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 Starting on my TCW Mando armor

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stormtrooperguy


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Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« on: May 17, 2010, 10:37 PM »
I did my first test pull on the chest tonight. Just like my clone armor, I made the masters out of MDF. I started with the Wizard of Flight Jango templates from TDH, then tweaked them to look more TCW style.

For this stuff the pieces are, just blocks of MDF shaped on a 6" x 48" belt sander. Once I have the shapes down, I'll fiberglass coat it all.

1 quick pull with 0.080 HIPS, and some rough trimming...







I'm not totally happy with the curves of the plates, but it's pretty close. Another evening of work and I think I'll be happy. Backplate next!


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Slade Kel


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2010, 11:18 PM »
Not bad at all ;D. It's certainly the most accurate TCW Death Watch armor I've seen, though I can tell from the pics that you're right, they definitely look like they need a little more curving.

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stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2010, 12:22 AM »
After tweaking a bit more tonight, I realized that I need to cut out 2 more pieces of MDF and stack them up. I'm running out of material to sand off, and I need more curve :)

Not a ton more... their armor seems pretty flat overall. But the belly and lower corners of the chest need to come in a bit still, and the collar needs to be slightly rounder.

I've got about 6 hours into the chest so far, so I'm feeling good about the progress.

I'm going to try to knock out the shoulders tomorrow, if I get enough clone armor pulled.

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Ca Loar


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2010, 08:18 PM »
I'm not a big fan of the whole "Death Watch" ideal but this looks great. Very nice job, I can definatley see whats needed by what you were talking about. Looks to be about as accurate as possible.

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[img]https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/11245490_677274702400729_7769850639631025562_n.jpg?oh=d6e4bfb8c89920e3690b9ac545515935&oe=5613E63B[img]

stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2010, 01:22 PM »
Last night I didn't get much done on the mando armor. I ended up pulling 2 suits of clone armor, but that doesn't help me much :)

I did cut out another 3/4" MDF block for each piece of armor and glued them together. This should give me enough depth to curve out the parts more to my liking. That's the plan for tonight.

The first layer of MDF was coated in 2 layers of polyester resin, which seals the MDF really well. I'll have to do a bunch of sanding and probably some bondo, but this will prevent the mdf from breaking apart on me.

I cut rough grooves in the left chest plate. They aren't perfect, but they are good placeholders. I'll sharpen up the lines once I know I'm happy with the shapes. I just wanted there to be something for the next test pull :)

A few minutes in the belt sander tonight and it's on to test #2. I'm optimistic about it.

I may be able to knock out the shoulder too.

Then I'll need to make up a vest to mount them on for a real test fit. Something in the middle of Boba and Jango. I think I have some black vinyl in the attic that would work.

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pinocchio


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #5 on: May 19, 2010, 10:55 PM »
I like the look of this vac kit already

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stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2010, 12:10 AM »
I over sanded in a couple of spots and will have to build it back up with epoxy putty / bondo, but generally speaking big improvement tonight.

Here's test pull #2, hit with a coat of grey so that it sort of looks how it will ultimately be. Don't mind the fact that it's taped on to a filthy GWAR sweatshirt!



The right chest plate is a little too curved now, and the left corner of the ab plate got chewed up by the sander. Not much to fix really.

You can see the not-so-sharp impression of the chest slots. The MDF is too thin there to really hold up to the pressure of vac forming, so I'm going to cut out that entire area and rebuild it with epoxy putty. I'll be able to get super sharp detail.

I think the 3rd pull will be the happy one.

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Slade Kel


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2010, 12:50 AM »
Looks like excellent progress ;D.

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Remo Jadd


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2010, 06:43 AM »
that's looking really good ;)

Squirrel


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2010, 12:45 PM »
Very Nice!

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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2010, 11:06 PM »
Bri, you really need to stop! No really, you're getting too much done and you're making us look bad. Damn you Brian...damn you. >:(

...jk keep it coming!
OYA!!!
DSB

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Dha'ward Firaxan


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2010, 12:22 AM »
love the phone! looking great!

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stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2010, 10:00 PM »

I did a test pull of the upper gauntlet shell tonight:



A note about the gauntlets... their sleeves stick out beyond the end of the gauntlet, but it's a very neat, unwrinkled, consistent bit of cuff. I decided to build that into the gauntlet. I'm then going to glue down a bit of the flight suit fabric to that lip, in hopes of making it look like theirs. We'll see how it goes.

And the shoulder:



It's a bit rough still, but I like the shape. Once I glass it and sand it smooth it should be good.

A quick shot of the various work-in-progress MDF plugs:



Off topic for this section, but since I'm here, but here is my sketch for the pistols, scaled based on my hand size:



It will be made the same way... block of MDF, cut to shape, then sanded to get the taper. I <3 my belt sander!

I think the backplate will be the next piece for me to tackle.

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Slade Kel


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2010, 11:56 PM »
Looks like you're making steady progress ;D.  If you end up deciding to do a run of these at all, I may hit you up for a set of those gauntlets ^_^.

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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2010, 08:16 AM »
I agree with slade, those gaunts would be cool to me!

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stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #15 on: May 25, 2010, 11:45 AM »
I'm thinking I should be able to pop out the lower gauntlet shells tonight.

I was going to work on clone armor tonight, but my shipping partner is a bit backlogged, so I don't want to stick him with MORE armor to deal with. Given that, I *might* be able to rough out the backplate too. We'll see!

The experience of building the clone suit is really helping here. The Mando shapes are so simple comparatively, so it's going really fast.


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Hondo Karr


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #16 on: May 25, 2010, 02:03 PM »
I think I'd be interested in a set of the gaunts as well.

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Thaxos


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #17 on: May 25, 2010, 04:26 PM »
Looking great!  ;D

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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #18 on: May 27, 2010, 02:35 PM »
I'm thinking I should be able to pop out the lower gauntlet shells tonight.

I was going to work on clone armor tonight, but my shipping partner is a bit backlogged, so I don't want to stick him with MORE armor to deal with. Given that, I *might* be able to rough out the backplate too. We'll see!

The experience of building the clone suit is really helping here. The Mando shapes are so simple comparatively, so it's going really fast.



I agree with you on that one!

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stormtrooperguy


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #19 on: Jun 02, 2010, 12:39 AM »
After a couple more cycles of sanding / shaping / test pulls, I made the set that I plan to actually paint / finish tonight:



The backplate is gradually taking shape. That's going to be the most complicated part of the body armor, so it's smooth sailing once I'm past that!


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Thaxos


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #20 on: Jun 02, 2010, 01:30 AM »
Looks awesome man!

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Ghost


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #21 on: Jun 02, 2010, 11:37 AM »
That's going to turn out awesomely.

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Baelin Halon


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #22 on: Jun 03, 2010, 08:46 AM »
The armor looks great ner'vod. I REALLY like those gaunts.

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Dar'manda


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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #23 on: Jun 03, 2010, 10:45 AM »
Man...that stuff looks sharp!

Have you thought about offering a run of gaunts up in the trading post for folks looking for non-traditional mando gaunts?  Most of what we see is your typical boba/jango gaunts.  While these are modeled after the TCW DW, they remind me a lot of the Open Seasons comic gaunts too.  Very minimalistic and clean.

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Re: Starting on my TCW Mando armor
« Reply #24 on: Jun 03, 2010, 10:50 AM »
They'd also work great for Legacy Era gaunts.

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