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[Dingo_Largo]

Interesting idea for the belt. I’m interested to see how it turns out.

The gauntlets are coming along, a bit more sanding and those print lines will be gone.

Looking forward to seeing your progress

I got the idea for the belt from my clan mate Syper. That’s how he made his belt for his Super Commando Captain. Also I would be able to attach the cod piece to it as well.

[Dingo_Largo]

The jet pack is a go.







The jet pack is being printed in multiple pieces and in 3 different print batches.



This is print batch number 1, printing the right side of the main body.

Just a short update today.

[Dingo_Largo]

I posted earlier that I had already got my flight suit and vest done. In the time between then and now the research I have done the color of my flight suit was too dark. Black is an acceptable color but the weathering process would be more extensive and wouldn’t be proper. So I scrapped the current flight suit, got a charcoal grey one and will save the black one for another project. I just got the flight suit back from having the legs taken in and hemmed up a bit.



So for about 2-3 years now I have been working on getting a CW style jetpack and it all started with a pepakura file. With this file I was able to convert the PDO file to and OBJ file. With it converted I have been plugging away it to get it printable. So after my printer took a dump while printing the jetpack files I had gotten, I decided to continue working on the one I have been working on. So now as of Saturday May 22nd I finished the model that I stared with 2-3 years ago and it was ready to split into segments with alignment pins. On Sunday the 23rd, the files have been split and sliced in Cura and are ready to print.



Time for paint!!!

This is the first items to be painted, my Westar 35’s and gauntlets. The base color is a metallic satin nickel and is the same base paint I used on my helmet. Right now it is a very bright color but once I lay down black wash weathering it matches the color of the animation.





Paint used



The Westars need to sit a cure before masking them off to lay down the accent color.

So that’s all for now.

[Rayne]

Charcoal gray for the flightsuit looks much closer to references. Are you switching out the flakvest too or hate you going to weather the black?

[Mi'ix]

I'm in agreement with charcoal gray on the suit.

[Dingo_Largo]

Charcoal gray for the flightsuit looks much closer to references. Are you switching out the flakvest too or hate you going to weather the black?

I have a new duck cloth flak vest on order and will be using my vinyl one for another project. Once I get that new vest in it will be in another entry for my WIP.

[Dingo_Largo]

I'm in agreement with charcoal gray on the suit.

I do agree as well.

[Dingo_Largo]

 Well it’s time for another update, finally. Life has a way as Dr Ian Malcolm would say but I have finally gotten some things done. I did have my new flak vest come in but I haven’t had the change to take a picture of it, my bad. It’s sitting next to my sewing/crafting cart with my flight suit. Those pics and post will be coming soon if how they look and who I got the vest from.

The work I did get done was the weathering of my Westars. I have found that when weathering the colors do pop when you clear coat so the next 3 pics are the weathered preclear coat.



 

 

The next picture show the blasters post clear coat. From my observations of the reference materials and from what they look like in real life I use a satin clear. The satin clear coat gives the best sheen and the colors best match the references.

 

This is just the reference for the weathering of the Westar Carbine.

 

Here is what I have completed so far. I know it’s not much but it is progress.

 

Now I am going to give an update on my jetpack. I have made posts saying that I have started the thing and then it failed. Another post I did showed that I finished the 3D model I had been working on for 3 years and that I started to print that one. Well that failed due to technical difficulties with the printer. While I was at Adam Savage’s SiliCon, I was talking to a 501st Garrison mate Diana Torres about costume build, she told me that she gave up on printing her files herself and uses Galactic Armory to print for her. So I have reach out to Galactic Armory and they are printing my jetpack for me.

 

When I get the jetpack from Galactic Armory, I will have 100% of all my parts. Once I get that in hand, it should start to all come together and the build will start to take shape. Especially on how I will have to wear the Jetpack.

Till the next…

[Rayne]

Blasters look pretty good!

[Dingo_Largo]

I just realized that I didn’t post about the paining of the blasters and the finish work I did on my gauntlets. I guess that I thought I did because I share some of these pics in a group chat and someone knit picked an aspect of the blasters.  Well without further ado here is my next post, just a little out of order.

In this post I will show you the painting of the blasters. Then the finish paining and weathering of the gauntlets.

















