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[Athin Ordo]

Thanks for the pic of the exact foam.  (Thought I replied earlier, this week has been nuts.) It looks like a kind of close cell foam. Which just means the foam is pretty dense.  Open Cell foam is like what you find in couch cushions.

So, I have lots of questions now, because your work is awesome and I've gotten some time to think seriously.  I love the flak vest design with the zippers in the inside.

1.) Why did you chose to have the back zip to the front panel?
2.) Do you know of a reason not to have the pane from the back meet in the front and zip under the front panel?
3.)  Those sheets of foam don't look long enough to wrap around a waist, how did you get the length for a girth belt?
4.) Did you do the quilting on your vest?
5.) How ON EARTH did you get the embossed logo off those boots?  (Those boots ROCK, BTW.)

[trashcanmando]

No problem! I keep meaning to update again, but, yeah, everything's nuts. Thank you very much, I'll answer as best I can!

1- The flak vest is inspired by whitecrow1's flak vest, which is a more complicated deisgn where the straps from the back wrap all the way around to center front and then zip together, and then the actual material of the front of the vest velcros down onto that. It's hard to verbally explain, I think I posted a link to his WIP page, and on the second page of that there's a video of how it works. This is a simplified version but the same principle. It allows the vest to fully separate on both sides, so you don't have to worry about any arm holes while getting it on. Just slip it over your head and then zip and clip both sides.
2- I think what you're talking about here is basically what whitecrow did. I just wanted a simplified version, but having the panes longer and then zipping to each other would definitely work.
3- I used painter's tape to tape two strips of foam together. It adds enough rigidity that it acts like one solid piece. If you do this, just try to keep the tape out of areas you will be sewing in. You can go through painter's tape without destroying your sewing machine (or mine was fine at least), but you have to go slow and your thread will probably break and it's annoying. Just stop the tape about an inch from the edge.
4- I bought it like that! Joann Fabrics carries several different colors of quilted fabric.
5- I used a vinyl repair liquid! It took about a thousand coats, and could honestly still use a few more, uhg. I can't decide if I want to be picky or if 'you have to know it was there and be looking for it' level of concealment on the logo is okay. It was like 20 bucks on amazon, which sounds really expensive for logo removal, but I have a ton left over.

[trashcanmando]

Okay so things have been crazy, and the next thing I need to do is alter my flight suit and shape my plates... Dreading altering the flight suit and waiting for armor parties to be a thing again to shape the plates. BUT! I made a deal with Dragon Sunkiller. Made him a flak vest yesterday, and he's making me metal plates for an eventual third kit out of a car hood. Also, I'm borrowing my cousin's 3D printer and printed Dragon off some gauntlets and will be printing myself a scaled version of the same pair.





This flak vest was done in just a bit over 8 hours, all the way from drafting to sewing the neck seal on! Well, ok, 98% done because my roommate had gone to bed at that point and I couldn't use the sewing machine to finish the velcro on the collar lol. It's not for me but... totally counts to post in my build forum because I'm trading it for metal plates, right? Lol

Pics of gauntlets to come in probably about a week, as that's about how long they take if I have the printer running constantly lol.

[trashcanmando]

Right, so, I ran into printing problems and never did finish those gauntlets, but my cousin will print them off for me.... eventually. But we did lose the files, so I sure hope I can figure out the scale I used again... I'm also finally off night shift so hopefully things will get rolling again.

Last month I did a photoshoot of my kit with my cousin Facebok page here and although this kit is only about a third of the way done, I tried out the full makeup and I am THRILLED with the results. The horns are going to make the helmet really interesting but with some creative padding I think it will be okay. Here's the unedited makeup, before photoshop touched it. There were a few touchup spots after this photo but it's like 95% finished.



I know the girth belt is sitting awfully low in this one but once plates and everything are finished I think it will be alright.



It took... quite a bit of doing, but he SOMEHOW managed to get a couple of me looking sort of scary! I have determined that I am simply incapable of looking menacing without my face covered.





So far I am SO happy with this kit, the makeup and flak vest are looking so good. Forgive the baggy flight suit, I never did get around to altering it. More pictures are to come after I see him for Christmas. Have a Merry Mando Christmas, everybody!

[trashcanmando]

Update but no pics (sorry)- got all the plates shaped and the trauma plates glued onto the primary plates! I was hoping to get all the magnets glued on over New Years vacation, but I did the math and I need more magnets anyways... Also want to buy a smaller size of magnets. Currently thinking I am going to glue magnets to the plates and then sew metal discs into pouches in the flak vest. Also throwing around some ideas to greeble up the backside of the plates like Din has going on, but everything I've thought of seems like it would add too much bulk. At least I'm going to prime and paint the back of the plate silver.

