Darth Brute's Revan Build Thread - Finished

[Guest Sol]

Yeah looking forward to seeing how you did the elastic strapping. What did you use to secure all the strapping? And how worried should a noob be about replacing all of this?

[DarthBrute]

Yeah looking forward to seeing how you did the elastic strapping. What did you use to secure all the strapping? And how worried should a noob be about replacing all of this?

 

Ok. I will take some pictures of that and post them. It really isn't hard. Use plastic epoxy to secure the snaps. Be sure to scratch the hell out of the snaps with some 60-80 grit sandpaper before using epoxy. I like to use the two part epoxy and draw parallel lines with both parts and mix it as I need to so I can take my time. Worried? Nah, I am a complete noob to this myself. You just got to know what you want and how you feel about your armor. You will get out of it exactly what you put into it.

 

When I first started my build I had a certain way I wanted to do it. But that changed with almost every test wear. I would see other costumes and how they were built and held together and change my mind.

 

Without further ado, my final build post....

 

For whatever reason my phone has decided to stop uploading my pictures to my picasa albums.

 

Anyway....This was after placing the elastic strap on the cowl and adding on new elastic strapping for the cuirass and the back plate. This makes it harder for me to put it on by myself as it makes it seem like the straps are shorter. In reality they are but since they stretch it makes it a tighter fit and I won't have to make it a point to stand up super straight to keep everything in place.

 

Here are the new fitting photos:

This one was before the new straps. You can see the old straps.

 

Ok this was after the new straps. I moved the straps further from where they were. Now you can't even really tell where the straps are. The straps now rest just past the shoulder joint instead of between the joint and the end of the collar bone. And since the armor is light, there really is no difference in weight bearing.

 

And this is just a back view after the strap was done on the cowl.

 

And my shirts. One winter and one summer. It cost me friggin' $20 a piece to get done.

Outside: A good straight bead going all the way across. Well one of them is almost straight. It kind of dips on the right side. D'oh!

 

Inside - She used my idea of wrapping the parachute cord with cloth. She also cut open the shirt and sewed the bead so the stitching would be hidden. She also sewed the end of the cloth so it would not come unraveled.

 

And a couple of views with it on.

 

I decided to wait on the boots this past week getting done because I wasn't sure of the color he was showing me in the picture. I went to the store to pick up my stuff and it didn't look bad. So I am going to get that done after this weekend. But I am going to go ahead and call Revan done.

 

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, Darth Revan is finished. Months of working on this getting things just right and fitting right. Feels good man.

 

So after tomorrow's troop I will be taking some pictures for LFL and then this week I will be submitting for Legion Approval.

 

Time to finish working on the TKC!! My work is never done.....

 

 

Build photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/101841473479732427661/albums/5807139823014000289

 

Event Photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/101841473479732427661/albums/5853514574074093313

[Guest Sol]

Congrats, man. Glad you're feeling satisfied with your kit. It looks fantastic, loads better than just the standard kit (not at all to knock the craftsmanship. But it being more form fitting and more photogenic with everything held in place just makes it golden). It's been a huuuuuuuuge inspiration seeing your build go--definitely going to pick up the torch and try to do the same.

 

That shirt piping looks really good. Where'd you get the parachute cord for it? I looked around for piping and couldn't really find anything that was raised that wasn't a weird pattern.

[DarthBrute]

The parachute cord I just picked up at a craft store. That is where I picked up 95% of everything I used. The other 5% was ordered online or a hardware store. LOL

 

Replace the velcro that comes with Rob's with industrial strength velcro. Get that at Lowes. 1/2" elastic strapping and 1" elastic strapping. 5/8" snaps

 

I will watch over your thread and help you out when you ask. Glad my build will help you out along the way. And I will post those pictures as soon as I can.

[DarthBrute]

Trooping update. The armor is definitely a little harder to put on. But it moves well and stays put. The cowl parts over the shoulders ride up a little and just need a quick tug by a handler but they stay put. No more full tuck ins after 20 min. Nope that new strapping I put in is awesome.

 

The shirt does come untucked and due to the elastic the armor rides up. Those two things are probably related. Not a big deal really. A 2-3 hour troop it will be fine. Any longer and I am just gonna have to step off to the side and do some pulling. I am going to drop the big circle down some more as it does ride up. I am also going to glue leather to the inside of the greeblies so it doesn't wear on the paint job for the cuirass.

 

Pictures from the troop and armor are coming! I promise!

[DarthBrute]

Alright first up are those mods I posted about.