As you can see I have the base nickel coat down and have the blasters masked off for their second coat. After some experiments I found that laying down the grey color and then spray the blue in light dusting coats gets the correct color effect used in the CW.



Here you have the blasters all finished being painted. Now they need their weathering.

Gauntlets



According to the picture references the Comm pad is a grey color and not the weathered metallic color. This is the same grey I used for the blasters base coat before putting down the blue.







Here they are all weathered up to best match the character references and assets pictures.

Well that was a lovely trip back in time. Hopefully the next post will be all about the flak vest.

[Dingo_Largo]

Blasters look pretty good!

Thank you

[Dingo_Largo]

Here we are with another long posting.

I do have to say the jetpack has been the bane of my costuming existence. I have posted that I have started printing up a jetpack but I was having issues with the printers and when I thought I had the problem fixed I started printing a file for the jetpack I had been working on for 3 years. Then to have the printer go down again and have a virus wipe out all of my print files. Once the computer issues were fixed I subbed out the printing to a 3rd party printer, then to just have issues there (which are not important and the fault is on both parties). Now I have the printers up and running to where I can get things going and here is the next installment of my WIP.

At the moment the printing process is being done on the two FDM printers I have, a Creality Ender 3 and an AnyCubic Chiron. The Ender 3 will be printing the nozzles and nose cap cones and the Chiron will be doing the main body parts. The Chiron has a bed of 400x400x450mm build volume so it makes the main body being able to be printed in 3 easy parts; back plate and the main body upper and lower.


Back plate near start on Chiron


Jet Nozzles and Nose Cones start on Ender 3


Back Plate Done


Nozzles and Nose Cones done


Main Body Upper Start


Main Body Upper Mid


Main Body Upper Finish


Main Body Upper Mock up


Main Body Bottom Finish ( I forget to take a picture of the start)


How much time it took to print just the bottom of the main body. Of all the pieces this took the longest.


Mock up of the Full jetpack


Mock up of the Full Jetpack sitting on my back plate

That was the jetpack. I know I have work to do with sanding and filling the print lines but it’s good to finally have the last item for this costume. Besides doing the sanding I need to get it weighed so I can get the proper attachment method.

The next set of pictures are my flak vest that I got from Wyng’D Lyon on Etsy. She did an awesome job and worked with me on the vest since this was the first Clone Wars Deathwatch Mandalorian vest she has done. I highly recommend her.


Front


Side


Back


Label of Maker

The vest is made of duck cloth as stated in the 501st CRL for the level 3 costuming standards. This fabric does best match the reference materials from the show. Originally I was going to go with a black vinyl since that best matches the material used in the Jango Fett vest and is what the characters are modeled after. Yet since I am trying to best match the cartoon it was best to go with duck cloth.

Next step is to place the snaps on the armor and then place the armor appropriately.

[Rayne]

I’m glad you’re jetpack is getting close to finished!

[Dingo_Largo]

I’m glad you’re jetpack is getting close to finished!

So am I. It has been a chore to say the least. Now it’s just time to put everything together.

[Dingo_Largo]

Well here we go with another long picture heavy post. I didn’t realize that my last post was a few months ago so instead of posting the work in chronological order I am doing it by category. This way there is no jumping around going from one thought to another and then back to the previous item.

So first up is the jetpack.

So as you have read the Jetpack has been a problem with getting it off the ground, but now it has been printed and is now in the process of being worked on. These first two pictures are the jetpack print mocked up together with the second picture having it mocked up on my backplate.





Since this is a printed item of the model I made, the resolution is a little rough since I am a novice at 3D modeling. So I am doing a pre-sanding smithing with my plastic welder and filling some voided areas with my 3D printed pen. So using the triangle head of the iron I would smooth the lower resolution print lines. Then after filling some of the voids in the print I then used the welding iron again to smooth and sculpt the filled in voids.

















For ease of printing, even though I have a large volume printer and could print this in one shot, I did model the pack itself in 3 pieces. These pieces have alignment pin holes where you can use any 1/4” (6mm) pins for aligning the parts and for rigidity in construction. Here you see me use 1/4” fluted dowels as my alignment pins. This way there will be some space for the 5 min epoxy to grab ahold of the parts. Once the epoxy was applied to the pins and the center of the end faces of the print I clamped them together to make sure that there was no gaps between them so to avoid a weak spot. Also this will push the epoxy into the print lines of both halves creating a better bond as well. With putting the epoxy in the center this leaves the outer edge clear of the epoxy so that I can plastic weld the two halves together.









