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[jett drexel]

looks good.

[Shammah]

The flight suit is awesome. You won't be reaching straight up much if ever when kitted because your back and collar plates probably won't let you. Also, don't know if you've considered hemming the legs. Two things to consider there: 1. I sewed some thick elastic strapping on the end of my legs that runs between the soul and heel of my boots. Works great for keeping everything in place while trooping, but stretchy so I can sit down (watch your pant legs when you sit and you'll see what I'm talking about). I suggest anyone wearing a one piece flight suit do the same. 2. Can you work some of that length into hiding your boot laces so your boot plates don't have to work so hard at it? Just a thought.

I really think those torso plates are close. The shoulders still look a little long, but that could change after you get them on a vest. And I like your back plate design. Vhett Manda is cursed with difficulties when it comes to making them, looks like you dodged that. Keep it up, you're going in the right direction.

[trashcanmando]

Realized I said the only thing I changed about the plates was the shoulder plates, but I forgot that was the first pic with the new collar plate. The new one's much better.

Thanks for the encouragement!
My plan for the flight suit legs was to sew a strip of elastic on the bottoms so they hook under my heel. The boots I have are horrible about keeping pants legs inside them, and I'm of the opinion that if you're going to have boots, your pants should stay in them, as to show off your awesome boots! Guess my boot plates are stuck working extra hard. 
I'm still considering getting a size up on the flight suit... it's right on borderline tight enough to be uncomfortable. But I'll probably just decide it's too much trouble and make do with this one, heh. The woes of ordering online, I really need to just be able to try a couple on.

Yesss I have avoided the curse! I have a feeling that a traditional back plate probably would have went really badly. Can't wait to get all the plates painted and weathered! And then start on all the more complicated lower plates and gauntlets, oh boy. Unfortunately, it's really wet and rainy right now.
What's this blackwash I keep seeing people talking about anyhow? I saw a trick with brushing on black chalk dust and sealing it for a carbon dust look, I really liked that.

[Shammah]

Black wash is a generic term for weathering with paint to make things look dirty/grungy. I say generic because operations on different planets may mean your dirt is a different color. I used black for good ol' Iowa clay. The process is simple enough and there is more than one. I used a water-based latex, applied it with a wet sponge and stopped when it looked honest. Consider, you've brushed up against something dirty, what color is the dirt? How high was what you brushed up against? Which way were you travelling: walking, crawling, ducked up against it for cover? How long you been out? Hours? Days? Weeks?

You need to do what you need to do on the flight suit. If it's uncomfortable change it, but bagginess is not good. My suit's a bit baggy, you learn how and where to tuck it in.

[Havelock]

For me, damaging, painting, and weathering were the most fun parts of the build!  I think you'll enjoy it to, vaar'ika. 

The flight suit looks great, but like Shammah said, if it's uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable.  If you need to go a size up, go ahead and do it.  Be prepared to take a larger flight suit in some, though. 

For my black wash, I started with black acrylic paint, then watered it down significantly,  Then I added brown, and more water.  That turned out to be too thin, and I was running out of black and brown, so I added some red, and just to see what it looked like, a bit of red, blue, and purple, too.  When I started applying my mix with a brush, the red seemed to dominate, but with my bronze kit, I turned out pretty nicely, I think.

For the barrels on my blasters I used some black eye-shadow for carbon scoring, then sealed that with hair spray.

I'd suggest you paint up some of your scrap sintra and experiment with different paints or chalk dusts, or fuller's earth, and just play with them until you get the particular dirty look that looks best to you, then go to town on your kit.  Also, check out this awesome weathering video by Adam Savage.

[trashcanmando]

I decided to keep this flight suit. Shammah's right, the plates are likely to end up limiting my flexibility more than the suit ever will, and it's perfectly alright if I'm not curling all the way over or reaching for the ceiling. It's built to wear jeans underneath, though, so the legs are going to need taken in a bit. But I only see two pockets that won't be covered by the belt or flak vest!

Lots of great weathering tips! Fantastic video, ba'vod. I'm hoping to paint the plates I've got today, maybe I'll get to start on weathering.

I'm starting to think about the other plates- for the gauntlets, maybe some PVC. For the boots, knees, and cod, I'd like to do them out of trash can plastic too. The knees might take some modifying- I'm thinking about getting some knee pads and using them as plate carriers. The trash cans I've found don't have enough curve for the traditional knee plates, I'll have to improvise. I cut out the boot plate templates and sized them up to my boots- they don't cover the top inch of lace, so I'm considering wrapping more blue fabric from the sash around that part and having a plate/wrap combo. And then I'm going to scour the femmando forums for cod plate advice, heh.

[Havelock]

You are all over this, vaar'ika! 

Looking forward to more pics.  Keep up the excellent work!

[Shammah]

For gauntlets I've seen some great stuff come out of PVC pipe. Takes a little work, but easy to work with if you have access to a dremel tool and some 2-part epoxy. Here's a decent tutorial: http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=90543.0. There's a whole page of threads dedicated to gaunts under "Armor Construction". PVC makes good armor period, and you can pick it up free at a lot of construction sites. Just ask before they throw it away.

