taniel
Message Board Member
Posts: 4
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Post by taniel on Sept 13, 2010 17:56:27 GMT -5
Fantastic!! Am waiting patiently for Generic Jedi in armour to be clearable in the UK Garrison! At the moment it still isnt! The moment it is, I'm so there - lol
Where did you get your armour from? it looks amazing! Love it!
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Post by Kryy Jacobi on Sept 13, 2010 19:16:22 GMT -5
Thank you both for your kind words. Kelvin, it was so good to see you at C-V! To answer questions: 1.) It is Defyitall's Anakin set. I bought it as a "raw cast" and finished it myself using his instructions plus a few "experimental" procedures"... the the neck seal is made from a bungee cord... I heat-shaped the armor pretty severely, rolling it tight to fit my narrower girl-shoulders better, and I also cut it down a bit. Finishing it myself was also better for my pocketbook. 2.) I drafted the pattern from the tunic using a wrap dress pattern as a go-by, but modifying it heavily. It is made from a double layer of heavy cotton, almost like a brushed twill... this technique is called underlining. (See articles on "Threads Magazine" website.) I did this so the tunic (esp. the skirt) would hang well and not bunch up or wrinkle and also to smooth out my silhouette to look more like the the animated style. The Obi-Wan tabard/apron in the front has drapery weights in the hem so it will hang properly when I do an action pose as well as when I return to a standing position.... otherwise I would always be fiddling with it... most un-cool and un-Jedi. 3.) The undertunic is an Old Navy LS t-shirt I found at Goodwill... it has kind of a "sueded sheen" to it that was kind of interesting. 4.) The bracers are archery arm guards that I stained. The liners are black gloves from a bridal/formal shop... I cut off the hands and hemmed. 5.) The gloves are slip on leather and nylon ladies' weight training gloves. The nylon part was a pretty loud yellow but I colored that part black with acrylic paint to match the leather. 6.) The obi is a cheap ladies' suede sash-type belt, again from the bridal/formal place, with the buckle cut off. It closes with velcro... tight like a corset ... and it sits nice and flat under my utility belt. 7.) The khakis and boots and utility belt are just my regular kit. 8.) It is RL-approved as "informal" since it is a custom and not a face character. I am actually using it for the back of my trading card which is in the group now in production. I do have a bunch of "progress pics" which I need to sort and crop and post once I can get some decent home desk time ... it's just been a busy year with WMSI, C-V, a family wedding, an out-of town wedding, a husband in grad school, several unexpected home maintenance and repair issues and being short staffed at work. (in other words, our good friend "Darth Real Life"... LOL) But in the meantime, if I can answer any questions or post a specific pic or two (which would be quicker than the whole set) please let me know. Helping others is one of my favorite aspects of this hobby. Again, thanks for the kind words.
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Post by Xana on Sept 17, 2010 22:39:29 GMT -5
You really do look great! Very nice costume. It looks like you jumped off the screen.
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Post by Kryy Jacobi on Nov 26, 2010 22:47:02 GMT -5
Thanks, Xana! I've had a bit of unexpected desk time this evening... husband got called into work as we were about to go out .... so here's a start on the pics. This is the raw cast of the shoulders... the Anakin "clamshells"... laying on a piece of dropcloth in my driveway ready to start this project. Pic taken 2/14/10. [My thoughts at the time: What have a I gotten myself into??? I've never done anything like this and I have only 6 weeks to get this costume ready to troop!?!"Thank the Maker" for Chris's very helpful instructions that came with the armor. ] The left shows the outside with the gel coat and the right is the inside. The first step is trimming the fiberglass with a Dremel cutting wheel and smoothing the edges with various grits of Dremel sanding drums. It had been a while since I had used a Dremel, so I didn't use enough pressure at first (took FOREVER) and then as I got more confident, I got a little TOO confident... oops!! Thank heavens for Bondo. BTW, when working with fiberglass, eye protection and the respirator mask are a MUST!