Once the epoxy was set and the plastic welding was done, unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the welding process it was time for the resin coating. The first thing that got coated with resin was the part of the jetpack that connects to my backplate armor. This was a test of using SLA resin as a way to fill the print lines. I did this technique before other makers and cosplayers started coming out about how caustic it is to use this UV curing resin in this way. When I applied the resin to this part of the back plate I did it in my garage completely opened up so that there was plenty of ventilation and air flow before moving in outside for it to cure in the sun.
For the main body of the jetpack as well as the rocket tops and nozzles I used Smooth-on®️ XTC-3D to coat the print. Generally you don’t have to use resin on 3D prints as using Bondo®️ spot putty word well with smoothing out the print lines, but since this is going to be a costume piece that will used costing it in resin helps making the PLA more rigid and help with it not to warp in hot climates.





For some reason I keep using the backplate portion of the jetpack as a guinea pig for different ways to smooth out the print lines. For the face that connects to the main body of the jetpack that would be difficult to reach once the two halves are connected I used “rondo” as a filler and stiffener. Rondo is a term for the mixture of fiberglass resin and body filler, also known as Bondo. Resin + Bondo = Rondo. The mixture I used was made with short strand fiberglass reinforced body filler instead of the standard body filler, this way it gives the print more strength.



After the XTC-3D has cured it is time to give it a good sanding and get it ready for the first layer of filler primer. The main body did have some noticeable areas that needed spot putty before the first primer coat. So that mean it needs to be sanded, again. Yet that’s the nature of the game.









This is a technique that I got from my clan mate and former Alor’ad of my Mercs Clan Syper. Since jetpacks are prone to getting hit while walking around events using a bungee cord to attach the nozzles is a great way to avoid them getting broken. So the plan is to mark the center of the two outer rocket nose cones and the rocket nozzles, drill them out and install threaded inserts. This way the eye bolts can be screwed in to all the pieces and a bungee cord can be stretched between them keeping them from getting broken if accidentally hit against anything or anyone. Right now the plan would be to use an epoxy resin to secure the threaded insert into the 3D printed parts.





The backplate portion has been sanded and only one side has been primed. I am waiting on getting the attachments to get installed that will be what secures it to my backplate armor before priming the other side. At this point my backplate armor had to be reshaped at the shoulders before positioning the attachment points.





We are now on to the next section of the post, the soft goods. Now as I posted before I had bought the flak vest from a vendor on Etsy. It a beautiful item. As you can see I suited up with all the items I had currently finished. After posting these pics on a Facebook build group (Official Mercs Build group) I am a part of it was suggested that the shoulder tabs be fixed as they jet out too straight from the shoulders and don’t lay properly. At first I thinks this was just due to the armor not being attached that they jetted out like that but after clipping the armor on they still stuck out too much. So I seam ripped the seams a bit so that I could take the corners of the shoulder tabs and tuck them in to the vest creating the proper slope of the shoulder tab. Once they were in the proper place I sewed them up. For some reason it just didn’t look correct so I test placed the upper chest armor and everything seems to line up properly.













While working the flak vest I found that it was really hard to put my head through the head hole so I will installing an invisible zipper to one of shoulders next to the head hole. In the next couple of week there is an armor party that I will be attending that way I can get my backplate reshaped at the shoulders so I can set the placement of the jetpack attachment points.

That is all for now.

P.S. As I was just about to post this I noticed it has been almost 5 years to the date that I first posted this WIP. Hopefully this will be the year that if finish it.

[Vi'per]

very nice work!! i love this caracther ever,dreaming see them live action!! ,been working on the two variations ,infantry and captain, maybe some day i finish them....
-------hope to see your finished 

this my wip hope you like

IMG_5431 by viper  rim, en Flickr

IMG_1331 by viper  rim, en Flickr

50037308022_07aaeb99af_o by viper  rim, en Flickr

[Dingo_Largo]

very nice work!! i love this caracther ever,dreaming see them live action!! ,been working on the two variations ,infantry and captain, maybe some day i finish them....
-------hope to see your finished 

this my wip hope you like

IMG_5431 by viper  rim, en Flickr

IMG_1331 by viper  rim, en Flickr

50037308022_07aaeb99af_o by viper  rim, en Flickr

Thank you very much. Of the three designs of the Maulwatch this one has the most screen time and keeps getting kncocked out. They may call this a grunt but there is only on with the diagonal handprint.

