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[Babalactica]

I'm excited to be making Mando armor, but I have several challenges. I'm a plus size woman with a really plus size bust. Going to need plenty of advice and help.
Here are my concept drawings.


A clan mate made it into a real drawing.

At the armor party held by my clan I put together some templates but I don't think it is placed correctly at all. For one thing my bust is wder than my shoulders.


My belly button is right where my waist is so the belly plate is going to be way too low when I have waist items on.
I now have a different bra, and am considering whether I need to make a dressmaker dummy of myself.
Since armor is so intimidating right now, I've turned my attention to my helmet.
I'm making the SWJF-Sky model out of Pepakura.




My husband and I built this stand to make putting resin on the helmet easier.

I made the top from Sintra. I was practicing making darts.

I now have two coats of resin on the helmet and hope to get rondo inside this week.


I used wads of wax paper to keep the helmet steady on the stand. The resin doesn't stick to the wax paper.

[Orin Urakto]

Excellent work. Don't be intimidated by the armor. It's a challenge you don't have to face alone

[Kris Jasra]

Welcome to the club. And don't worry about size, there are fabulous armour sets out there for every body size (I'm in the plus size bust category too)

Drawn up a small photoshop of where the plates will likely need to sit and the sizes for Fett armour.
Main thing to remember if you're using Fett styled plates is that no matter how weird it feels - the chest plates may sit a little higher than you imagine. The top of my ab plate actually sits over the bottom edge of my bust and I shortened the fangs on my chest plates a fair bit to gain a little extra mobility and to stop them either sticking out or digging in depending on my posture.



Green is roughly where the belts would be sitting, red rough plate sizes, though I can't show the wrap around the side of the bust easily on a 2D image.

[Myra Tiin]

First of all, welcome !
And your pepakura helmet looks super good ! If you managed to assemble it so nicely, I think you'll have no issue for the rest of your armor   Especially with Kris' and other members' advice

Following this thread !

[Babalactica]

Thanks, Kris,
I will reposition the plates and resize them.  I may  try some other plate styles as well, but I do like the classic Fett look.

[Babalactica]

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been busy working on my kit.
I have a question about boots. Are back zips approvable?
http://www.torrid.com/product/zip-back-faux-leather-knee-high-boots-wide-width-wide-calf/10988309.html?cgid=shoes-boots#%243p=e_et&%24original_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.torrid.com%2Fshoes%2Fboots-booties%2F&deeplink=com.torrid.mobile%3A%2F%2Fsearch%3FproductQuery%3D*&showControls=true&preselectedVariantOptions=Color&filter=MerchantCategoryComponents%253AShoes%2520%253E%2520Boots%2520%2526%2520Booties&j=23952&sfmc_sub=45800703&l=15_HTML&u=10723839&mid=7275684&jb=4740&cm_lm=45800703&CM_MMC=EML-_-09252017_PRODUCT_BOOTS_FULL_6AM-_-Promotional-Product-_-5-20179-EML-SFM-4563-15&_branch_match_id=436225966942398157&start=42

[Kris Jasra]

The elastic like section and the zip would need to be hidden by either an extra material flap or by spats/armour on the boots in the link provided.

Zips on the inner leg are allowed providing they are colour matched and any extra large zip pulls are removed.

[Babalactica]

Thanks, Kris!

[Babalactica]

My gauntlets (vambraces to satisfy the pedantic) and blaster are almost ready for paint.






I'm also working on my soft goods. I'm recycling this old suede coat that I bought during my Fulbright year and an old skort. These will become my kama, parts of the cape and my loin cloth.



It's already thoroughly weathered.



First step was sitting down for a couple of hours with a seam ripper and reducing the coat and skort to a pile of fabric.



I had Project Runway moment selecting fabric for my vest at Mood in NYC. Now to find time to actually sew.

[Babalactica]

I haven't updated the WIP recently, but I haven't been idle either. I have been to a couple of armor parties and made progress on a flack vest. I also made a dressmaker drummy of my torso for fitting plates and soft parts.
But today I'm showing off the paint job on my vambraces (gauntlets to the rest of the world, but my Clan insists on proper terminology) and my blaster.

How have I done painting in the dead of winter? Thanks to my clever husband @mandlrin, I have an outdoor paint booth made from a partable green house.


A portable space heater raises the temperature and lowers the humidity.  A box fan with a filter  is my ventilation system. I still need to wear a mask or respirator, but at least paint fumes aren't stinking up the house.  A thermometer monitors the temperature and humidity. I try to keep it above 75 degrees and below 40 percent humidity.