Also, I needed a much BIGGER drop cloth... the cutoff wheel wasn't so bad, but the sanding wheel threw white dust everywhere! It was a lot like sheet rock dust, and I wound up wearing paper painter coveralls over my clothes... it was too nasty for even my "painting" sweats.
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Post by Kryy Jacobi on Nov 26, 2010 23:45:58 GMT -5
I am probably going to be guilty of a lot of double-posting in this thread, so I'm going to go ahead and "ask forgiveness". I don't have interim pictures of working on the chest piece, but it also had to be trimmed of the excess fiberglass and the edges sanded to a uniform thickness. Here it is in my kitchen the evening after I finished raw trimming and heat-shaping (see #2 below): You can see to the lower left one of my "over-confident sanding" moments... A few other comments: 1.) This is resting on my "hard-bodied clone" LOL, that is, my duct tape mannequin. I think it is a MUST to have one of these for doing the Clone Wars costume, since the armor itself and the tunic are so fitted. I put an old T-shirt over my "clone" because the next finishing steps were going to get MESSY. 2.) After trimming (I don't have any pics of this) I used a heat gun and rolled up the shoulders A LOT. (I practically laid on it on the kitchen island to get it to roll up that tight.) I did this several times to test fit to my "clone" and then ran the warm armor under cold water to "set" it. This was a lot of trial-and-error but once I got it reasonably fitted and the two sides even, I stopped. Didn't want to take my chances.. LOL You know, when I originally ordered this, I was thinking I would be heat-shaping to accommodate a woman's chest. That did not turn out to be the issue... it was the shoulders front-to-back that were so much narrower. 3.) You can see a shoulder pad resting under the armor. Due to my *extreme* heat-shaping, the outer gel coat cracked a bit and I knew I would have to reinforce the whole chest piece.... plus I didn't want it to "relax" in a nice warm car on the way to a troop... or to C-V in Florida in August! LOL I was considering using the shoulder pads to help build up the underneath before adding Bondo, but I went another route. (More later. ) 4.) This is an Obi-Wan style squarish neck opening.... I am going to fill it in to make the rounder Anakin-style opening with the lower neck ring. 5.) I also am going to trim the armor to make it narrower side-to-side on my girl-shoulders... thus the black lines. Anakin's armor is also different from Obi's in that it "swoops up" from the corners a bit more and it has more defined "pagodas" on the outer shoulders. On both, the outer strip in slightly narrower than the next one in adjacent to the shoulder, but Anakin's seems to be narrower by comparison. I used several of the kid's books for references, but my favorite reference pic for the Anakin chest armor is the "Ultimate Battles" Visual Guide, pg.49. (Anakin and the Gundark )
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Post by Ani-Chay Pinn on Nov 28, 2010 20:50:42 GMT -5
Still looks like you have a bit of work to do, but it's still looking good. I have a duct tape dummy, too. Very handy for a lot of costumes.
Did you see the new character styles that they're using on the Clone Wars now? Looks like Anakin and Obi-Wan are wearing a little less armor, I think. and Ahsoka is very different.
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Post by Jedimom/Cor-Al Gelkar on Nov 29, 2010 20:23:16 GMT -5
The timeline in The Clone Wars is really all over the place!
In the latest episode, Ahsoka has grown more and they are nearing Episode Three, so the animators are trying to match the costumes more to what we see in the movie. I am glad they took Ahsoka out of the miniskirt at least.
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Post by Kryy Jacobi on Dec 16, 2010 23:16:27 GMT -5
Yes, I like the new models. They are definitely moving toward the Episode 3 "look" and Ahsoka is growing up. So now I am falling out of fashion.... LOL But I had the privilege of wearing the costume to the Clone Wars promotion last week in Atlanta. General Kenobi and I were commenting about how you can't lift your arms very well ... to do a cool overhead parry pose, for example.... and one of the clones said, "Welcome to life in armor!" More pics coming in future days... just takes a while to prepare them.
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