[Dingo_Largo]

Well here we go with another long post of my progress.  Again this is very picture heavy and I will try to best describe each section of pictures.

I was able to cut down some aluminum to create a hook that will attach to the jet pack and hang on the backplate.











Here we have the threaded inserts installed into the side thrusters and nose cones









Here are the mock-up on how the jetpack will attach and hang on the backplate.





Mock-up of everything together





Getting things ready for the glue up. As you see I am using 1/4” wooden dowel cut down to fit acting as alignment tools and extra points for the glue to grab on to.



All mocked up to see how the jetpack will look overall.



The next section is how I am attaching the outer nose cones and the thruster nozzles.



Bungee cords!





Bungee cord nozzle attachment method for my Clone Wars Deathwatch Mando. You may ask “Why use a bungee cord to attach the nozzles and not just glue them in?” That way if I am at an event and get bumped they don’t break and can just get readjusted back to their proper position. Since the nozzle of the animated jetpack stick out at an angle instead of straight down they can be a bump hazard. Also it’s a space saving thing since I can take off the nozzles and now the bottom is flat. I got that idea from a fellow Mercs clan mate Syper/Jim Eastman who did it for his jetpack.







To demonstrate how they work I have kept off the back piece of the jet pack. Once you drop the nose cones in place the bungee cords are just long enough to be grabbed by your finger and stretched out to hook onto the eye bolt on the nozzles. The tension on the bungee cords is just enough to keep them in place and not over stress the cord.





As you can see the total weight of the jetpack is 3lbs 9.6oz, so I am pretty happy with that. I am hoping that with its light weight I will not have to have a harness system but only time will tell. So as we see we are now ready to glue up and start getting it ready for paint.





Clamps and 5 min epoxy. I was going to plastic weld the two halves together but found out that how I had the alignment pins fit up they grabbed more then enough to have a mechanical connection between the two halves.

At this point it was suppose to be the original end of the post but something happened that made me take notice. So I was watching the season 7 episode Old Friends Not Forgotten and I noticed that they changed the jetpack model from what they used in previous seasons. The big change was the jetpack nozzle is now straight instead of being kick out at an angle.





Here is a screen shot from season 5 ep 16 “The Lawless” and a zoomed in pic. As you can see they are kicked out at an angle. You also see this in the asset picture I posted near the beginning of my WIP.





No you see this is from Season 7 ep 9 “Old Friends not Forgotten” they are straight up and down.

After seeing this I got to work…









I have now remixed my thruster nozzles to match season 7 and started printing this new set. After 18hrs and 11 mins I have season 7 accurate thruster nozzles. Now to prep them. All within 24hrs the files were remixed, scaled, sliced and printed. So now I have files accurate for seasons 2-5 and season 7.

Here they are next to the ones I started with.



Here they are mocked up with the jetpack.



And finally with the threaded inserts installed.



All that’s left to do is coat them with XTC 3D and get them ready for paint as well.

Now with the new thruster nozzles in the works and the two halves of the jetpack glued together I was able to lay down body filler to get rid of the seam. Instead of using the traditional Pink filler or the fiberglass reenforced filler I use as well, I used plastic metal body filler. This style of filler is reenforced with aluminum.









Well this has been a long entry and I will be posing again soon with the next update.

[Dingo_Largo]

Here we go for a little quick update. I have the snaps glued to the armor pieces. While most use Velcro®️ to attach their armor pieces to their vest. Well that is all fine and good but for the long run the sticky back of the hook and loop will melt over time. I have found that size 24 snaps work wonders to attach the armor.









With the backplate I have added a couple of pieces of aluminum to keep the jetpack from wearing down the sintra backplate.

Right now I am working on adding a zipper to the shoulder area of my vest. That way I can fit my head through comfortably when kitting up. Once that is done I should be about to mark out the snap locations on the vest and get them attached. Then painting shall begin.

