Atavistic

There are two suppliers that come to mind. There's Saberconcepts (Rhyen Skytracker) http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?11844-Rhyen-Skytracker-s-Darth-Nihilus-custom-sabers/page4 And there's the eBay seller: tattoosby5 This seller is purported to have a bad reputation as a lightsaber seller on other forums. I bought my lightsaber from tattoosby5 and I did receive it, though. I was lucky, it seems. Of these two sellers, the first is the more expensive.

Twin Roses does great work. I'm a repeat customer of theirs. Andrea does amazing things with a costume. The costumes look cool. There are two different ones shown. The first one looks really good. For the second one, I'd recommend more weathering and the width of the obi is dependent upon the width of your belt. For the cloak and hood, you'd have to get her to cut you a large rectangular bit of matched fabric so that it perfectly matches the costume. With Twin Roses it would help to know exactly what you want. That would save a lot of time going back and forth over the details. And I mean knowing every detail of the costume. Andrea does quality work and she will do exactly what you ask for. That includes fabric choice. Want silk? Cotton? Wool? Whatever you want the costume to be made of is what she'll do. And if she can't find the fabric she will give you options. In the end, it's always up to you. You won't be disappointed with a Twin Roses costume but be prepared to pay for it. Andrea's work isn't cheap.

Long before I ever started working on my Nihilus, I started a stormtrooper. It's now nearing completion. Its parts are fully assembled and we're finishing up the strapping at the moment. Next is a bit of painting and that should wrap it up.

I am now an official member of the Terror Australis Garrison! SL-6764 http://www.501st.com/members/displaymember.php?userID=13208&costumeID=106 My sincere thanks to Scottrooper and Twi'lek Pam for their help in getting my costume up to par with their suggestions and observations. Thanks!

As Scott said, your boots don't have a height requirement and the odds are that you'll never see the tops beneath your skirts anyway. You got the basics, though... no buckles, laces, or visible zippers. My boots are pretty high, as well (I wear WWII German jack boots). The simplest way to approach the lightsaber is to skip it. It isn't required for this costume. If you really want to have one, though, it's best to get it as close as possible to the artwork. When it comes time to submit photos of the costume for Legion acceptance, if you have a lightsaber by then, don't put a clip or hook for it on your belt. At least not in the pictures. You can wear a clip any other time but not in those submission photographs.

The amp and speaker ought to be easy enough to hide in all of that fabric but hiding a mic sounds like a challenge. The blackout mask is pretty form-fitting but I think it's doable. The viewer's attention is drawn to the white Nihilus mask anyway so that misdirection ought to help. Putting your speakers in the crown is an interesting idea. They could hide easily enough.

Thank you, Scott That's a reassuring statement, coming from you. I have e-mailed my GML and pictures from this recent set will be the ones used in his submission. With that taken care of, I now wait to see if I'll earn my numbers.

I really wasn't thrilled with that last set of photographs and so my wife and I took new pictures today. This time we managed to avoid that light glare and to try out a new outer tunic. This one has been styled to mimic the COTF artwork by including the gathered fabric in the front of the outer tunic. Let's see how things turned out... To better replicate the outer tunic seen in the COTF artwork my sister in-law made the arm holes larger and added a lot of fabric to the front panels of the tunic. The front panels are pleated at the top seams, which creates the gathers throughout the front of the tunic. The pleats are also sewn into place beneath the obi so that they remain constant all the way towards the bottom of the outer tunic. Like my original outer tunic, this tunic has eyes sewn into the shoulders that accept hooks from the cloak. This keeps the cloak locked securely in position on my shoulders. For these photographs I also used a couple of rare earth magnets to hold the cloak's knot firmly in place. That helped the hood to drape like I wanted it to.

Thank you, Pam.

Alright. I've got a few hastily taken photographs from this afternoon. These pictures show the increased weathering and the remade obi. I stress that these were taken in haste as my wife had to leave. We'll take new photos soon but I wanted our efforts seen, at least. The obi is smaller and everything was positioned lower on my body. Increased weathering My wife was in a hurry to leave and didn't notice the light glare that she was getting. I'm not entirely thrilled with this set of photos but they do reveal the updates we have made to the costume.

Thanks, Pam In the case of Nihilus, I think it's appropriate to say that someone did a great job of destroying their costume. This is one of the few costumes where a bit of destruction is a good thing. Scott, at your suggestion, I have e-mailed my GML and asked him to postpone posting my original pictures. I've explained the costume's improvements to him and have asked him to wait a few days for my new obi to be crafted and for new photos to be taken. Hopefully the re-sized obi will solve the issue of it looking as if it's sitting too high. I'll pay attention when we're making it, though, and I'll make sure that it sits in an appropriate position (at least visually).

I just received word from my GML that my costume is getting put on the Legion boards for review. Despite that, I am redoing the obi and I have added additional weathering to everything. Once the new obi is crafted in a few days I will add new photos to this thread. This will include sitting the obi and belt lower on my torso.

