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[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first Armour Planning/WIP thread.

I'm retroactively posting this as I'm a fair ways under construction, but my armour is intended to be using the modern era guidelines and will eventually reach towards the heavy class of armour. That's my aim at least. I've been using the Jango Fett Templates from the forum as my method for carving out the base of the armour.

This is a rough image out from the mando-maker program using the colors I originally painted my first attempt at a kit with. Patterns weren't included because I was too lazy to import them from my photoshop model designs to the design tool. The official colour cards were Blizzard Fog, Midnight Bayou, Cracked Pepper, and a old gold metallic for the metal. Paint scheme will be slightly different this time around. Colors will stay the same but the tints and composition will change.

Now I know I've gone about this retroactively, or so it may seem according to the fact that I have few forum posts and yet have a fair few pieces of armor under construction but I planned this armour out in advance using the forums as a guide and attending an armor party before beginning construction. I'll get myself sorted soon though and get this thread caught up with images and details.

Here are some 3d screenshots of varying angles (click the photos to zoom) of my SL Force-Sensitive Mandalorian who also happens to be a Sentinel Jedi Master. I am most certainly not going to be trying to cross this over here. I'm actually very keen on the idea of a force hunter brigade mandalorian instead....I often found myself roleplaying and fighting with everything but my lightsabers except for last resort so... 

Anyway this art is what I am going to be strongly basing my kit design off of and in some areas, improving. And before you lambaste me, in my defense, I did this long before considering being a merc and besides it being unique to that particular role-play simulation, most SL mandalorians I've come across are osik'la di'kut's. Notice I said most...in case any of you happen to be one. 




Close up of chest apparatus:
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Some shots with Buy'ce (sans attachments) on:
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Requirement List:

Helmet:

• Assassin Buc'ye Refurbishment: http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=107679.0

Armor:

• Chest Armour: Layered Standard Design with Amber Fettronic Light Board. Attached to flak vest using the bolting method. Under painting refurbishment. Chest diamond scrapped - to be replaced. Lower Neck guard to be retrofitted to Mk. II in preparation for development into decapitation guard; time permitting.
  
• Cod Armour: I'm pretty proud of how this turned out. I nearly died laughing and my mate kept punching me in the arm (where I didn't have armour...yet.  ) to get the grin off my face when I passed someone in a more sparsely populated area of dragoncon and they exclaimed; I kid you not. "That guy must be hug like an elephant!" 8) This piece is currently in the process of refurbishment and will be upgraded to Mk II for the approval shot with layering and bolting.
• Back Plate: Basic armour plate is constructed (nothing fancy), shaped to regs and in the process of paint refurbishment.
• Shoulder Armour: Armour plate is constructed. Debating replacement and reconstruction.
• Thigh Plates: Basic shape constructed, properly shaped, and stripped. Remaining actions include refurbishing to bulkier Mk II with layering and bolting scheme.

• Boot Armor: Basic shape constructed and shaped. Remaining actions include refurbishing to bulkier Mk II build with additions in mind.

• Shin, Knee, Armour is constructed and shaped to minimum regs. In process of refurbishment. Remaining actions include knee repair, knee dart reconstruction, and stripping remaining paint off it and prepping for repaint to match updated scheme. Will remain in Mk I configuration for approval. After approval Mk II "Schnees" and heavier boot plating with layering and bolting will be constructed.

Gauntlets:

• Under significant refurbishment. Will be considered Mk II upon completion. I'm honestly scared of this section. Progress tracker: TBD

Softparts:

• Flak Vest: Requisitioned and Modified Xtreme Riding Vest - Black. Needs appropriate level of cleaning.
• Flight Suit: Black Military Flight Suit Acquired - Type One Piece: Flight suit was replaced; old one destroyed.
• Groin Armour Mounting: Hatch Centurion Riot Armour - black for thigh plate mounts and second belt. Needs gentle cleaning.
• Kama: Scrapped the original Kama. It was cut and put together haphazardly and turned out terrible. Under reconstruction.
• Belt: Under massive refurbishment. Proper girth belt under construction for integration with utility and electronics belt.
• Armor Strapping - Massive overhaul planned for less destructive and more secure armour mounting in accordance with approval regulations.
• Boots: Black -Shin High- Combat Boots. Needs Cleaning.

