Alrighty boys and girls, here we go.
Work’s kicking my shebs at the moment, so it’s been a challenge finding spare time to relax, let alone make progress on my kit or make forum posts. Nevertheless, I have persisted. I’m starting with my soft parts because I’ve found the sewing and gluing etc. is easier to do in short bursts than working on the plates or helmet. If anyone spots something that’s not up to spec please let me know.
Flightsuit
I picked this up at an army surplus store in Hamilton on the way up to Auckland for a con last year, when i first started planning out my kit. It was the perfect size and colour, so i had to have it. I’m in the process of removing velcro and pockets at the moment.
Flak VestUsing Point’s tutorial I drew up a pattern:
And mocked it up using some cheap cotton drill I bought for another project:
After several alterations, I was quite pleased with the final product.
There were lessons learned during this process, as you can probably see the pleather stretched in places as I was sewing it, and the shoulder zip is hideous, but servicable. I’m considering my options to cover it up, either a cape or trauma plates between the collar and back plate. Leaning towards a
Thor: Ragnarok style half cape, but not I’m not sure if that would be kosher per the CRLs. If there’s a precedent for this somewhere here I’d love to know.
Girth BeltJust a basic girth belt made from cotton rope and duckcloth, with cummerbund buckles as closures.
I still need to reinforce the stitching and dye it (it’ll be dark brown to match the gloves and boots) as well as the duckcloth for my neckseal (the aptly named “Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Post”
). The neckseal will be coloured as close as possible to the flightsuit.
Gloves
The gloves are a lighter shade of brown than they appear in the picture, and the Rhino panels on the cuffs will be covered by the gauntlets.
Accessories
I’ve seen other mercs wearing Russian and Serbian pouches, so I figured I’d be alright with these. I also have a pair of laser tag grenades which a member of the app team approved for someone else, but I’ll go over that in my weapons WIP (when I eventually get around to it
).
I’m still on the fence about boots, should I go modern or vintage? I’ve got my eye on some WW2 US paratrooper boots, but I need to shop around a bit for something that looks right with the rest of the kit. Anyway, that’s where I stand currently. Any feedback is appreciated
.