[trashcanmando]

Finished finetuning the plate shaping on this set today! I will tape them all to my flak vest and post again before painting, but I'm pretty sure it's there.





Before finetuning the backplate:



After rolling the edge as per Shammah's advice:



I have also aquired the gauntlets and some bondo to go with them! Printed by a clan member who's forum name I have currently forgotten entirely.



This makes two sets of gauntlets I have to finish now, as well as a grenade and a knife. The weather is warming up so I am excited to have a chance to work outside again!

[trashcanmando]

Okay, here are the front plates taped to the vest. I don't think I can manage to get shots of the back plates, lol.







I know theyre all hanging a little funny but I think that's just that they're taped on and not actually mounted. I did my best to curve the edges of the collar plate to eliminate float. I think this set is ready to paint! Ironically, my other set that doesn't have trauma plates is still giving me grief, lol.

[trashcanmando]

So I'm behaving myself and mounting before painting just in case something needs to be reshaped or trimmed a bit. This set is going to be mounted with magnets, and it's taking a lot more magnets than I thought, lol. I have a second set in progress and that one may need to attach with classic snaps and velcro simply because buying 192 magnets ain't cheap.

At first I wanted to put magnets on the plate and then mount a metal disc in the vest, cutting my magnet usage in half. Unfortunately, this isn't feasible because a simple metal disc doesn't slot exactly to fit the magnet, it will just sit anywhere on the magnet. I tried fridge magnets too, hoping that a weaker, cheaper magnet would work, but they both will slot to multiple different positions and aren't strong enough to hold through my flak vest material. Metal discs would be fine if I also used velcro to make sure the plates sat in the exact same spot every time, but for this kit I really want to pay attention to the details and make it truly immersive, including when I pull a plate off, so I want the attachment method to be as invisible as possible (and will be painting the back of the plates either silver or black instead of leaving them Sintra White.) 

I don't have any idea how people usually mount magnets in vests, but here's what I'm doing.



Epoxy magnets to plates, of course. I got naked magnets instead of ones that came epoxy coated, so I covered mine in a layer of epoxy as well as just gluing them right to the plate. So far they seem to be holding very well. This picture was taken just before I was finished, I've since added the last two magnets to the back plate, and two to the keyplate. Overkill? Maybe. And yes, a magnet did slide on the collar plate when I wasn't paying attention, but you can't see it from the front. It bothers me, but not enough to risk mutilating my collar plate to remove and reglue it. I've only done the body plates simply because I didn't buy enough magnets.



Next step, I cut rectangles of cotton fabric, big enough to fold in half and still have a good bit of overlap on all sides of the magnet.



I took the rectangle, folded it in half, and stitched around the edges, leaving the top edge open to put the magnet in.



Slide in the magnet and top stitch the top edge closed.



Hand stitch around the magnet. I tried to do this with machine, but I couldn't keep the magnet in the right spot and get the needle close enough. It wasn't too much trouble to hand sew it though, and I found it's useful to place two extra magnets on the outside so it's easy to see where the inner magnet is.



Done this way, I can easily move my plates around with the pouched magnet sliding underneath like one of those magnet zinger toys, safety pin it in place, and then sew down the surrounding pouch. At least, in theory. I only have 14 magnets left over to mount with, so I won't even get all the way through the body plates until my extra magnets arrive.

If it works as well as I think it might, I may have to spring for the extra eight dozen magnets and do my other set of plates like this as well. The lengths I may go to to avoid snap placement.... 

[BigEd27]

this build is so great to follow. I love the progress. Where did you get your belt?

[trashcanmando]

Thank you kindly! The girth belt is made of duck cloth and craft foam, but the belt-belt I got off of Amazon. I probably searched for something along the lines of utility/tactical belt? Hope that helps, I can go through my Amazon history and find the exact item if you like.

[K'Rom Maxx]

I love your build.
A lot to learn I have. WOW.
I will have eyes on your work. 
This is the way.
 

[trashcanmando]

Thank you Max, thank you both for your encouragement!

I have three of the plates mounted now- ran out of magnets, oops. Gotta wait for more to come before I can finish, but here's what I have so far.



Forgive the expression, I was trying very hard to get a good angle, lol. Please be as picky about the spacing and all as possible, it's very easy for me to move the plates at this stage!



And a silly one. Loving how the magnets are keeping my flak vest clear! I am considering adding just one or two snaps per plate though, just because of how easy the plates are to pull off.

