Starkiller Training Gear WIP

[parker]

I made a Starkiller costume for Dragon Con this year, and I cannot stress this enough, never intended to have it 501st certified while I was working on it. But at the con I was approached and told I should apply, so now I'm going to work on fixing the costume.

 

This is what I wore to the con; I know it's terrible lighting:

 

Here are the armor pieces I made:

 

In good lighting, you can see they're not screen accurate, which is why I'm fixing the costume.

 

Since I made everything myself, I got a ton of questions about how I did it all, so I'm going to post progress shots to this point below for anyone who's interested.

 

The parts I think need reworking are the tunic, belts, gauntlet, armor, and overall weathering of the costume. I'll add new progress shots here as I make corrections.

[parker]

Lightsaber

 

I started with the lightsaber. I sacrificed a $10 Anakin Skywalker Lightsaber for the top end, and made the rest using PVC. The crystal is quartz, and I soldered the LED wiring harness myself. The LEDs are 2 10000mcd 2.1V 20mA, wired in parallel with a 33ohm resistor and powered by a AA size 3.6V 2450mAh Li-Ion battery. Oh, and I used a cell phone clip to hang it from the belts.

 

I'm actually very happy with the lightsaber as-is, and would prefer to leave it alone.

 

[parker]

Belts

 

I ordered leather strips, quick release buckles, and a hole punch tool online. I secured everything with rivets, which was extremely simple and very secure. The leather belts were some of the more expensive parts, but they look pretty awesome.

 

The belts are all the correct thicknesses, but I want to redo the silver clasps in metal, and more things need added to them for accuracy.

 

[parker]

Armor

 

I ordered a 1/4" thick sheet of closed cell PVC for about $15 to use for the armor and gauntlet. I made a template for the shoulders using a paper bag, traced my pattern on the PVC, and cut it out with a utility knife. I used a heat gun to make the plastic pliable, and then created the collar with smaller strips of PVC and Bondo putty. The restraining bolt is actually two dimmer knobs riveted together. Once the armor was the right shape and size, I riveted it all together using leftover leather straps from the belts.

 

I'm going to completely redo the armor from scratch so it's more accurate and fits more comfortably.

 

[parker]

Loincloth

 

I bought a yard of fabric and cut it to the approximate size and shape. I cut slits for damage, burned the edges, and finished weathering with shoe polish.

 

[parker]

Wraps

 

For the wraps, I used Army engineers tape. I dyed them several times using brown and black dye, and finally finished shading them with spray paint.

 

[parker]

Gauntlet

 

I was actually dreading this part the most, because I wasn't sure how to tackle it, but it ended up being one of the highlights of the costume. I started by creating a cuff from PVC. I knew I wanted to backlight the display, so I ended up ordering a roll of LED tape, which worked perfectly. The tape is three red LEDs and a resistor in series, times 100 of those in parallel. It's set up for a 12V input, but I decided to use four of the 3.6V batteries (like I used in the lightsaber), so I had to add an 8ohm resistor to the circuit to compensate. I cut the tape into six inch sections, and soldered them together. I used some packing foam on top to diffuse the lights. I built a rectangular housing for the display, and used Bondo to seal everything together. I was going to cut out the text with a razor blade, but it wasn't as clean as I'd hoped, so I ended up printing a transparency and covering the display with plexiglass.

 

I plan on leaving the display because I like the way it turned out, but I'm going to split the battery pack in two and put half on each side so the gauntlet is approximately the correct shape.

 

[parker]

Today I made clasps for the belts. I originally made them out of plastic, and it's something I've wanted to fix since.

 

Here are the dimensions I came up with. They scale really well because of the belt sizes I originally picked:

 

I cut the base shapes out of some aluminum sheet scrap:

 

Then I filed all the edges clean:

 

I traced lines onto the metal pieces with a pencil, and cut out the final shapes with a hacksaw. I cleaned up the edges again and sanded the faces to give them a brushed metal look:

 

The aluminum should bend easily to wrap around the belts, but still be thick enough not to warp when they're riveted on. As soon as I pick up a sewing awl for the leather, I can start the next part of the belts.

 

Edit: and here's the finished clip/hook:

[en-zozallow]

very nice