A few posts ago I made the goal to get this done, submitted and hopefully approved by the end of November, specifically in time for The Hollywood Christmas Parade. I may or may not reach that goal. I will still work for that but I am switching jobs and will soon become a high school welding teacher. With that transition has to come a reset with life routines and hopefully it is a smooth one. I still want this to be ready by then so I can march with my SoCal SW family, but you never know what obstacles life will throw in your direction. This costume has been at the moment a 5 year journey and it may stretch longer.

Till the next post.

[Dingo_Largo]

Well here we go with another long picture heavy post. These pics range from last fall till near the beginning of the year. I have gotten bad with posting due to the new job and when I have been able to attend armor parties. I do have to thank Golden Gate Garrison North Bay Squad and MMCC Teren Clan for having armor parties so I can work on my Canon kit.  Now sit back and relax as go over the past few things I have done to my Clone Wars Deathwatch Maul’dalorian as seen in Season 5 and Season 7.

So first off I ended up adding a hidden zipper to the shoulder line of my flak vest. This way I could get me head through the opening with a little more ease then I could when I got it. Simple seam rip and then add in the zipper.





Now with my vest situated I have turn my attention to the girth belt, cod piece and ammo belt. With the girth belt all mapped out I get it set up to attach the cod piece to it. Once I installed the snaps on the girth belt I noticed the the cod piece was way too big for my body portions length wise. So I did have to cut it down so that once I put it on it will sit correctly on my body.







As you can see in the next picture where it now sits better in this mock-up of how it will be worn.



When I first made the ammo belt I just use math to calculate how much was going to be needed. With how I built the whole unit it goes on as one piece and I made a cover piece to hide the hook and loop closure I will be using in the back. Once I started to put on the belt units I needed to build another cover piece. The original is on the left and the new one is on the right before I hear formed it.



So after having to cut my chest armor to beat match the reference pictures I had to make a new chest diamond. The picture with the diamond in place is not it’s final look as I have shaped to fit the opening.





The original diamond I made is on the right and the new one is on the left.



Here is just showing that I have added the snaps to the inside of the ammo belt as the way it will be attached to the girth belt.





Snaps added to the back of the chest diamond.



Now we are on to the placement of the backplate. While I do have a duck tape model of my torso, I made sure that the placement was done at an armor party so that I had help getting the placement correct. What you see here is are the aftermath of the placement. How this is done is simple, you place a masking tape in the area that the snap should be. Then you either press the item that the snap is already on, in this case armor and you trace the depression that the male half of the snap leaves. That is good with pieces that are more grouped together on a flatter surface. What we had to do here is place ink on tue snaps, press like you would do to leave the depression and the ink is left where the snap lands. Then you just fine the center of the circle and then install the female half of the snap.









Here is just a side by side shot of the chest armor with the reference picture and another shot of the diamond mocked up in place. This made me see that the center ridge of the diamond was too long and so it was cut down.







Now that the snaps have been installed on the back of the flack vest it is time to test the backplate and jet pack set up. My backplate for my Clones Wars Deathwatch now is able to be snapped to my flak vest and with the jetpack attached to the backplate with the hanging system I have it sits nicely. It doesn’t move and it doesn’t feel like there really is anything on my back. No need for any extra strappings or the traditional scuba harness. Thank you to Teren Clan for hosting in person armor parties so we can have that hands on experience of getting things seen from a different perspective in real life. After that armor party in dec I was able to get things more situated and trimmed up the fangs on the backplate.

















Now that I’m getting things lined up to mark the snap locations for the from armor I noticed that the original collar plate would not work. So I had to create a brand new collar plate using masking tape as a template.









This should be the last time I have to remake any armor pieces, but you never know. I will be attending a local armor party next month so hopefully soon after that I should have me next update.

[Vi'per]

Collar plate make me headache too ,most dificult part for me to assembly all correctly with this animated symmetrical style you are doing so well 

this what i think should be right

collar adjustment by vi'per, en Flickr

[Bryn Cin'Prudii]

Dingo boy that is some impressive work!

On the diamond - maybe a hair of trimming to make sure it matches the space of the chest a bit closer. This one is much more proportional!

[Dingo_Largo]

Dingo boy that is some impressive work!

On the diamond - maybe a hair of trimming to make sure it matches the space of the chest a bit closer. This one is much more proportional!

Thank you. I totally know about trimming up the diamond. The final trimming will take place when it gets its placement on the vest. That way it’s the true distance with the plates while I’m wearing the vest.