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[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

We are working together on our kits, so we decided to post the pics in one thread. Saves space that way. Currently we are gathering parts for armor, and need thoughts and suggestions on the items we have thus far.

Helmets

Delarian




Walon



Possible chest and back armor for Walon.. Could this be used? Let us know if it wouldn't work once we mod it.

With padding still on it




Padding off





Let us know your thoughts.

[Walon Ferrel]

I really like the torso brace because it not only has the support on my back and the spine guard has enough room for any wires (such as my radio, hydration pack and power supply for the lights that may be in my helmet.) However i am up to suggestions. ^_^

Ok, so far i have started by removing the pading on the inside of the helmets, removing the logos, images and the straps. also the helmets will be sanded till they are rough so the paint will stick better.

The next step will be working on the actual torso and the weapons.

[Remo Jadd]

what era are you going for?. if you're going for modern era i doubt you'd get away with that armour , but you could possibly use it as a starting point for crusader armour.

[Walon Ferrel]

thats what i was afraid of, back to the drawing board on the torso, yes i am planning on a modern era armour. Thank you for the advice i would have hated to finish the armour and find out that it wouldn't wouldn't work. If i may ask what was the problem with it?

[Remo Jadd]

basically what you want to aim for is the boba fett and jango fett look. if you take a good look at their armour you'll see they are all seperate pieces on a flak vest. now what you have there, as good an idea for an armour base that it is, wouldn't work. but it would work as a base for an early crusader type without to much modification.

[Walon Ferrel]

I knew the front would be trouble, i am planning on going with a rubbermaid tote armour, The design for my armour is heavy on armour without sacificing too much.

[Sarsk]

If you can find a local supplier, I'd go with sintra because it's pretty cheap and a lot easier to work with than a tote. I've heard horror stories about working with that stuff. If you are worried about doing it cheaply, you can get a good set of sintra already cut out for a decent price.

Sorry, but this is a hobby that tends not to be very cheap. Not saying it's impossible, but certain items can be hard to do for cheap.

[Walon Ferrel]

Price is a factor yes, but we still have some time before the next event and a birthday party we are planning.

[Sarsk]

Take your time and do it right.

[Walon Ferrel]

Yes that is our top priority we want our armour to be the best it can for our first kit once we have trooped for a while and get a feel for it then i am going to start working on my second kit.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Another problem for Walon is that he is not average sized. So getting one that is from a vacform might not work for him unless its custom, and then it gets alot more pricey. Luckily we got that piece rather cheap, so it won't hurt us on costs. I am probably going to buy at least my chest pieces since I know my skill isn't good enough to make the shape needed for female armor.

Will post some pics of the soft parts we have so far a little bit later. Off to work for now.

EDIT: Was just browsing another thread and got an idea sparked. Would Walon be able to use the brace as a start for a Legacy Era Heavy Mando? They have alot of coverage and aren't the Fett style armor. If not, could someone please let us know what about it doesn't work? That way we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Just so all know since he didn't post it, Walon is going for Heavy Armor.

Brandi

[Hondo Karr]

The brace COULD be made too work. We've seen stranger things. It COULD work for Fett or Legacy style plates but, it would honestly be best for Late or early Crusader style armor.

As far as plates, the templates are realistically made for people who have Jeremy Bulloch's or Temuera Morrisons builds to scale by template size. Almost everyone has to alter them some to make them fit right. I created the Legacy templates which were later scanned in by Raltho Valmas. The 1:1 scale is for me, I'm 6'06" 280lbs. However, they can easily be scaled down or up easily. Because the armor design on the Legacy plates, Ive found they work for darn near every body type. They are much more firgure friendly than Fett style plates.

The key is to print templates, be they Fett or Legacy style, scale them to fit and alter at all if need to get them fit right. Then cut your own plates from your armoring material. That's the only way to get a really accurate fit. anything precut/shaped at purchased may not always fit.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

We're hoping to go to the armor party that our clan is having next month to get some tips and learn a few things. I feel I should maybe clarify that we weren't thinking of using that for the only front armor. The brace would be ab plate and back plate. Or if we can only use the back then the back. We had planned on making the chest pieces and have them attached to the vest. Maybe even building the vest based on the brace to make it look one piece or something. We are going to be printing the templates out today and cutting them out on some posterboard to get an idea of shape and fit. We'll post pics once we have them.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Sorry for the double post, but I have more pictures.

These are the boots I am working on. I have had them for awhile, so I know they are very comfy and as an added bonus, they are already beat up from nearly 6 years of wear! I plan on adding pieces of black leather over the areas that I had to remove decals and stuff, giving them a patch work repaired look.






Here they are after I removed the extra stuff.



Here is my youngest supervising


Thoughts on boots? I hope to get some more progress to post soon as these pics are a little old. Unfortunately we haven't had a chance to get anything more done.

[Kebii'tra Verda]

Since they come up so high, you may not need the shin armor, but you could easily attach some to them for the look. If you don't want shin armor, then definitely cover the patchy areas like you said, but you could also think about tool pouches (think Boba) or even leg holster/flares (think Rebel Pilot or Biker Scout). With boots, you have more possibilities.

David.

[Dar'manda]

I would look at attaching the shin armor to the boots.  Makes it easier for putting the armor on and off as it's one less item to strap/connect on.  Honestly, no shin armor only really looks decent if you have knee high boots.  All the other instances of no shins with thighs look pretty strange and unbalanced.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Since they come up so high, you may not need the shin armor, but you could easily attach some to them for the look. If you don't want shin armor, then definitely cover the patchy areas like you said, but you could also think about tool pouches (think Boba) or even leg holster/flares (think Rebel Pilot or Biker Scout). With boots, you have more possibilities.