I used Rustoleum primer and paints. I tried using a metallic chrome for the undercoating, but it stripped away when I put on vasoline to do battle damage. I did some reading and found that's a common problem with the shiny chrome paint and I that I should use just a regular metallic paint. So I sanded off the paint and started again.



I originally used a light green and an olive green but it looked like camouflage. I decided two things. I needed to better define the boxes and I noticed my top layer of olive green wasn't completely uniform and had a really cool ombre effect. I decided to recreate that effect and it came out looking really great. I used a forest green for the boxes.




The big damage spot here is the future home of a blaster bolt scar.

I figure the back of the vambrace doesn't get as much damage so I made it really light.


The front gets more damage.



I also painted the blaster.









I need to do more weathering and finishing, but I'm pleased with the way it's looking so far.

[Jenga]

Woohoo!!!

Paint is looking nice! Once everything is scuffed up and black-washed it's gonna look awesome. Also great idea with the paint booth!

[Babalactica]

I have not updated this WIP in a long time even though there has been progress.

So first, I made plates from Sintra and was not at all happy with how they were coming out. The Sintra buckled and warped in places and I just wasn't getting the type of shapeI wanted.



I had already made a dress maker dummy of myself from paper tape and decided to do the same for my plates. So I wrapped myself in cling wrap and made a paper tape mold of the front of my torso.



The paper tape works a bit like papier mache and dries hard. I gave it a good coat of fiberglass resin and then added a sheet of fiberglass and more resin. Then it was multiple layers of sanding and bondo, bondo and sanding.











Finally, it was time to cut.



Cutting apart the plates was much more difficult than I anticipated. I had made the plates much too thick.



There was a simple fix for that: pulling out the paper layers.







I had to do some trimming and shaping and more resin and sanding. Still needs a little more work to cut out the chest diamond and make them more symmetrical.



I weathered my vambraces and blaster (that process covered in a separate post: http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=150872.0
But the problem is that my vambraces have no hinges and are very hard to put on and take off. So my husband printed a newer design from April Storm that has a hinge. I have to go through the whole filling and sanding, painting and weathering thing again.

Some of my greeblies also broke on the old vambraces, so I really need to do repairs/replacement anyway. So basically, nearly a year into this process I have one thing completed. My blaster. That's it. I'm happy with how it came out, but I have put in so much work and really have very little to show for it. Nothing has been easy. I have learned a lot and enjoyed the process, though.

And my soft parts. Well, those require sewing. That's a skill I am trying to learn as well.  I have one partially-sewn vest and some other parts pinned together.



Stay tuned. There's much more to come.

[Slade Kel]

Looks like you have things well in hand! Ingenuity is the key to success; well done on the fiberglass plates, and interesting idea on that paint booth!

[Babalactica]

Here's me wearing the plates.



I was caught mid-blink in that last one.

My Alor'ad suggests I work on the collar and belly plates before deciding the placement of the diamond. Good advice as I don't want to cut the plates until I'm absolutely sure of where to make the cuts.

[Choruk Diryc]

The new plates look great - will you be able to move your arms comfortably with them? They look like they might be a bit wide at the very top, but I can't really tell - I've had problems with my chest plates being wider than my vest before.

I like the choice of greens for your gauntlets and soft parts

[Babalactica]

I do need to trim them a bit on the outside, especially the right one.  I  need to talk to the ruuses about whether I can taper them a bit.  I have a belly plate that was molded, but it somehow is now too big. Will need to make that and the collar plate from sintra.

[Babalactica]

I have not updated my WIP in a very long time, so this is going to be a long post with lots of pictures. I will probably divide it into several bits.

Let's start with soft parts. Sewing has been the very hardest thing for me to do.
I made my vest from a pattern a clan mate provided, but I had to take about a million darts to get it fit correctly. I used clasps as the side closures, but didn't like them at all, so ended up removing them.





My clan mate helped me put in a madesty panel and a grommets for lacing.



I made a neck seal finished my cape at an armor party.









Except the cape was too long, so I took the suede off the bottom, shortened it an inch or two and sewed in some hooks.

I started painting my plates.







But then disaster:


All of the green paint peeled away from the silver layer. So I stripped it all back to the silver and am going to try an adhesion promoter.
But first a dry run to make sure my plates fit. This was the first time I had seen myself in almost full kit and I got a little emotional seeing the pictures for the first time. It's when I finally realized that I will someday actually be able to finish this kit.