Weapon:

• My weapon needs plenty of attention to get it where I want it to be and where it will pass. It's currently a nerf gun spray painted black and the logos sanded off. I found I need to take off the triangles and fill in the manufacturers holes to make it pass muster. That is in addition to the plans I have to make it acceptably far enough away from the stock to where only those that really are experienced with nerf guns and their modification will be able to easily tell what it used to be.

As always constructive criticism and feed back is appreciated![/list]

[Kalo_Kloudwalker]

This looks pretty! I can't wait to see actual pictures!

[Havelock]

I'll second that.  And no worries on the retroactive post. It's all good, vod.

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Ask and you shall receive ner vode.  In fact this post will be pretty picture heavy.

My method has been pretty simple so far. I use the Jango templates, tape and cut them using an x-acto blade over scavenged cardboard, and then place that cardboard on expanded pvc boards to be traced and cut. I could not readily get sintra cheap in my local area and those shipping prices online were atrocious. So I ended up doing a lot of research across the boards to figure out other methods and brands that people use and the way I could get the best price.

Ultimately I ended up cold-calling a couple of larger plastics manufacturers who couldn't or wouldn't help me until I found one that redirected me to a local heavy sign shop hidden way back in the corner of an industrial office park that you wouldn't ever know it existed. I ended up having a toss-up choice between two materials, komatex and celtec.

Thankfully they were patient with me when I grilled them and they took me to the back of the warehouse for me to inspect and make my purchase. Ultimately I chose celtec and it has been wonderful to work with plus extremely cheap when you consider the size of the boards I got, 3mm and 6mm both. I barely managed to fit them in my truck, haha. Something I wish I had taken a photo of.

These are two images of the method I use for cutting armour templates.





Here's one of my poor mutilated boxes after having been subjected to the template process.



Here's a fun trivia fact as I post these next images, about 85-90% of the tools you might see me using, I never used nor touched before this project in my life. 

Preprep for the largest cutting operation of the project. I had to cut those boards in half to cut them properly.


My first cut and use of power tools! xD




And the final pieces in prefab stage! This isn't everything as I'm in the middle of cutting more for the armor.


I'll have more to post soon, I'm still compiling photos. While that's going on, I'm going to update my initial post with a WIP list and later when I get the chance, on my desktop I have some texture models to upload to the first post that I did for a program where I texture'd a mandalorian in photoshop and later uploaded on modified mesh models that I put together from various resources. Which is partly what I'm basing my armour off of, especially with all the effort I put into that look in the first place.

[Havelock]

This is great, vod.  I'm glad to see you're off to such a great start.  And I'm in the same boat as you regarding tools.  Before I bought one, I'd never so much as touched a dremel.  Now it's my favorite thing ever!     Looking forward to seeing this come together.

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Thank you, vod! I agree my dremel is the best, though I wish I had one other than the 3000 as well. That jigsaw makes you lose feeling though after a while till you build up tolerance to it. 

So, I was browsing through a couple of other areas and saw someone get set back on spacing. While I'm not worried about my spacing, I am a little concerned by the oddness of my body type. The templates I've been using size fine but it's easy for me to forget that collarbone is a little more prominent and steeper than some of the things I've seen others wear.

Here's the armour plates for the chest. I messed up the cut for the boba light, but I'm going to compensate with a bio look to the chest where I get either a 6mm, which I think might be a little thick but easier to get the effect of an upper half chest piece sloping down into the lower plate on both the left and right, or possibly 3mm which will probably be subtler and I'm afraid will be difficult to get the effect I want.




Here is the flak vest all prepped for bolting that I have. It's a XS-S...can't get much smaller >_<



And here are them combined. I haven't prepared the bio layer, but I'm in the middle of that right now.

[Kavryn Falco]

Looking pretty good so far!  Can we get a pic of you wearing it so we can give you advice on the fit?

[Mercy]

Yep, that is an excellent look. Definitely lets see you wearing it before you start painting in case it needs trimmed.

Where did you get the vest? I love the look.

[Omega]

Looking fantastic so far.  I hope the Naast fashion police jump in too. The plates and spacing look great. However,  what are you thinking of doing to hide the zipper?

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Thanks for the input vode! So to answer a couple of questions, the zipper is hidden at least in the middle by a velcro strip for the diamond. Beneath the ab plate is belts/kama, etc...I've already done a quick preview of that and the lower vest won't be visible at all. so anything south of the ab plate is nixed. The rest of the zippers I'm looking at velcro/cloth patches. I have some pleather to patch up with if nessecary. Hopfully I don't have hide the seam, because closed it's rigid and doesn't show the zipper. Though that determination isn't up to me. 

