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[Kotir Ze'dral]

Su'cuy! The time has finally come that I can start working on my armor plates. My helmet thread can be found here, and my soft parts here.

I'm going for a modern style kit, and I used the wizardofflight Jango templates for the base of everything. I modified just about everything, but they were a great base to work off of. Here are two of my initial designs, one of which is just some sketching I did while in class. I have yet to figure out the full colour scheme, so the drawing is still unfinished for now.



Straight off the printer I knew the chest plates were too big. I had the idea that they were too wide but the right length, and I wasn't sure how to make them more narrow while maintaining the right length and proportions. Just chopping off the sides or squeezing it in digitally wouldnt work, because then those bits that extend down would be too narrow. After puzzling at this for a while myself, I got some help at an AP by an OM who figured it out, and cut out some new templates. We also changed the collar plate to match the collar of the vest better.



I had to wait a few weeks for sintra to come back in stock, so I started on making cardboard tests of all of my templates. The shoulders, shins, and cod I drafted myself, using the Jango pattern as mostly a sizing reference. I don't have pictures of most of the cardboard, so I'll just post what I do have.





I haven't done much work on the lower half yet, so this post is going to be mostly about the top. Here are all of my templates, ready to go!


I ordered one 3mm and one 6mm sheet of sintra, with the idea that my kit will be a mix of both sizes. I like the look of 6mm chest plates, but thinking that 3mm will work better for other parts and trauma details. I ordered from jpplus and was lucky that it arrived the night before another AP! I completely forgot to take any pictures while there, but I got everything cut out with the help of a ruus'alor. I'd never used a power multi-tool before, so there was a lot of learning on that day. Regardless, everything was cut out and ready to be sanded by the end of it. The chest is all 6mm, and the shoulders 3mm (in this picture they're 6mm before I realised I wasn't a fan of that, and I switched them over to 3mm for the later parts. I also lost one of the chevrons so it's missing here)


Here's a better look at the shoulders. I figured the layering with the thinner sintra would look better.


I sanded everything down with a power sander (and goggles, and respirator, and ear protection), which sped things right along as I was too nervous to cut super close to the lines the first time around. After everything was in the right shape, I rounded off the edges by hand with some 120 grit. I went back over the bevel with 400 to smooth it out after I took this picture.


I did the same for the 3mm parts, and here is everything as it sits now. I'm not confident enough to try my hand at shaping the plates yet, so I'm holding off on that until I can get some assistance. Plus, if anything needs trimming I'd rather do that while it's flat as much as possible. I might shape the shoulders as I'm pretty confident those are okay, but I'm not sure yet.


Thanks for reading, and I'll see ya back here later!

[Reilic Tralem]

Absolutely LOVE it!

[Second Son]

Looking good so far. Keep it up vod.

[Koteb Cabur]

Looks nice so far, small advice if i may, wet sand the other parts, you do not have to wear a mask that way, its less messy and the parts get super smooth

[Kotir Ze'dral]

Absolutely LOVE it!

Looking good so far. Keep it up vod.

Thanks to you both (:

Looks nice so far, small advice if i may, wet sand the other parts, you do not have to wear a mask that way, its less messy and the parts get super smooth

The mask was mostly because I was power sanding down around 1/2 inch down, which I'm going to try to avoid having to do for the next pieces I cut out. I will keep the wet sanding in mind to smooth everything out though, thank you!

[Kotir Ze'dral]

This is going to be a very picture heavy post, so buckle down and get ready to scroll.

All of my plates so far are shaped, wahoo! I started on the shoulders, so here's a look at those. I used a cardboard tube given to me by another UM to get them evenly shaped, which just happened to be the perfect size. I shaped the base part first, and then used that big piece as the mold for the smaller bits on top. Once I felt everything was fairly uniform and the gaps were as minimised as I could make them by heating and shaping, I super glued everything together and ended up here.




I then filled in all of the gaps with bondo and did my final sanding pass and a layer of primer to get it ready for painting. I was very pleased with how it came out looking as one solid piece



I started on my merry way painting but to keep it simple, the paint got terribly messed up and I had to strip it off and start over. I thought it would be a matter of sanding it off but that was absolutely not working out for me, so I resorted to scraping it off with a blade. That left me back at the start and having to wait for another day warm enough to paint on. This stage looked kind of cool, though.