It still needs a lot of work. My Ruus suggested a trim to the chest plates. And I need to reduce the amount of curve in one of my shoulder plates. They also suggested changes to the cape to make it less hoodlike.



I'm smiling in this picture, because I can handle working with armor. I wasn't smiling when I learned there would be more sewing required.

[Babalactica]

I have also been working on making my knees and gauntlets (vambraces). My first set of gauntlets were an older April Storm 3D printed pair, but it was very difficult to get them on and off, so we printed a new pair with a hinge.

I wanted my guantlets  to look like my other pair, so I have tried to replicate what I did the first time around, including the blaster bolt scar.



For my knees, I was going to do a fully enclosed leg with schnees, but then I got new boots that I just made spats for to cover the outside zipper.  So I came up with a new knee design. I put a blaster bolt scar on the left knee so I can easily tell it apart from the right one.













When I put the knees on, they were digging uncomfortably into my leg on the insides, so I shaved them down.
I also had some adventure with the elastic. I found navy blue to match my flight suit.



But when I put the knees on, the elastic rolled and got all mangled.


I found some no-roll elastic, but it's black.


So I got the idea to sew it to the inside of the blue elastic. I really should have used a zigzag stitch.







I started weathering the knees and vambraces at our last armor party.
I want the blaster bolt scars to look like the metal has been heated.  I use DecoArt Extreme Sheen metallic acrylic paint in Aquamarine, Sapphire, Berry and Splendid Gold in that order (starting from the inside) to create concentric circles that give the effect of previously super-heated metal. I use burnt sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber along with my black wash to give the impression of rust and dirt.



I only had time to weather one vambrace at the party, so you get to see the before and after comparing to the unweathered one. I also did a little dry brushing with a metallic silver because the clear coat makes the underlying silver look dull gray.









Next, I need to finishing weathering, install the buttons and LED lights and put in some padding to keep those vambraces in place. I also want to make some hand armor for my gloves.

I also have leather goods that I want to dye a more consistent color than I have now. I also need to do quite a bit of weathering of the soft parts.

[Kris Jasra]

Sweet. I love that cape!!! You've got some great progress there.
Only suggestion I have for you is to take at least an inch (possibly more) off the bottom of the ab plate. If you look at the side picture you can see the top is sitting nowhere near your body - because the bottom edge is being held in by the sash. So you'll either need to give the ab plate some more shaping to fit vertically as well as horizontally, or the other (usually easier) option, trim the ab so it's not under the sash.
I also found with my ab plate, giving the bottom a faint curve to follow the curve of the body as the sash fits also helped rather than being a completely flat bottom edge.

[Jenn]

Just ran through the entirety of your WIP and you’ve done such an awesome job!

[Babalactica]

I have trimmed and done shaping of the belly plate per your recommendation. Thank you for the suggestion!

I stole a weathering technique from a clan mate. I coated a holly branch with toothpaste and dragged it across my armor or slapped the armor with it to give a more natural and random weathering pattern than I could have achieved on my own.









I put on the armor and had my husband put on a couple of pin stripes for me:



Here's the finished painted and weathered armor on my paper tape dummy (which somehow is not an accurate representation of me. I think I made the saran wrap too tight in some places so the dummy is not as squishy as I am.) I did shaping of the belly plate after I had already done the painting. It came out ok, but I don't recommend doing it in that order. Too much potential for the heat gun to ruin the paint job.



Also, I'm adding magnets to affix some parts of the armor that are still "floating" in certain spots.

[Jenga]

Holy cow!!! These are looking so great!!! You're so close I can taste it. Keep it up!!!!!!!! 

[osukaru]

As part of my moderation duties I must request that you please avoid Double Posting in the forums.  This is against forum rules as documented HERE.

Double Posts - Please refrain from posting immediately after yourself, also known as 'double posting'.
If no one has replied use the "modify" button to update your post.
WIP threads and other similar threads that have new content being added are exempt from this rule, provided the posts have useful new posts being added.
In such exemptions, replies to multiple questions when attempting to catch up should still be combined into single posts.
Moderators will exercise their best judgement, if you feel an error was made please contact the Moderator Lead and Tech Officer via PM.

The posts have been combined.

[Babalactica]

I'm sorry. I didn't intend to double post. I was trying to reply to a specific comment and to update my WIP. It won't happen again.

[osukaru]

I'm sorry. I didn't intend to double post. I was trying to reply to a specific comment and to update my WIP. It won't happen again.

do not worry it usually happens. just remember not to place two publications in a row in the same day in less than 24 hours. and if you need to answer some questions you can do it in the same post by modifying.