The vest is Xtremegear to answer your question, it's a motorcycle riding vest and I shopped to find the best one I could off sale. Off sale it's about $80-110 depending on size and season, I managed to get it for about $47. 

The upper plate and lower plate are both primed so sorry about that, this is retroactive, haha. I'm not afraid to grind some to fix if necessary though.

Also, I'm terrible at selfies. Just so you know I don't do this for just anyone 

[Havelock]

How's your mobility?  'Cause it looks a tiny bit wide, but I'm not the expert at that.  The spacing looks great.  The angles of the ab plates and chest plates match up nicely, so good job on that.  The main thing I'm seeing is that your collar plate is way low.  It should be sitting to where it's almost choking you.  So everything else needs to come up, too.  Overall, though, looks really good.

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

I'm not having any real issues with mobility that I've found. The collar is what I was concerned about, however I have a long neck and tall shoulders. When I place my helmet on it sits low enough that the proportions seem fine. Because of the method of attachment it's very difficult to adjust, however that doesn't mean I don't have a few ideas to counter how it sits, at least to be ready in time for dragoncon, which I have already put a lot of funds towards >_< xD

1) Backplate, if I position the back plate correctly it forces the fabric up closer to my neck.

2) Layered Plating, I have actually considered adding a plate to the underside of the front neck plate to go over my steep and annoying shoulders to the underside of the backplate, which would also force the fabric up and closer to my neck.

3)Shoulder Pauldren, this would work well with my build since it emphasizes the shoulder and would conceal the neck.

My upper body is weird, each plate was placed specifically over the body area it should be covering and that's how the above ended up happening since I kept the spacing consistent throughout. If I adjusted completely for my body all things constant there would be a massive gap between the chest plates and the neck plate which would just look awkward.

[Havelock]

Not having gotten to this stage yet, myself, I can only imagine how much you have to shift things around, millimeter by millimeter to get things placed juuuuuust right.  I'm sure you'll get it knocked out, though.

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Really? I thought you were on your third kit? Maybe I misunderstood your thread, haha. The problem for me is I can't shift it around millimeter by millimeter, I'd love too, and in hindsight Velcro would have worked a little better than bolts I think, but I love the security of the bolts and way it sits.

I had to use a drill bit to get into that vest and that went poorly in some cases though it turned out alright in the end. I don't have the time before convention to put that kind of cash into a new vest which is why I've come up with the alternative solutions I listed.

I'm hoping one of those will suffice since it is at the base of my neck. The vest is very form fitting being right about at my size, it's not baggy or anything. As it is I have to slip on the vest to get it on, no zippers allowed, and I can just fit my head through it and shimmy into it and that's only when I'm not wearing glasses, though it is a close thing. Anything bigger and the vest would be too baggy. So rock and a hard place with my genetics. I believe my solutions are acceptable to code, but I'd have to have an absolute directive on the matter I think...for now that is the procedure I have to work with.

[Havelock]

Really? I thought you were on your third kit? Maybe I misunderstood your thread, haha.

Yeah, my thread title is "...and 3rd ad'ika WIP."  Meaning my third kid.   

[Naakoya Naast]

Looking good vod, it was great to meet you at d*con!

[Yutah]

Holy cow, that came together quick  8)

[Omega]

Holy cow, that came together quick  8)

Pics!

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Thank you vode! It was a pleasure to meet you as well Naakoya, and it was great to finally meet the real Yutah. 

I've got con pics I can post, and plenty to still do to finish getting my armor, and weapons, up and over the hump to be ready for submission. There's definitely going to be some rework, especially to the paint job. I'm going to keep the same design but my twi'lek and I are going to see what we can do to improve the finish and look of the final product. I received a ton of great feedback from everyone.

I got the majority of it con ready by pulling an all-nighter with 20 minute nap shifts alternating with my partner in crime and soldering the electronics for the helmet in the hotel room...  I also put together the kama in the hotel room as well but that is definately going to be redone since I'm not happy with it at all, not how I wanted it to look but it was serviceable for a first attempt and my first con. Now I have the time to take it easier since I have the components and get back to work when I'm done traveling. They've got me going back and forth to Talon territory for the next several weeks.

Below was my first attempt at fitting, it was the first day. It was terrible and I cringe everytime I look at it, lol.


