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[ChilledStone]

Hello. Here I will update as I make progress on my Mando, I'm looking to have them done in the next month or so. Im thankfully not starting completely from scratch. I created a Mando for myself previously but I am now looking to have full approval. I will be posting within this board, updates, and thoughts I had while working on this. I will admit I am around 60% finished in my eyes. Most soft parts are completed, and I am mainly working/waiting on armor to be printed/finished
This first photo you are looking at is the first iteration of my Mando.

What you're looking at now is the very start of my ideas to update them and also my later drawn/colored mockups.

[ChilledStone]

Bit of an update. Did a try on my current soft parts.


 I'm actually quite content with the state they are in. I'm planning on adding further weathering in the future (I don't personally want to drag it through the dirt but I will most likely go in with acrylics) to make it seem as if my Mando is specialized in jungle environments. Green/brown knees or wear of plants on the soft parts come to mind.

I would like to take a moment to express how happy I am with the decorative stitching.



It's from just under a year ago, and I feel like it still looks well enough that I don't want to redo and makes me happy of where I was in my craft/skill then.

Food for thought does anyone have any experience in adding fake water drops to their armor? I'm tempted to try and give my shin pieces weathering emulative of that to add to the humid, wet, sorta climate idea.

Note. I do not have a belt as I'm completely redesigning it from the ground up. I found a leather pattern for a Bo Katan style belt and I want to adhere to that solidly, but add more places for clips to add some modularity. I wanted to have both pouches and side holster but unfortunately I have only so much space to use lol.
If anyone has any experience using the Brassroots leather Bo Katan pattern I'd love to hear your thoughts! I will also be looking through different topics to see if anyone else has there.

[ChilledStone]

Adding onto this I've gotten some work done on the hard armor pieces, Namely the shins and chest plate.

I have one shin I would consider "fully" done and weathered. I love my choice in adding the water texture, I feel like when executed well it can add some fun story and weathering opportunities. I did it to show that my Mando is not afraid to work in hostile climates, namely jungles and wet climates. Maybe I was just working on my armor when a call came in or something similar to that.

With the other shin I ran into a pretty significant error with and I need to fix that before I continue with that piece (and I was so close to finished on it )

On top of that I have fully painted and weathered my chest plate, it's now just missing the iron heart. This is an upgrade to my older style of chest plate as it fits better and brings in the lighter green color from my old helmet while trying to stay close to my original design.

(There are some things I can see being issues but I'd rather wait and have them pointed out than make sweeping judgments on something that in theory could be rather miniscule overall.)

I am using Pla as my base for my armor as 3d printing the most convenient and time effective for me. Printing something before I go to work and having it finished by the time I get back puts my mind at ease,( other than the potential doom of coming back to a mass of filament) 

Next though as far as armor I have the hand plates and gauntlets, which I'm working on filling and sanding. And the shoulders are either printed or currently printing. I have yet to print my helmet because the size and amount of filament it will take makes me nervous. And my last soft parts (other than leatherwork) are my shins which I'm currently working on.

[Kal Kalikir]

Looking great!! The paintjob on the armor looks super professional, like it could be in Mando! What paints did you use? I'm looking for good matte paints to use on my build. Can't wait to see more progress on this!

[ChilledStone]

Looking great!! The paintjob on the armor looks super professional, like it could be in Mando! What paints did you use? I'm looking for good matte paints to use on my build. Can't wait to see more progress on this!

Howdy! Thank you so much for the compliment! i really appreciate it! I used Rust-oleum brand spray paint! I had to use various different gloss levels (the dark green is glossy, light green is satin, and the white was flat) as my local hardware store didn't have every option in every gloss style. The main thing i did was make sure to clear coat my base once it had completely 100% dried with a flat/matte clear coat. I used Valspar project perfect top coat in flat. I loved using this product when i could, the nozzle broke on me unfortunately after the shins, so I used what i had on hand for the chest piece which was Rust-oleum painters touch in clear matte. I will warn i havent found a way to seal any silver spray paint while maintaining the metalic look. It usually just comes off as grey. Ill usually go over it with either a metallic acrylic paint or mask everything else off and respray it.

[ChilledStone]

more updates!



finally got my thigh pieces and gauntlets all finished up as well as my spats, i was putting off those for forever. im very happy to have them all ready to go. I decided to go with velcro for my fastening's as of right now(ignore the tape in that picture i was just trying stuff on lol). I would like to update them to something stronger eventually But sorting the pros and cons of each attachment method is tedious on the best days.

 Im currently working on fixing that one shin piece, i have gotten it repaired and am working on painting it. Getting it to match a style of weathering i did at the start of this journey has been a little bit of a pain but im working on it. In the meantime im 3d printing my helmet. I have found that printing it in the four pieces individually vs trying to fit them together leads to less failures of my prints so i should have it all printed in another 2 or 3 days. From there i have the shoulder bells, backplate, and hand plates as my last armor pieces. From there im going to work on my leather belt and figure out where to go from there. My progress may be slow but its progress and for that i am thankful.