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[Vailin Flynn]

Hi everyone,

Here's my Pre-vis thread for Vailin Flynn; my first Mando kit. I'm planning out a desert hued light armor set, which should go nicely with the arid sauna that is Central Florida 

Here's the color scheme


My first sketch:

As you can see, there's not a whole lot of innovation here. I've been looking at modern tactical webbing as an inspiration for weapons holsters and equipment pouches, but i'm a little wary of the whole thing looking like a SW themed airsoft outfit.

And here's the kit during my first troop with the BVC.


UPDATE: Here's the kit in its current form. Photo taken at a troop in Miami.


Currently, I'm experimenting with sintra and i've managed to fabricate a few weapons, and random armor pieces with it. Next, i'll be sizing up my armor templates to make sure they'll fit properly. Anyone have a good way of doing that, btw?

Forgive the rambling, I should be well asleep by now.

[Jorad Werde]

Starting simple is the best way to go.  There are some great looking and extensive kits out there, but if this is your first mando, go simple, you'll learn a lot and by the 'end' of it you'll be more than ready to expand and upgrade and start on another kit and realize your bank account is empty and you can't afford to eat this week and......woops sorry, went on a bit of tangent there.

[mobcake]

you'll be more than ready to expand and upgrade and start on another kit and realize your bank account is empty and you can't afford to eat this week

 

 

Next, i'll be sizing up my armor templates to make sure they'll fit properly. Anyone have a good way of doing that, btw?

But as for the sizing the way that I went about it was to print out templates that correlated with your size (5'7" for me), and then trim them from there as you see fit. If the template is too small, make sure that you leave the entire template on the sheet of paper (don't cut it out), and draw around the template while keeping the distance from your drawing to the template consistent throughout the entire process. If the template is too big, do the same thing just one the inside of the template. That's how I sized up my thigh plates and I was pretty happy with it. Make sure to take or put little bits off or on at a time so you don't do too much.

[Vailin Flynn]

A bit of an update.

After sizing my armor plates up, I decided to pin them to a t-shirt to see where I was at. I think they're looking pretty good, but I thought I'd get everyone's input in case i'm suffering from delusions of grandeur.


The mutt was a constant source of curiosity and interference.


I kept the left side of the collar piece longer than the right in case it wasn't long enought. I'm thinking the right side is fine as is.


Looking at the pics again, the last two look like the chest armor pieces are a little wonky, but I'm fairly certain that the shirt was riding up a bit.

Again, this was purely to see if the sizing turned out correct. I'm aware the spacing is a little off in some areas, the diamond is missing, and the dog needs her nails trimmed.

So, what do ya'll think? Is it safe to continue with sintra?

[mobcake]

The chest pieces seem a bit wide, vod. You might want to make those a bit thinner so they don't bunch up when you put your arms directly in front of you (as if you're holding something away from you)

[Jorad Werde]

Indeed, the chest pieces need about a quarter inch taken off the outsides (make sure the collar plate ends up corrisponding to this also) and the spaceing between the chest and collar plate could be narrowed by about 1/4 of an inch too.

[Briks]

I would recommend more dog.

[Vailin Flynn]

Indeed, the chest pieces need about a quarter inch taken off the outsides (make sure the collar plate ends up corrisponding to this also) and the spaceing between the chest and collar plate could be narrowed by about 1/4 of an inch too.

The chest pieces seem a bit wide, vod. You might want to make those a bit thinner so they don't bunch up when you put your arms directly in front of you (as if you're holding something away from you)

Thanks for the input vod(s?). Would it be better to resize the template, or would a blanket shave off the curernt one suffice.

I would recommend more dog.

Done.

[Mavik]

With everything else looking good for the templates I would try taking a bit off the outside edge first.    

[Briks]

Done.

Yes! 

[Vailin Flynn]

I picked up my flight suit at a surplus store this morning, so I'd thought I'd give you a quick update on my progress:

I've shaved 1/4" off the outside edge of the chest and collar plates


I still think I need to shave a little more off the collar plate.


And the spacing is a little off, that should be alleviated once my vest is completed.


The flight suit is surprisingly comfortable, but needs a lot of work.

[Jorad Werde]

plate sizing looks good, I'd take about another 1/4 off the top portions of the ab plate and I agree with your collar plate note. 

[Ralin Voth]

What Jorad said about the ab plate, and I'll add to make the bottom corners of the collar line up with the top corners of the chest plates. Do those, and I think you'll have the sizing right!

[Vailin Flynn]

Little update:
My wife is assisting me with sewing up the flak vest, and while that's going on I decided to run a few paint tests on some scrapped plates that I had lying around.


This is the color i'm most likely to be using for the majority of my armor plates. I used some 600 sandpaper along the edges to reveal the metallic coat underneath, then brushed the whole plate with 00 steel wool to tarnish the color. Problem is, it didn't seem to stick.


The other side of the plate was a dual experiment, I wanted to test out the shade of green for the shoulder bells, as well as try a few different techniques for brushing on liquid latex for weathering purposes. As you can see, some worked...some, not so much.

As for the color, I'm not sold on it.  I'm thinking a little lighter than this would work better. 

[mobcake]

I like the weathering around the edges, although I can't get around the random circle in the middle as well as the other sort of island of weathering. I do understand that you're most likely going to redo that, though. Just as of now it doesn't look exactly natural. Unless you're going for a small blaster shot on circle. I think a bit of black-washing would also give it a nice touch