Thankfully I got it together and after wrestling with positioning and placement, which one of the first things I am in the process of implementing a non-quick fix solution for once I get the materials and a new flight suit.





And photobombed by an Alor'ad masqurading as a Jedi.

[Omega]

Why you no official yet? What's keeping this from happening? This kit is awesome. 

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

Thank you vod! Truthfully there is still quite a bit wrong with the kit that won't let it pass approval just yet. I got a lot of feedback at the event.

My first attempt, this kit, was a two week rush job prior to Dragoncon, put together by a few all-nighters. I'm actually beginning all my work now, that way I will have plenty of time prior to the con to have it up to spec. I'd like it to pass approval by late April at the latest; that hinges on cooperative weather though.

This is what I've got drawn up to be done so far based on my own critique and the feedbacks of the Alor'ads and Ruus'alors I ran into at Dragoncon. My ten commandments to approval.

1. I scrapped the Kama. It was cut and put together in the hotel room and turned out terrible. With a little time and fabric I will have a decent one in it's place.

2. The rope around the middle was haphazardly wrapped and tied; I'm working on a proper girth belt which I will attach the Kama to and it will synergize with the main belt.

3. Cod piece is getting a slight overhaul and reinforcement to be more comfortable. I was actually wearing two of them which looked strange but was the only way I could anchor it at the time.

4. Bought a new flight suit. Attachments were mostly velcro and hastily repairing with superglue constantly. Destroyed my old one. I have most of the materials with which to make a much improved system.

5. My gauntlets need work. They were held closed by a combination of velcro, hook and loop screws which kept popping out and at one point literally tied together by a piece of fabric.

6. Helmet Reinforcement and Conversion to Mark II. I have a link to that in my signature. (WIP)

7. Better plate curves and chest diamond replacement. Plates were too flat and have already been rectified to fit the body more appropriately to approval requirements. I under curved them when I first fitted them. I've also fixed my back plate to fit properly to the curves and contours of my back. (Complete except for chest diamond.)

8. Stripping and repainting the whole ensemble to be more professional. I plan to mostly keep the color scheme but I want something more white metallic like I did originally. The closest thing I've seen been accomplished with what I desired is the light silver that I see Vraeden sporting. I'm new to painting so I'm still trying to figure that out.

9. Weapon: My weapon needs plenty of attention to get it where I want it to be and where it will pass. The one I carried at the con was a nerf gun spray painted black and the logos sanded off. I found I need to take off the triangles and fill in the manufacturers holes to make it pass muster. That is in addition to the plans I have to make it acceptably far enough away from the stock to where only those that really are experienced with nerf guns and their modification will be able to easily tell what it used to be.

10. Electronics! Though I have most of what I need everything else really needs to be almost complete to implement. It's also not necessary for approval.

[Naakoya Naast]

Looks like you've got things in order- that paint sounds neat too- looking forward to updates!

[Yutah]

Looks like you've got things in order- that paint sounds neat too- looking forward to updates!

Ditto

[Vhekadla Yustapir]

I know I still have some time before I reach this step however a little planning never hurt anyone. This is a note of the paint composition I am tentatively reaching for in order of application. Opinions are welcome for this painting newbie.

1. Primer Layer: Rustoleum Grey Primer OR Rustoleum Automotive Filler Grey Primer; All purpose primer
2. Second Layer: Rustoleum Flat Black; Natural Weathering -(Ash)- / Carbon Scoring Layer
3. Third Layer: Rustoleum Satin Nickel OR Rustoleum Bright Coat Silver Finish; Beskar Layer
4. Primary Colour: Rustoleum Pearl Mist Metallic (Metallic White); Main Armor Paint
5. Secondary Colour: TBD Shade of undecided blue in the spirit of Valspars Midnight Bayou; Secondary Armor Paint (Auto Paint?)
6. Accent Colours: TBD Shade of black in the spirit of Valspars Cracked Pepper AND TBD form of Old Gold Metallic. (Preferably Model Paint Enamel. Not Spray, Acrylic, or Latex)
7. Sealing: TBD or Necessary?

Note to Self: Girth belt is going to be gold & Electronic Lights/Switches will be mix of white, blue, or yellow/gold/amber. I can't think of any other colours which will complement the scheme. I don't think green or red switches will synergize well and I have too many of those lying about since my father is a Vader. 

[Naakoya Naast]

Sealing/clear coating is a good way to protect your paint, especially from all those bumps at cons or the plates rubbing together.