[K'Rom Maxx]

Thank you Max, thank you both for your encouragement!

I have three of the plates mounted now- ran out of magnets, oops. Gotta wait for more to come before I can finish, but here's what I have so far.



Forgive the expression, I was trying very hard to get a good angle, lol. Please be as picky about the spacing and all as possible, it's very easy for me to move the plates at this stage!



And a silly one. Loving how the magnets are keeping my flak vest clear! I am considering adding just one or two snaps per plate though, just because of how easy the plates are to pull off.

I think it is looking so good.
Just ask, did you try a test to glue one magnet to the soft material with E6000?

[trashcanmando]

I think it is looking so good.
Just ask, did you try a test to glue one magnet to the soft material with E6000?

Thank you!  No, no E6000 was involved. It's fine stuff, but because it takes 24 hours to dry fully, I would have to clamp every single magnet to the sintra while it dried. So I used epoxy because the 5 minute set time was much more ideal, as the magnets will move themselves while still drying, requiring babysitting to keep them in the right position, and I don't have roughly fifty clamps. What can I say, I'm impatient, I like super glue and staple guns. But if you meant attaching them to the flak vest, I would never glue anything to a fabric part anyways. Learned my lesson with sticky velcro.

No pics this time, but I did get more magnets in the mail, as well as some thigh pouches. I will probably be buying a third thigh bag to cannibalize for material to cover the zippers on the other two. I also got a couple pieces for my third kit... Some people upgrade one kit continously, me, I just can't pick a color scheme so I make three different ones. 

I've been brainstorming the helmet for this kit. Because of the horns, it will probably have to come apart in two pieces, similar to how most twi'lek mandos do their helmets. I also want to pack it with electronics, which will be interesting, because I've never done anything with any electronics before. Ideally I want to put in it:
-Remote controlled up/down rangefinder, I have seen this done and it's epic
-Lit t-visor, I'm thinking a green light
-'Panoramic' vision as mentioned in repcomm- basically I want to put a camera in the back of the helmet and feed it to a small screen installed in the cheek just below the left t-visor. I really, really want some sort of actual, practical HUD function.
-I also think a recording gopro in the rangefinder would be really neat.

The first two I have seen done and know are possible. The second two I just think would be really, really cool. Plus possibly some other things people have found helpful, like a voice amp, hearing assist, fans, that sort of thing. My third kit that I am planning, I want to be as immersive and detailed and realistic as possible, so the electronics in this kit will be a test run for that one. I was hoping to go do some beskar shopping this weekend, but had achange of plans... Hoping to finish mounting plates and possibly start painting on Sunday, though.

[trashcanmando]

Whoops, could have sworn I'd updated more recently than I have.

Plates are all painted! Here's some progress pics, it was a bit of a process. Here's what I did.
-Black base coat, front and back
-Silver, two coats, front of plates only
-Toothpaste masking, mottled browns and greens
-Toothpaste masking, this time for the trauma plates in a tan color
-Didn't like how much paint came off with the masking, so I did both layers again with hairspray and salt weathering. Really gave it a lovely texture.
-Black wash, of course, but fairly light. I want this kit to look used but still relatively clean.
-Sealing clear coat











With comparison to my first set of plates! I'm just so, so happy with how much I've improved since. I'm also upgrading my old kit, but I still need to shape the new plates for it.



And a nice shot of all the magnets on the inside of the vest! They work really really nicely. I won't be sewing them permanently into place until I have the spacing approved though, because seam ripping these things out would destroy the quilting. Right now they're just safety pinned in so I can easily move them if need be.

With the advent of Book of Boba, I'm considering a new approach to the shoulder bells. I've been having trouble figuring out how to mount double shoulder plates, but seeing his shoulder plates gave me an idea. I might be able to mount the under plate directly to the flight suit like he has, and the top plate to the vest, removing the shoulder bell portion of the vest. I don't know if that's approvable, or if it will even look right, but it's something I'm considering.

Bonus- I spent most of today making a mouse droid! His name is M1-CK34 (Mickey). He's just cardboard slapped onto a cheap remote control car but I'm so, so happy with him! Just a fun little project to let the creative juices flow.





I also started working on my flight suit today. It's going to be a sewn from scratch two piece flight suit with some fun thigh detailing and double sleeves. Nothing worth showing yet, although I cannibalized a pair of my jeans for it, lol.

[trashcanmando]

Forgive the double post, I remembered more!





