background of the picture you can see my helmet I am working on...more on that later. Ok, now to the seemingly strange step. Most people use masking fluid to cover stuff they don't want painted with a second layer, but my local Michael's craft's claim they have never heard of such a thing. I looked online and it can be as much as $18 a bottle. After consulting the wise people on the building forums, I learn that you can use toothpaste instead. I told Lisa I was going use Elmer's glue, but this sounds much better. So I took out the Arm & Hammer's toothpaste and a small tipped model brush and filled in the scratches and holes, along with a couple of other places not damaged to simulate worn off paint. After 30 minutes to letting the paste harden some, out the plates go on the porch for spraying. I chose gunmetal as my color for plates. I picked the Testor's buffing spray paint to give it some sheen, since it worked very well on my model kits, but I'll get to that in a minute. After the paint has dried, it's time to remove the toothpaste to see if this works. I saw one little spot and rubbed the toothpaste off. I soon discovered that was a huge mistake. The spray paint had basically turned the toothpaste into a paint cream like oil paint and it smeared. Not knowing what to do, I decided to just turn the kitchen sink on warm and rinse the paste off. Luckily it worked like a charm! No smearing, the warm water dug the paste out of the scratches and it had another unexpected effect. The Testor's buffing paint literally gets buffed like metal. The more you rub it when dry, the shinier it gets. However, when I washed off the plates, I guess the buffing dust (the model that gets sprayed is very "powdery" once painted with this stuff) must have washed off too, giving the armor a worn & weathered look. Also, when the water hit the paste and paint, the paint masking edges chipped and flaked off a little, making the damage look even more realistic.

As you can see, the plates are still kind of wet. If it makes the armor have water spots, oh well. The more weathered, the better. A day later, checking on the armor, here is what we have:

Tomorrow, I will be spraying clear gloss coat on the plates to seal and protect, followed by a coat or two of matt finish to dull the armor. Once that's done, I will be attaching Velcro or some other method to attach this to my costume. Up next is Lisa's armor, once she picks her colors. As a female Mandalorian, she would normally have cupped chest plates for obvious reasons. However, in my real world experience and in my opinion, I don't think a comic book look is realistic. I will be cutting her a second set of chest plates and adding a simple and subtle bend horizontally to add cleavage for her. I will be likely using the boiled water method, but I have a heat gun on stand by.

It's Saturday and Lisa finally chose her armor color and layout. She went with a burgandy & yellow theme. Yellow for shoulders, gauntlets & knees while the rest is burgandy. I had already primed, damaged, silver coated & toothpasted her armor. We went to Fred Meyers and got her paint and now it's on the back porch drying.

During this last week I got an idea for the gauntlets. I bought some pieces of PVC pipe and connected them together to make nice gauntlet bodies in my mind. Now I just need to find some stuff to attach to it.

Lisa's armor is totally painted. More to come of the particulars. I just wanted to get these pictures up so I can post them on the forums. I also made our belt pouches out of pleather and hot glue.

Well I have been getting a lot done with the costumes. Lisa got her helmet in the mail. We received our voice modulators for our helmets. I got a creepy real raccoon skull to add to mine for decoration. I made some fake claws and teeth for accessories. I purchased the cloth for Lisa's cape & loin cloth. Found some nice colored climbing rope to use as girth belts for both of us. Painting is underway for Lisa's helmet and I settled on our guns...some cheap ones from Big Lots & Toys R' Us. Also found some neat looking pipe pieces to add to our gauntlets, along with finding these nice looking end connectors to sprinkler systems which are now doubling as grenades. The cheerleader uniform is from a Salvation Army type store which I got for a $1.50 to make into her vest.

Here is some more stuff being made:

The 95% finished helmet:

Took apart the voice modulator and fitted it to the inside of Lisa's helmet

To really finish off Lisa's helmet, I lined it with foam:

Finally! I got my helmet in the mail. It was the mid level one that I bought. I have a cheaper one coming, a high end one enroute as well and making a scratch built one that's a no rush type of deal. I have done a lot of work on things since I last updated this & when me and Lisa go to California tomorrow I am going flesh this site out. Well here are the pics, I finished our gauntlets, Lisa's cape & loin cloth, my tabard and my helmet is almost done.