Forum > Body Armor
First Beskar'gam WIP - EVA foam build! (pic heavy)
Swift:
Yes, yes, I am quite aware that foam is not an officially sanctioned material here, but to be honest I started on this long before I encountered all you lovely mercs :D In reality this is just a pet project of mine; I do plan to develop a kit eligible for membership eventually, but for now I aim to make this set of armour as amazing as I can ^_^
So, a little background first(those just interested in my WIP may skip this part, I tend to ramble :P ): I started my costuming on the 405th, with a MJOLNIR Mark VI Scout pepakura/fiberglass/body filler build. I haven't actually got around to finishing that yet, due to a combination of time constraints, lack of resources/money and frustration with my own abilities. I intend to complete a Halo suit one day, but that's currently by the wayside.
Anyways, once I finished high school last year I was all for getting back in to my costuming! But I was a little fed up with my Halo armour, and as I've been a hardcore Star Wars fan since I was, well, born, Beskar'gam was by far an optimum choice for me. I also wished to try my hand at different build techniques: All I had worked with thus far had been fiberglass, which gets quite messy.
So I decided to finally trying out a foam build! Eventually I stumbled across this wonderful community, and learnt that a friend I had made at uni was a member :D
tl;dr: Want to try new armour methods, in this case foam
Anyhow, on to the good stuff! As I said before I started work on this before I came across you guys, so this first post will be covering the last month or so of intermittent work, somewhat chronologically.
LE BEGINNING
I started with the helmet, which is, indeed, fiberglass. This is proving much more annoying then I had hoped for... I sort of rushed the fiberglass matting, and so it is not as structurally sound as I would have liked. I'll be getting back to that once the majority of my armour is done.
Then, about a month later I started on the actual armour! Initially with the torso...
Unfortunately, cutting out EVA matting leaves the edges none too smooth...
So (once moulded) I heat the edges up to JUST melting point, then smooth them down with a straight piece of metal:
The edges aren't exactly perfect, but they look much better.
To seal the pieces I use five or so layers of a 1:1 mixture of PVA glue and water.
The consistency of which is akin to that of milk
And here's my chest pieces with the initial coating of glue mixture:
Aaaand the chest pieces fully sealed:
It's important to make sure the pieces are fully moulded before you seal them, as otherwise any alterations you try to make will result in fault lines in the paint.
Aaaaand with three or so layers of aluminium paint:
I intend for this to simply be an underlayer... in my final kit. For now it's going to be the only colour I have, until I can work out a colour scheme/design that I'm happy with.
I then went to work o nthe shoulders! Which turned out... less than satisfactory.
The raised areas were made by cutting out those rectangles (after meticulous planning) and then raising them up and gluing them in. Unfortunately, due to them being bent (and my melting of the sides) they proved to be too small and the gaps are quite obvious.
I intend to rebuild them, but I haven't quite worked out how yet.
So I moved on and cobbled the cod piece together. I'm not sure who it was, but the segmented design is based off a build saw on this site. I liked it a lot, so I've decided to give it a go ^_^
Next in line was the knees. Unlike my other pieces, these aren't much different from the canon movie armours, but they do, of course, have some variation. All in all, I'm quite happy with how they turned out, but I'm really not a fan of cutting curves from foam...
These are already painted, I just haven't got around to photographing them yet ^_^'
Swift:
Okay, so, I decided to leave that first post there as I wasn't sure if there was some form of picture limit...
Anywho, moving on!
My soft parts! :D
Coveralls, gloves and boots:
I intend to get different boots, eventually ,and probably different coloured gloves. Those are rather low on my priority list at the moment though.
Aaaaaand, my vest!
I may post a full tutorial on this in the soft builds forum, as I scoured that entire section for inspiration and tutorials, I think it could do with more xD
Anyway, sparing you (most of) the boring details, spotlight was havign a sail on, so I picked up 2.37m of this here fabric, which I quite like the look of! I cut up an old shirt and traced around it with chalk, adding an inch for a hem:
Here I got lazy after realising the velvet backing took rather well to hot glue:
Then I did the same with the back, only adding more along the spaces I wanted to overlap for a velcro connection:
I'm thinkign of maybe making it lace up at a later date, but for now this will do ^_^ Thoughts?
The shoulders of the vest didn't turn out quite how I liked them:
Does anyone have any suggestions for how I should attach them to the vest? The problem I see is that it overlaps the back and front pieces, and I can't really sew them together...
Where I am now!
Tonight I did two things: 1)Cut out the back armour...
I initially wanted three sets of plates, but that proved to be too long D:
2) And got the initial fittings of the chest pieces to the vest!! :D
Obviously, there is a lot here that needs fixing: I need to reposition the centre piece so it sits with equal spacing, and I definitely don't like how the collar piece sits. I may need to make a whole new one.
Anyway, that's it so far.... Anyone got any thoughts, pointers, queries? I'd love to hear what you guys think :D
Hondo Karr:
just going to advise you now, EVA foam is on the banned materials list. The armor cannot be approved for club use if built from EVA foam.
Swift:
Ah, thank you for pointing that out :) I realised it wasn't on the official materials list, but not that it was outright banned...
Still, I'm going to press on with this for now. Once I'm done with the foam I intend to remake the entire thing from Sintra :)
Slade Kel (Marrok):
No reason not to go on with it as a practice piece, so to speak. I've started more than one kit as a full-on cardboard build, then sintra, then into steel and aluminum. The 'practice' set lets you work out any kinks in the design. I like where you're going with it so far, though personally I'd rather see this done as a late-era crusader rather than modern. It might make the cut with the App team, but it deviates enough from the standard design that it doesn't really look like a modern kit to me. So far, the only change needed from your base design would be to alter the helmet.
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