The paint that I'm using splatters terribly and I haven't found a way to stop it, but I have found a way to fix it. A quick wet sand before the clear coat fixes it right up (this is before the sanding)


The paint came up with the tape on a few spots, but much less than it had on my helmet. I'm slowly figuring out how to prevent that, but I did find ways to fix this as well. My painting process is the same as it was on my helmet (silver, mask damage, main colour, mask damage again, secondary colours) and I think it is because the grey does not stick to the silver. This time around I painted the two right after each other in the hopes that it would help them bond better and I believe that it did help, but not as much as I'd hoped.

Painting back over doesn't do much good and I didn't much feel like stripping off the red and redoing it as I did with that one grey side, so I filled in the messed up spots (which had gotten worse after I'd taped off the white) with bondo so you would not see the outline of the rip and sanded them down smooth, then used a paintbrush to paint on the spray paint. I then wet sanded that, and it all seemed to blend in pretty okay. After the clear coat and weathering it's likely something only I would see, or something that could be chalked up to battle damage or weathering if someone did happen to notice.


Oh yeah, I also filled in two of the damage spots that I just was not pleased with.

Here are the shoulders before (right) and after (left) the acrylic wash for weathering. Black/brown paint thinned with water brushed on and taken back off with a paper towel. The chipping was done with liquid latex/masking fluid.


And here's finished. The lighting is a bit weird here but they are in fact the same colour in person.


After the shoulders I moved on to the shins, which started off as this:


A bit of shaping, bondo, and general fixing up, and we get to here:



I made only one as a test and when it worked out, I started on the second. I was very pleased with how I was able to get them shaped almost identically! I ran out of grey paint, so these are both just sitting as silver at the moment.


After another AP yesterday I got my chest plates shaped. I was holding off so I could make sure I did it right the first time, I had the general idea of what to do but I wanted some in person advice so I'd hopefully avoid having to do any major adjusting.
Here's the notes from a ruus that I used to get the two chest plates all shaped up.


Here's everything laid out on the ground, and the vest marked up with approximate placements so I can get the velcro on next. No pictures of me with the plates on yet, I'll post those up when I've got the velcro attached so I don't have to tape it all on.



I also acquired a back plate from the extras bin at the AP, which I'm excited about. I had planned to work on a sintra backplate while I was there, but this printed one fits perfectly. It even lines up near perfect with the stitching on the back of my vest. Huge thanks to whoever provided this, and whoever had started the sanding.


That's all for now, thanks for checking in!

[Kotir Ze'dral]

Another loong update incoming. They're giving me a notice that this hasn't been updated in at least 30 days, who knew I could get so much done since then!

First order of business was starting on my knees. I figured they would be simple enough and I was mostly right. I figured out the template myself, so here's a progression of that.


I ended up with these as my final plates. I believe I trimmed off the bottom a bit after the initial cutout.


They cracked a bit while shaping, whoops. I just filled it in with bondo and made it look like battle damage. I am a bit worried about the stability of these though, but they were simple enough to make that replacing them wouldn't be the end of the world.


Hugely not a fan of this silver paint I'm using, absolutely nothing sticks to it. I'm going to have to get a different brand or something because dang, this is annoying.


They turned out good enough after a few coats and some weathering, though.



For now I'm using an elastic/snap/velcro combo to hold them in place, but I might switch this out later. If it's a problem for approval I'll be glad to change it but if not, I also have no problem leaving it as it is.


(That little tail bit got folded over and sewn neatly, I just don't have any pictures of it.)

And that's that for knees


I got to painting the shins but again, the tape kept ripping off the paint which wouldn't stick. I ended up stripping these entirely and now they're looking pretty spiffy. These were the last plates that I bothered to use that silver undercoat on because I just couldn't take another round of fixing ripped paint.


I'll be attaching these with some leather straps and likely velcro as well for security.

And at long last, the chest and ab plates. I abandoned the silver and just did a flat grey primer underneath, and used a silver paint to fill in the damage. The primer and main grey look very similar here but I assure you, they are different.



Here is a before and after of the primer and then the silver paint added in. There were no problems with paint ripping at all here, finally. I wish I'd figured out this idea sooner  I was using rustoleum metallic silver, if anyone's got a good rec for metallic paint other than that I would welcome it!



Oh yeah, on the center chest piece I drew out a rectangle and then used a screwdriver to press into the heated sintra to give it a nice indent. I think it turned out nice! You can see it in the other photos how it has that etching or whatever you would call it.


I got the backplate all bondo'd, sanded, filled, and painted.