Believe it or not, I've somehow always gotten out of cleaning 3D prints before now... Can't say I'm a fan but they're looking a lot better. Still got a long ways to go, and I'm doing two sets at once, both this and my old kit...

On a fully different note, I went to a troop at a comic book shop hosting Dominic Pace this summer! Changed out of my old kit for this pic, and because frankly this armor set is a lot more comfortable lol.



He signed one of my plates! Really, really cool guy. Very nice and approachable, the whole troop was a delight.

[trashcanmando]

Finally, finally, after I can put it off no longer... it's print sanding time.





Bit of a panic when I realized that these gauntlets are printed at 90%, which means 10% less hole in the hinge. My plan to use a bike spoke or the thinnest knitting needle I had wasn't going to work without drilling or heating. Fortunately, a clan member let me know a paperclip works just fine! And here I was already thinking about having to explain to a bike shop employee why I want an extra thin bike spoke.

Now it just needs to warm up so I can hit em with a filler primer layer... it was in the negatives today.

Once I have them finished and painted, I think I'm going to back the holes with some roughed up container plastic and some LEDs in the cavity.

[Aster Veris]

Looking good! Love the paint job.

[Cattriss Wren]

Wow this kit is looking awesome!! keep it up

[trashcanmando]

Working on my gauntlets today and I realized... I've never actually put the whole thing on since I finished mounting the body plates.

I'm so, so much closer that I thought! It really snuck up on me! 







This felt so, so amazing, especially since I've been snatching work sessions every couple of months and didn't really have time to look at the big picture of this build. It's comfortable, it feels amazing, these are the moments I do this for- when you get a chance to stand back and look at the sum total of your work and say 'Wow... I made myself a piece of Star Wars'

So here's what I still need to do. Most of it is pretty small stuff, finishing touches.

Helmet: Don't have it yet, have no idea where I'm gonna get it. This is the main thing I need to do.

Flak vest: I need to redo the shoulder bells to hang at a different angle. The shoulder plates don't want to hang a perfect 90 degrees from my shoulder, so the bells need to follow my arm better. I'm considering replacing the shoulder bell portion of the vest with a short sleeve of the same material. Also, the bottom front hem is crooked. I think I'm going to add enough fabric, back and front, to tuck it into the belt to fix that. The magnet pouches also need to be sewn to the actual vest, but I'm waiting until the plates are absolutely perfect.

Plates: I need to attach all the peripheral plates. In the pictures, the cod plate is just stuck under the belts and the knees are taped on. I also know the back plates need a little work, but I really need help with that, this is as good as I can get it alone. I want a double check on the chest plates as well.

Gauntlets: Very nearly done sanding. I dropped one today and it cracked along the seam... I'm going to try to reinforce them from the back, possibly with fiberglass, and maybe give them a coat of some casting resin, because I will be absolutely devastated if one cracks after I have it painted. Painting, of course, and then I'm going to mount some LEDs to the cavity. I did lose the tabs that keep the gauntlets closed, oops.

Arm wraps: Going to be adding wraps to pad out the gauntlets and keep them from shifting.

Flight suit: For once my quarantine weight works in my favor! The flight suit filled out a bit, and all I have to do now is take the arms and legs in a tiny bit, and then add wrist and foot loops. Also needs more weathering, and I'm going to rip the logo of the breast pocket, because I want this costume to be completely believable, even if I'm just walking around with the flight suit.

Thigh bags: Sew the straps together so they don't move around while I'm wearing them, cover zippers, weather.

Girth belt: I need an entirely new one. The weight that made my flight suit fit perfectly made me completely outgrow the old one.

Utility belt: Needs weathering and whatever holsters for whatever weapons.

Kama: I really don't like how the lower half looks from the back. There's too much strapping with the thigh bags and the knees, and too much open space with nothing going on. I was going to wait till kit three to add a kama, but I think this kit would really look a lot better with one. I'm torn on color, because my accent color so far is black, but I think a solid black kama would be more black than I want. I'm thinking green with black trim. I need to check on the CRLs and see if I still need a girth belt, I don't quite remember how having a kama changes waist item requirements.

Boots: Done!

Gloves: Done!

Weapons: I had a lot of big ideas on the concept for this one. I do have a light up vibroblade half done. As I understand it, light up blades are approvable as long as the blade isn't clear, so I'll be painting the flats of the blade silver.
I also wanted a sword and spear as a matching set, a rifle, and some sort of pistol. We'll see how much of that I end up making. My last kit was approved with nothing but a wooden knife, so this'll be a whole new thing for me. I'm really partial to the Amban rifle, so I might do something similar to that.