 

This is the back plate with the new straps and strap position. I left some room at the bottom to extend them out in the future.

 

Ok here you can see the wider strap length. I did this so the wider straps will help pull a little more down flattening the cape more. Works well too.

 

Here you can see the "sew scar" from the other straps. I just cut them off and sewed on the new ones. You can also see the new placement of the new straps.

 

Now on to the meat and potatoes!

 

This is Phase 1 of 2 of upgrading the rings on the side and extending the straps.

 

=======================

Ok I have needed to extend the strap down so I thought I would provide people a way of doing that. What you will need is Silver Leather, Acetone, permanent marker, optional small bowl, and E6000 Glue (medium consistency). If you go with pleather than this tutorial WILL NOT I repeat will not work for you as the acetone can dissolve the pleather. Do not use Acetone on fake leather. DO NOT USE ACETONE ON FAKE LEATHER. Did I get my point across? LOL

 

Ok this is the leather after cutting it. My measurements were estimated. By my pictures I figured I would need an extra two inches to get the big O ring where it would need to be. If it needs to be shorter than I can always make it shorter. I will be doing a test fit before doing the final bonding of the straps.

 

Ok I didn't take a side by side of the old straps with the post colored one. You are going to want to do this quickly. That way the marker doesn't have all the time in the world to dry. Poor a little acetone in a (metal) bowl and have a square of paper towel ready and folded up. Take the marker and make some marks width wise on the leather. Now get your paper towel and dip wipe the inside of your bowl soaking up the little bit of acetone and wipe the leather back and forth. The surface you do this on will need to be acetone safe and will get smeared with marker. This will create that aged metal look on the leather. The more marker you use, the darker it will be.

 

Allow the leather to completely dry from the acetone. Now fold the edges towards the center and crease it with your finger. This will be very temporary but it will help. Using a stick or something spread the E6000 glue evenly down the center of the leather. Fold the edges inward and press together. I took the old straps from the back plate and placed those over the seam where the glue might come through. I then piled books on top of them to get them completely flat. Now you will want to take the books off after a couple of hours so the glue can dry properly.

 

This is the O ring with the old rings attached. Also, as you can see the tiny foam pieces Rob glued on have pretty much fallen off. So in order to make a more permanent solution I peeled back the seam with the old ring and took that off. Placed the new ring and used Epoxy to glue that back down.

 

Then I took 3 pieces of leather that fit inside each of the greeblies and epoxied those together. Then I used epoxy to secure that over the old seam and placeing the leather beyond the threshold of the greeblies. Now only the leather will rub against cuirass!

 

New ring on the O Ring/Greeblie

 

And this is the new ring placed on the cuirass.

 

Now someone asked before but I didn't have the brand. But these are the ones I have used on the bottom and for the side.

[Guest Sol]

Awesome, definitely post up some pics once you everything's all dried and you can do a test fitting. I thought the O ring always looked just a bit too high but that could just be me being overly nit picky. Totally jumping back about five updates here, but did you ever decide on what you wanted to do to keep the red flap down? I know you had mentioned that it liked to billow everywhere and were considering ways of keeping it in place.

[DarthBrute]

Ah yes the red flap. I will be using velcro. I actually sewed that on the wrong side so I I have to fix it. LOL Standby for that.

[DarthBrute]

The big O ring shall henceforth be known as BOR. Thank you. Now back to your regularly scheduled mod already in progress.

 

Ok ladies and gents I will not promise this will be my last modding post. But I am thinking it will be my last mod post before approval.

 

Phase 2 of 2 of the side rings and strap extension.

 

Ok first off I just want to show a POV picture of the greeblies with the leather glued inside. The greeblies no longer rub on the armor. The leather will probably wear down the paint too but at a MUCH slower rate.

 

Ok I was kind of a moron for not taking a picture of this. But I used E6000 to glue sew-on velcro to the reverse side of the straps. I cut two pieces of the hook side about 3/4" long and glued that at the end. Next I cut two loop side straps about 2 1/2" long and glued those about 1" away from the hook side.

 

I left that to dry overnight. **YAWN** Goodnight

 

Ahhh Good Morning! Ok. back to work. I then looped the newly created straps through the rings connected to the BOR. Then I used epoxy to secure them. TA DA!

 

Ok now that those have set. Time test out this puppy! I asked my favorite costume helper (my wife) to make sure I got all connected properly. Then coached her through on what to do next. Looped the new straps through the rings connected to the cuirass and secured using the velcro. It took a tad bit of adjustment but I think it works really well and the new straps look great!!!