Muchas gracias! I spent a couple of hours out back weathering everything some more. Fortunately, it was easier to add weathering than it was to start it all in the first place. I ran the rips, tears, holes, and abrasions an additional four inches or so up from the bottoms of everything. Now it should be readily apparent once everything is on. My sister in-law will come over on Thursday morning to craft a new obi. That should be easy. Since Scott is concerned with the color difference between my black gabardine and my black gabardine we'll cannibalize one of the ill-fitting original skirts for the obi. It will better match the tunics that way (since the fabric comes from the same bolt). And I'll remember to fit the belt and obi lower on my body. Further weathered outer tunic. Further weathered cloak. Further weathered skirts.

I really appreciate the response. Yes, the skirts and tunics are different fabrics, as in they come from different bolts, but they are all black gabardine. I made sure that I bought the same type of fabric as what the costume was originally made of. The costume's original skirts had minimal fabric to them and there was no way for them to gather. And so I was forced to buy nine additional yards of black gabardine to remake the skirts. So I don't see how that can be changed. The obi is an easy fix. It needs to sit lower? I had it resting right at my natural waistline but I can pull it lower, easily enough. Additional weathering is easy enough to do. I'll spend a few more hours on it.

Alright, let's see the components of this costume. The skirts and pants with weathering. Vintage WWII German jack boots. Inner tunic with quilted sleeves. Outer tunic. Dickey and obi. Belt. Gloves. Close up of the skirt attachments. I haven't included photos of the mask/crown or the lightsaber because they can be seen in detail in my original thread. The core of this costume came from a seller on eBay. I've utilized the included inner tunic, obi, outer tunic, and cloak/hood. The hood was modified to get it to work for my mask and crown. The outer tunic got severely trimmed to a more appropriate length. The skirts are new (the skirts that came with the costume had far too little fabric and I cut one up to complete the hood). The pants are black BDU pants. The gloves came from Leather Mystic and the belt came from Corellian Exports. The mask came from Big_water99 on eBay and the fiberglass crown came from Scottrooper. The lightsaber came from an eBay seller named tattoosby5 (who I have learned has a bad reputation as a seller but I did receive my order). The costume is constructed of black gabardine. This adds some warmth since my costume is mostly synthetic but the warmth hasn't bothered me yet. I added a black dickey between the inner and outer tunics because I didn't like the look of the costume without an inner layer (or at least the appearance of one). For ease of dressing, the dickey is held in position by two snaps between it and the inner tunic. The cloak is held to my shoulders with hook and eye connections atop my shoulders. The balaclave is held in position by snaps connecting it to the inner tunic.

As I said I would in my other thread, this new thread will contain a number of photographs of my COTF Darth Nihilus costume. Let's begin. A good view of the sleeve quilting. A nice shot of the split skirts. I'm surprised that the weathering on the skirts isn't very obvious. Especially considering the hours I put into it. My next post will show the individual parts of the costume, though, and will reveal greater detail. I didn't bother putting the lightsaber blade in as there wouldn't be much to see out in the full daylight. I welcome any and all thoughts, observations, and concerns with my costume and I look forward to your response.

Nothing wrong with using the cat's brush to weather things. I did the same and found it to be my best weathering tool. It abrades the fabric and frays the cloth edges.

There's been more progress today. The obi has been sorted out and the skirts are finished. My outer tunic has been trimmed up a bit to look more like the COTF artwork and that got rid of a lot of the extraneous weathering that the tunic came with. Both skirts have been trimmed up to an appropriate length, hanging just above the floor when I'm wearing my boots. I'll see how the weathering affects the look. I had to re-weather the hem of the outer tunic once it was shortened and I finally hit my weathering stride. I found a degree of weathering that I like and I did the outer tunic and the cloak hem anew. I then moved on to the skirts. There's a lot of bloody fabric in there to weather and I didn't finish it today. I finished weathering the inner skirt and I've finished about half of the outer skirt. I spent over five hours weathering things tonight and so I'll leave the last half of the outer skirt for tomorrow. When I finish the weathering I'll clean things up (stray fibers and cut shreds of fabric). I'll then have to clean myself up again ( I was covered in a layer of black fiber when I called it quits for the night). When tidied up I'll don the costume and we'll take some photos. Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and nice and I want to get the pictures taken while the weather permits. Rain is expected next week. With a good hour or so of work I ought to be able to finish the skirt weathering in the morning. **Micro update: I finished weathering the outer skirt this morning. After brekky my wife and I will tidy it up and get it ready for photos.