For an armor party: Help with plates, specifically the back plates. Probably going to need help with the helmet as well, this thing is gonna be complicated.

Questions for ruus'alore or anyone who knows:
Does a kama change waist requirements at all? Between the thigh bags, girth belt and holster belt, and now a kama, I'm looking at four waist items. Can any of these be combined?
I'm thinking of changing the shoulder bell to a short sleeve style instead, inspired by Boba's new vest. It would have to wrap around my bicep and snap or velcro behind my arm because the vest is constructed to come apart at both sides instead of seam up the back as Boba's new vest does. Anything I should be aware of with that?
And of course, anything I can do better with the body plates or anything I could possibly do to help the back plates by myself?

[sombraptor]

Shaping up even better than your original kit, which I have no idea how! That segmented backplate just adds some extra something to it!

[Celtkhan]

Helmets are a lot easier than they appear at first glance. They can be time-consuming, but as long as you make your measurements exact and don’t rush, you will get a good result at the end. The Bearded Mando has a build log in the helmets forum as well as a channel on youtube. I logged my build progress in a thread in the helmet forum as well, and I have absolutely zero costuming experience before tackling it. So even a complete newbie can do it.

[trashcanmando]

Helmets are a lot easier than they appear at first glance. They can be time-consuming, but as long as you make your measurements exact and don’t rush, you will get a good result at the end. The Bearded Mando has a build log in the helmets forum as well as a channel on youtube. I logged my build progress in a thread in the helmet forum as well, and I have absolutely zero costuming experience before tackling it. So even a complete newbie can do it.

I'm no pro, but I've already got one kit completed. The problem with this one is it's a zabrak, so I have a row of horns, and won't be able to just put the helmet on normally. I'm thinking of a two part design where the faceplate attaches by magnets and comes off. I don't know if I should scratch build, cut apart a cast helmet, or what exactly. I should probably go dive through twi'lek builds, I know a few of them have two part helmets.

[Celtkhan]

The question would be how prominent your horns will be. Something like Maul’s horns might fit, barely, inside a typical helmet, but would be impractical for repeated donning/removal. I’m not sure a removable faceplate would be sufficient; you might need to split it in half. That seems to be the way the Twi’leks do it, with a backplate for under the lekku and a front piece that includes the visor, mandibles, cheeks, dome, and possibly the earcaps.

Crazy idea: have you looked at the helmets from the old Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV show? They split in half at about the ears, hinged at the top, and had small clasps near the neck. You could mask the seam with the earcaps and some sort of blast plate or forehead crest.

[trashcanmando]

These are really good ideas and got me thinking, thank you! (And thank you to everybody following and supporting this build! I really appreciate all the kind words!)

I looked into the morphin' power rangers, it gave me a few ideas. I glued the horns on, and just tried some things out. It turns out I can, just barely, get my current helmet on with the horns if I take out a bunch of padding, so a normal sized helmet that allows the face plate to remove should work great! So I drew up some ideas.

Here's the horns for reference, so everybody can see the placement and the size:





As a side note, the only thing I'll be doing to my hair is dying it black. Zabraks can have hair, purple or black, and I know a bald cap would never look good. A majority of the pictures of zabraks on the wookiepedia page actually do have hair!

On to the helmet. Right now I'm thinking traditional mandible style, no rangefinder, because I don't want the weight of it throwing this thing off. It's going to be complicated enough without asymmetrical weight.



I marked out approximately where the horns sit. The plan is to have the bulk of the helmet padded very closely to my head, probably with something like upholstery foam. The goal is to have it padded well enough that it doesn't move at all (with cut outs of the foam for my ears of course). The faceplate should also have pretty precise padding to keep the horns protected.



Here's another view of where I'm thinking the faceplate should split from the rest of the helmet. I toyed around with a split that just goes straight across the dome, but I decided I want the dome to extend farther down my head for security, and I just think it looks better to have the faceplate split at a 45 angle instead of 90.



Then I marked out what I'm thinking on my current helmet. Blue is main helmet, red is faceplate, purple is overlap, and the green is magnets. I thought about trying to recess the magnets into the edge of the cut instead of overlapping, but I tend to be a very active trooper, and the half inch or so gives me just that much more room for the horns. I'm also considering a couple pull down toggle latches (no idea what the name is but that's what google gave me) because I'm not sure I want to trust this entirely to magnets.

As far as practically making the helmet goes, I'm considering a resin cast to use as the bulk of the helmet, cutting out the area I need, and scratch building the faceplate out of primarily 6mm sintra.