David.

I hadn't thought of that but its a good idea. A hidden knife holster or something...

I would look at attaching the shin armor to the boots.  Makes it easier for putting the armor on and off as it's one less item to strap/connect on.  Honestly, no shin armor only really looks decent if you have knee high boots.  All the other instances of no shins with thighs look pretty strange and unbalanced.

I could maybe add this with the other possiblity, and have both the armor and a hidden holster or something. I will put them on with my "Flight Suit" and show how high they sit on me.

[Ohl'd Vart]

Best shot....EVER! 

Rob

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Best shot....EVER! 

Rob

Yeah we thought so too. 

Now if only I could have time from work to get stuff done on our kits.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Sorry for the long time between posts all, but Walon and I have finally made some major progress! We went out to Farco Plastics and got a sheet of sintra. And to show a visual reference of Walon's height, here he is holding a 4 foot by 2 foot section of it. Alot can't wrap their heads around him being only 5 foot tall. But this should help show that in reference to something most of us mercs are familiar with.



Here is a single shot of his set that we got cut out today plus a few pieces we already had.



We used Vart's suggestion of small plastic trash can to make the thigh pieces. We actually use the same size thigh pieces because we originally did this for me, then found out that they would fit him as well. This is a pic of mine since it is already sanded, and primed for paint.



Next is his chest piece. We decided to keep it one piece for now. He is doing a Heavy Modern Era armor, so we thought a full piece across the chest would be nice. We are going to do like Becca did and carve the diamond into the center. if that doesn't work out, we can still cut it down to 2 seperate pieces. Also, random bit of trivia, since my printer cord is still packed away somewhere from our recent move, I had to free hand his pieces using my chest pieces as a rough template. Lets just say that its fun trying to translate a curved pieces of plastic into a straight template on paper. Also, I cut this first piece out using an exacto knife. Let me tell you, it is tedious, but the edges won't need quite as much sanding since they are smoother than with the dremel.



Then since I had that nice curve on my poster board that I was making my templates on, I free handed his ab armor using the curve that was already there, and a measurement of the area needing to be covered. End result didn't turn out too bad. This piece and the rest were cut out with the dremel since I didn't want to take up my whole night on only a couple of pieces.



Since I had to redo my colar piece since my 501st buddy cut it too short on the shoulders, I used the old as a basic template for the one I cut out today. This is another piece that Walon and I use the same size on, so I'm only posting the one for both since they are identical.



Now this next is a knee pad that we found and are going to bondo over to create a shoulder bell out of for Walon. We got them in a group with some elbow pads at a local thrift store on one of our many outings. He was originally going to try them as knees since they are prettly plain, but they were too big for him for that, so he just randomly stuck them to his shoulder to see how they fit, and they looked good. They will actually be the bottom layer of a dual layer shoulder bell. So we are deciding what to do for the top part and will be adding bondo to cover the riveted on buttons.



Here is an image of Walon in his duct tape mannequin that we will be using to form his plates to. I stuffed it and everything, so its just waiting to be used, though its a little flimsy feeling in a couple places, so I may need to add more tape.



And last for Walon are the pieces we are going to modify for his gauntlets. He has in his story line for his character's back story about how he came about these.



Here is an updated group shot of my pieces. I have added the thighs, knees, new collar, and primed my gauntlets. I also have shoulder bells cut out, but forgot to put them on the table for the shot.



Here is one of the knee pads to be worked on. These were the elbow pads that came with Walon's knee pads.



And here is a blurry image of my primed gaunt since by this time my hand was tired of holding my cell phone steady to take pictures.



Tomorrow, we will tape pieces to ourselves to post up to show and ask about the sizing for the back plate size. We have a template cut out but we aren't sure if its the right size for Walon or not. Then if we have time, lots of sanding, which he will likely work on while I'm at work.

Critique welcome. We are so happy to finally have some major progress to show. We hope to have our kits official by Dragon-Con. Right now, we are concentrating on minimum required to be official, then we will add to it as we go for Walon since he wants so much. I also have soft parts I've been working on, but nothing ready to show for critique yet since its mostly been tearing things apart for the pieces.

-Brandi

[Ohl'd Vart]

WOW! That's a lot of stuff done, guys....and it's a great start! 

Keep the pics coming....

Rob

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

I have some more pics! Here is what my armor looks like on with my flight suit and a temp vest. (Temp because I accidentally made it too small oops) Also one with a HBF on my head to show the hugeness of it so that I can ask opinion on what sized bucket I should get.





Go ahead and laugh, you know you want to. I was laughing when it was taken.

-Brandi

[Mandalore the Uniter]

Your collar plate is going to need to come up about an inch.  This is probably going to mean your armor will need to be shifted up a bit as well.

[D'Larian Ferrel Verda]

Walon taped it on, so I think it was so he wouldn't tape my neck with it. But we will definitely make sure that it is in the right place when we mount them. The tape wasn't wanting to hold things where they belonged lol.

-Brandi

[Ohl'd Vart]

 

(That's me laughing at that last pic!  )

It looks pretty good so far...Novall has some good tips about moving it up a little; you may want to trap it all together with tape, and then slip it on and see how it fits higher up on your torso. 

Rob