Suspenders... that's what I have done. My black pants are a pair of BDU pants with a pretty solid waistband. Both my inner and outer skirts have been sewn directly to my pants. I've added bachelor buttons to the inside of the pant's waistband and I wear the pants with suspenders. The front button of the pants is exposed, providing the space for the inner skirt's split. The outer skirt has a wider split than the inner skirt, making it easier to differentiate between the two skirts. My primary concern with the skirts was that their combined weight would pull the skirts lower than I wanted them to rest, below my natural waistline. And so in order to keep them up in the proper position I've utilized heavy duty suspenders. If the weight of the skirts pulls down a bit it's easy to readjust the suspenders and pull everything back up. I wear suspenders regularly with blue jeans and when my sister in-law suggested sewing the skirts directly to my pants the suspender method seemed like a logical solution for how I would wear my skirts and keep them up where I wanted. My sister in-law is due to come over tomorrow (Friday) to finish the skirts and the obi. If we finish early enough I intend to go out back with my cheese grater, scissors, wire brush, etc. and dive into the weathering. I still think I can have this finished by Saturday though I will be paying close attention to the remaining weathering. I won't rush it but I'm not going to procrastinate doing it. The person I bought the original costume from (custom made for me) started the weathering on the outer tunic, despite my wishes, and did far more than I would have. So now I'm weathering the cloak and the skirts but am trying to find a balance between the excessive weathering of the outer tunic and how I envisioned the weathering to turn out. I may have to weather things more than I want to in order to keep the costume's look consistent. Or I cut some of the outer tunic away to reduce the weathering it has.

My sister in-law accomplished quite a bit yesterday. The inner skirt is done and sewn into place. The outer skirt was pinned fully into place last night. It needs to be tacked in place, which will be done today. Tomorrow my sister in-law will bring the skirts back over here for a final test fitting and then she'll finish them up (shortening the outer skirt to match the length of the inner skirt). She is dissatisfied with the obi that came with my costume and so she intends to remake it as well. To help ensure that the costume lasts, she took my existing inner and outer tunics and she overlocked the seams in the garments. She said that the seams were just waiting to fray and eventually come apart so she took the time to reinforce them all and locked the seams in place. You've got to love it when your sister in-law is a professional seamstress. She's managed to use nine full yards of fabric in my skirts. The outer skirt has a full meter more of fabric than the inner skirt to really create the gathers. The inner skirt is pleated (creating gathers) and the outer skirt is double-pleated to make use of all the remaining fabric left after the inner skirt was crafted. Each skirt has a split in the front and the splits are wide enough for them to be apparent. After our final test-fitting I will be able to weather the skirts. Their lengths have been measured to reach the soles of my feet, and so they will hang just above the ground when I'm wearing my boots. This will give me enough length to weather the bottom of the skirts and still have them hang quite low and close to the ground. Once I've weathered the skirts (I've already weathered the bottom of my cloak) I'll put everything on and my wife will take some photographs of everything put together. Once the pictures are ready I'll start a new thread with the pictures posted in it.

We've made some definite progress today. We finished the hood completely, marked where the Velcro will be sewn on the outer tunic and the obi, have added hook and eyes to the outer tunic and cloak to hold the cloak properly on my shoulders, and we've shortened the cloak so that I'm no longer stepping on it. Over the next two days I'll weather the bottom edge of the cloak. On Wednesday my sister in-law will come over to make my skirts and then I'll weather them. If I don't procrastinate the weathering everything could be finished by next weekend. As I feared, when I wear my HeatGear balaclava under the Nihilus mask there's a small gap between the bottom edge of the balaclava and the top edge of my inner tunic, revealing flesh. To solve this, we've added two small press studs to join the balaclava to the inner tunic when worn. The press studs are clear and sewn on with black thread. Resting between the balaclava and the inner tunic, they are invisible. The press studs have solved the problem of the balaclava riding up and I can move my head without them coming undone.

Great minds think alike My idea was to use rare earth magnets to hold the knot in place. That or a safety pin. We're still debating how to keep the cloak in place on the shoulders. Untouched, the cloak would fall over the upper arms like a Tusken female's shawl. Fortunately, there's enough gathered fabric on the shoulders to hide a connection method (it will vanish within all of the fabric). We're considering Velcro or hook and eye closures to hold the cloak in place on my shoulders. Thank you for the compliment on my cloak. It's reassuring to think that I'm heading in the right direction.

I got my mask from Big_water99 on eBay and my fiberglass crown from Scottrooper. I used epoxy putty to join the two.

Since that last photo we've tidied up the hood a bit and have sorted the cloak's knot (no more tag ends). Let's take a look at our results... I welcome everyone's thoughts, concerns, praises, or criticisms of our efforts. As we worked on this part of the costume we kept a couple of pictures of the COTF Darth Nihilus with us at all times and we referred to them constantly for reference. My wife wasn't thrilled to work on this part of the costume because of the unnatural drape and fall of the fabric. "Fabric doesn't work this way!" she kept saying. Despite the challenge, we've come up with something and I'd appreciate hearing thoughts on this, whether good or bad.

Congratulations!