[trashcanmando]

Thanks, ba'vod!!

I got the plates done today, despite it being way too windy for spray paint. They blew across the yard multiple times...  Had to drag everything to the garage for cover, back out for lighting, into the house for detailing... I am not a patient person, and today's my last day of my abnormally long break from work, so I had to make it count!

Here they are after sanding (helps the paint stick better since it's trash can plastic and gives them a nice scratched up texture), a few layers of silver, one of gold, and detailing. Then I took a knife and scratched off the gold, touched up where I accidentally cut through to the white plastic, fixed some chipping on the old plates, and did some blackwash!

I experimented with the chalk/carbon dust trick, but didn't like it, and I'm thrilled with how they look just like this. The whole thing was maybe the most fun I've had on this build so far! I'm going to seal them too, but before I do I wanted to check that nothing looks off.





Thanks, Shammah, fantastic tutorial! I'm going to look around at walmart for another can for boots and knees, and some sort of gauntlet cylinder. One of the employees is getting to know me and odd weird needs really well....

[Havelock]

It's hard to tell for sure without them being on you, but as they are right now, they look pretty frakking awesome!

[jett drexel]

toilet brush holders.... i kid you not there are some pretty good gauntlet builds that have used them as the base.

[Havelock]

^^That^^

[trashcanmando]

It's hard to tell for sure without them being on you, but as they are right now, they look pretty frakking awesome!

  Ori'vor'e! I held them all up to myself to be sure the paint was lined up alright, kinda tired of taping them on to myself, heh...

toilet brush holders.... i kid you not there are some pretty good gauntlet builds that have used them as the base.

I went to walmart this evening and tried to find some... Ended up finding a plastic drinking glass first. Now that it's home, I think it might be too short, and the plastic is definitely too think and hard to cut... So I guess I'm up two plastic glasses, but I'll have to keep looking for toilet brush holders.

I also got two small waste cans at walmart- the curve was ideal for knee and boot plates, and they were less than a buck each! The plastic is a lot bendier than the cans I used for the rest of the plates, but that suits me just fine. I got my pieces cut out:



I might shorten up the boot plates, they really don't need to come down that far over the boot, the lace ends about two inches before the plate. I'm going to attach some of the blue cloth from the sash to the tops and use it to help tie the plate on and cover the top of the laces. Didn't find any belt clips, but I'll keep looking.
Also got some duck cloth, and I hope to alter the flight suit and start on the flak vest Wednesday. After that, all the major things I really need is the helmet and weapons, and I'll be remarkably close to finished! I am shocked at how quickly this is going.

Weapons update- decided to ditch the rifle for now and go with just the beskad and twin pistols. Maybe after I get approved, I'll upgrade with a staff/spear and add the rifle. I'd also like to add a removable blade to the gauntlet, but that will be an upgrade as well.
While we're on gauntlets, I'm getting too many ideas to keep up with- originally, I was going to attach a spotlamp to the helmet, but I think I'm just going to put it on the gauntlet instead. I'd like the right one to have the light and eventually the removable blade, and I want to mount a phone in the left one. Can't decide if the phone will be part of the approvable kit or an upgrade.

EDIT: Got the lower plates painted and weathered! As I type this all that's left is sealing them. I'm pretty pleased with them!



Also, last night at walmart I found these cheap little plastic flutes- eight for 96 cents. So I figured, hey, I'll buy them, repaint them and glue on something pointy, have a silly little joke bes'bev! Nothing serious, just carry it around in a belt pouch so I can be like 'Have you heard of bes'beve? They're this awesome mandalorian weapon that's half flute and half knife!' and play it up to sound really awesome, and then I whip out this dinky little penny toy version. Me and my ori'vod spent the entire ride home laughing about it.

Well, there's just one slight problem. It ended up looking too good.
I guess it's still funny on account of it being about four inches long, though. In any case, here it is-



The plastic was really hard to work with. There was this stupid bell on the end, and when I heated it up to cut it off, it just started melting. I managed to get it off, but the end's pretty warped. Not a big deal, seeing as this was meant to be a stupid joke prop. But then I went and took the paintjob seriously, so...
I have seven more of these, but I don't really think it's worth a redo. In any case, they were like eleven cents each and the modifying took maybe half an hour total, so it's whatever.

[trashcanmando]

Started altering the flight suit today- got all the leg pockets off with a surprising amount of ease and sewed the leg slits shut. I also hemmed the sash so it wouldn't fray and dump loose blue thread all over me... added a couple extra inches for ease of knot-tying as well. Glued one side of elastic on to the knee plates, and now I'm just feeling my way through attaching it to the other side.

I'd like to make it a velcro closure so I can adjust the tightness and so I don't have to slip them on over my belt, but all the velcro I have has sticky backs and it's a pain to sew through... One more thing for the shopping list, sew on velcro!

[Havelock]

My wife found out the hard way that sewing machines and sticky-backed velcro are not destined to be friends.     So for the time being, I'm securing the velcro to my various cloth bits with lots and lots of glue. 

Mk II will have sewn velcro.  heh