 

Front view

 

Right Side

 

Left Side

 

And for giggles here is a view of the back side. My wife says it's my best side.

 

Now these new straps will be great for packing up too. I can remove the straps pack up and go. It will also prove to be good for making minor adjustments for centering the BOR. I just need to pinch the left side of the butt belt in the BOR so it matches the right side. meh. Quick fix.

 

So all of my rings have been updated. The ring is lower like it should be. All is right with the world.

 

Till we meet again! Huzzah!

[Guest Sol]

Wow yeah those new straps turned out awesome. The weathering you did with the acetone blends right in. Looks way better with the new rings in, too. Those things just have to go. Hats off to you, man. Your kit has turned out really well. Out of curiosity, what length are the replacement straps? I really like the position of your BOR--sits lower where it should be.

[DarthBrute]

The original straps were 5" so I made mine 7. That way I had a good sliding scale to adjust. I practiced on my scrap leather with the marker and acetone. I tried a really small piece first to see if the leather would react in any way.

 

I am actually considering putting together a Revan upgrade kit to sell that would include leather, snaps, elastic, rings, etc.

[DarthTagion]

I did some pondering to try and help you out with your shoulder cape needing to be adjusted. I made a change a while back and I take it for granted some times.

 

Funny enough, Rob actually has it in his instructions slip, but the use of safety pins is really pretty hard when you're trying to suit up quickly, velcro and snaps all the way.

 

In his initial setup, Rob has two strips on each of the rifle-butt spots on the armor. Normally you'd pin the caplet to these but I don't think anyone honestly does, it's ridiculously hard to reach in there with the armor on.

 

Instead, I put velcro patches in there, and used the corner spots of the seams on the hood as a guide of where to put them. It has worked well for about a half dozen troops now and since then I've never had to re-adjust mid troop and I did a con this past weekend.

 

Using your shot, the green represents the strip from Rob, the red is the velcro I added and it's really pretty great. Hope that helps. It should still work with your added elastic. **Note use the sew-on velcro, not the sticky back kind, those are only good for 2-3 troops before becoming useless**

 

[DarthBrute]

....................

[DarthBrute]

Well here they are:

 

My Revan Submission photos!!

https://plus.google.com/photos/101841473479732427661/albums/5865748645727615345

[Guest Sol]

Woooo!!! Nice work, man. That all turned out awesome. All the adjustments really made your kit look perfect. And for the record, I approve of 'Revaning'. We should make that a thing. I'd say good luck on your app, but you aren't gonna need it lol. Congrats man.

[DarthBrute]

Thanks man. Still going to keep my fingers crossed.

[DarthBrute]

Well we did a photoshoot yesterday for LFL. I'm not posting those pictures until we decide which pictures we are sending in. But after looking at those pictures and then my submission pictures I noticed that my red drape hangs a little high.

 

 

I did have it wrapped around the bar and safety pinned to keep it attached. So that was taking a couple of inches off of its length.

 

So I took it apart. sewed velcro to the outside of it, folded it in and sealed the velcro. This created a nice stiff background for me to glue. Now the black pleather sewed on the back I kept off of the velcro. (Again sorry for not taking a ton of photos.) So with the top of the red drape folded inward I have the black pleather folded on the other side of the bar. I put E6000 all the way across the bar and then placed the red drape over it placed more E6000 on the other side of the bar for the pleather folded that over and clamped.

 

Now seeing as Picasa is acting a fool again. I am setting up an ftp server via my phone to upload to my webserver. I am going to install Zen Photo to my server just because it is easy for people to use.

 

So no pictures for a while until this is all straightened out.

[DarthTagion]

Congrats on the approval!

 

The LMO pointed out the sash issue you already noticed and also said the hood should be closer to the eyes.

 

Welcome to the Detachment!

[DarthBrute]

Thanks. It was a lot of work.

[DarthBrute]

 

Darth Revan is a bad man and I got coal. Not sure why.....

[Ketchup]

Hahahaha, I love it.

 

It's amazing how many little improvements can go such a long way with this kit. I was talking to a guy at a con we did last month who wants to do a Revan with this kit, so I will definitely be pointing him to this thread.

[DarthBrute]

Thanks for the props! I tried to provide the best detail as possible. Since the slow season is upon us for trooping I will be doing some improvements on it as well as fixing a couple of cracks.

[Ketchup]

No problem! I need to get back on the horse, trooping takes up a lot more time than I realize. Lol.

[DarthTagion]

+1 for cracks, I have two!

[thedutchfab]

Did you have your cape and hood separated from eachother? Aren't they sewed together?