Once everything was painted, I got to work on fitting it to the vest.
Originally both sides near the fangs of the chest plates were sticking out like this, but I got them both settled down into the better fit indicated by the arrow



I then sewed velcro for ages and ages by hand to the vest. I tried to find some non sticky-back for the loop side but Joann's was out so I just accepted my fate. I did sew a majority of it outdoors at an ap though, and I believe that the cold made it much less sticky and therefore a lot easier to sew. Yeah I was cold during it but, you win some you lose some. Everything still needs to be dirtied up but at least it's all attached together now!


I gave up on the codplate mostly because I didn't feel like painting more. I will probably finish it someday but I changed tracks and started on an armored loincloth. This took me all of 30 minutes to make and just needs some red trim and weathering added to the plates.


Here's a quick try-on of the lower parts before I added that fourth plate.


And here's my first try-on of all of the upper parts. I haven't yet had the chance to put it all together, but hopefully soon I will!


My remaining checklist as of right now is...
- gauntlets
- weather soft parts
- acrylic wash plates
- blaster/weapon
- waist accessories (pouches, holsters...)

Maybe I'll update again before the new year so I don't present another wall of text. But then again, maybe not.
Thanks for scrolling through!

[trashcanmando]

Gorgeous work so far! Really moving fast! I love a good sintra build with nice depth, those shoulders are particularly nice. Great work. I might have just missed it, where is your flight suit from?

[Karson Wren]

That concept's great, it reminds me of Clan Vizsla in star wars rebels.


Also I love you're aurabesh notes and youre whole star wars set up 

[Kotir Ze'dral]

Gorgeous work so far! Really moving fast! I love a good sintra build with nice depth, those shoulders are particularly nice. Great work. I might have just missed it, where is your flight suit from?

Thank you so much! I didn't realise how fast I was going until I saw how little I have left. As for the flight suit, I made it myself! It's a pattern from Elenya Frost that was on her facebook. The vest I also made, but that pattern was one I did on my own.

That concept's great, it reminds me of Clan Vizsla in star wars rebels.

Also I love you're aurabesh notes and youre whole star wars set up 

I totally didn't remember Clan Viizsla looking like that, but you're right! Maybe I subconsciously pulled from them bahaha. I wrote those notes in class and figured out that if I do it in aurebesh it will take up way more time (a good thing when you're trying speed up time during a lecture)

[Vercopaanir]

I am loving it!      The colors and shapes appeal to me greatly.   

Keep up the good work!

[Kotir Ze'dral]

I am loving it!      The colors and shapes appeal to me greatly.   

Keep up the good work!

Thank you! I think it was you that inspired the chevrons on my shoulders! 

Woah, I definitely fell behind in updating this thread. I did a great job of keeping up with my clan specific thread, but not this detailed one. This is going to be short(ish).. maybe... just for my own peace of mind of knowing it's done, because the first phase of this kit is done! Updates to come of course, but it's been approved! Just waiting for the forum to update with that spiffy OM badge 

There wasn't a lot of crazy work done after this, I believe it was just the gauntlets when it comes to armor construction. That, and attachments for the shins.

The gauntlets were 3D printed, so finishing them was a matter of sanding, filling, and painting. Pretty standard, nothing special if you're familiar with that process. I considered scratch building them but I really enjoy the look of these death watch style ones, so that's what I went for.






test fit!

They are held together with elastic as a hinge on one side, and elastic as a stretch opening on the other. The padding is some leftover upholstery foam from a project my family did.


My shins are held on with leather spur straps threaded through leather loops glued inside. It seems to work for now but has yet to be tested with excessive walking and movement. Likely I will add a secondary attachment or strap loop on my half chaps to make sure they are really stuck on there.

Here they are good and dirtied up


That's about all I've got to say on the subject of armor construction. This kit is approved as of March 6 2023, so I guess I didn't do such a bad job on all this! Here's my pre-app and final app pictures. Note that a change was made to the elastic under-boot strap of the half chaps (replaced with leather) for CRL compliance.

Pre-app with temporary half chaps and no shins:






And here are my final app pictures:






If you are interested at all in reading more about the other parts of my kit, you can do so here for soft parts and here for an overview

[Bowfanny]

Looking fabulous Vod!
You have a lot of amazing wip photos here!
Would you mind if Ed team used your wip to help produce some training materials!?

[Kotir Ze'dral]

Looking fabulous Vod!
You have a lot of amazing wip photos here!
Would you mind if Ed team used your wip to help produce some training materials!?

Thank you, and I don't mind at all!