Darth Nihilus - KOTOR II build

[TI25674]

A while back I decided to start a Nihilus "build". Now I say build, but its 98% a Wicked Armor v2, but its a character I've always loved and I can't sew a straight line to save my life. At this point its been completed and submitted by our GML. I didn't really have any problem along the way since I didn't do the work. I only had to fit and get the chest padding right. 

 

The skirt and cape were about 4 inches too long. It was easy enough to fix that. 

 

The chest padding - I read through the builds I kind find, but none really went into detail as to type of foam or strapping (if that's the method of choice). I reached out to someone here (I forgot your forum name) but the suggestion was EVA foam. The other suggesting I got was to use fusible interlacing fabric. It comes in varying degrees of "weight", some stiffer than others, and it basically irons on the other fabric. The basic principal here is to cut it to shape and iron it on the inside. 

 

I was worried about the latter in that it may not come out right and now its fused to the fabric. I dug out the roll of EVA foam I had and got to work. I measured my chest from should to shoulder across the front, and from the top of the collar bone to me belly button. I knew it was going to be too big but I could always cut it off. 

 

Next I drew the shape I wanted and through holding it up to my chest, adjusting the cuts, rinse and repeat until it looks right. Something I did pickup from a build thread here was to bevel the edges a bit. It definitely helped the overall look once it was all together. 

I don't have any photos of this process but I do of the finished piece. 

 

 

When I did the strapping I had to look up how to secure it to EVA. The straps are elastic, I attached some webbing to the back of the soft velcro, then glued that to the EVA foam with E6000. Then I attached the hard velcro to the elastics ends. SO the end product has an elastic strap that goes around my back, and one goes around my neck. 

 

 

So the final result, im not sure what that darker spot is on my left breast area. But its not there now

 

 

 

So again, this is the KOTOR II Nihilus from Wicked Armor (v2). I think I waited about 2 1/2 months for it. 

[TI25674]

Just an addition I worked on while waiting for the robes to arrive. I built a sound glove to use with it. I consider this to be the prototype version until I can get it smaller. The voice amp is rather small to begin with, its a 10 watt. The sound board, micro buttons, and 9v battery holder were all ordered from 123 Electronics. The board part # is FN-BC04. I found a tutorial on Youtube for this. The sound bytes I found on Youtube as well and just recorded them with Audacity and saved as .wav. There is another board with the buttons soldered on but there isn't any support for Windows 8/10/11 or newer versions of MacOS. I had it working, albeit buggy, under Debian Linux. So I bit the bullet and got the set up. 

 

I have a Zoom Multistomp MS-50G guitar pedal I may use in the future so I'm not limited to just 4 sound bytes. But I'd have to hide that and the voice amp. With this costume not having any armor pieces it could prove challenging. 

 

Youtube glove tutorial: 

 

 

 

 

[darth cipher]

I have a similar setup that I posted in this forum just last week. I did end up using just the mumbled audio clips since Nihilus didn't really speak that clearly (but I highly considered using it though because the audio was so well done). Make sure to use a wrap for the wires to keep them nice and clean. I also ended using a beefier amp, 30W and it holds up well. But I have to wait to get the costume and see how it will fit under the cloak. It's small enough that I think it will be ok. Looking good so far! 

[TI25674]

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. I will find a way to use the Zoom pedal lol