Green Ranger Dragon Shield WIP

I was browsing around at a local Walmart when I managed to come across Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Vol 1 and 2. After watching several episodes mostly the ever popular Green With Evil Mini-series, I came remember how important this show was to me and the countless times I wished I was the Green Ranger, admit it even you wanted to be him! Heck The show was important me as a child because I learned the importance of teamwork and the little moral lessons the show had brought along, but Tommy( mainly his actor Jason David Frank) became a childhood hero and icon of mine and I devoted a large portion of my life to studying martial arts, this show changed my life completely.

A few years ago when I met Jason David Frank at a convention, the coolest thing ever occurred, I got to train with the Green Ranger himself! Since then I have been looking around relentlessly to find tutorials and props to make a Dragon Ranger costume.

Unfortunately I had zero luck with that, due to people being extremely rude and managing to get me banned from the site. So its time to wing it!

First I would like to share with you the reference pics I am using to draw up my patterns and then elaborate on the patterns themselves so if someone wants to do this too they can.
The first picture is a classic 3 sided view of the character, it gives me a good idea what the fished item will look like when worn.

The Second picture is a compilation of shots associated with the Dragon Shield throughout the series or off of boxes that have the character printed on it.

The Third is just a frontal shot of the shield and what I am comparing the final product to.

Later I should be able to make a post with some updates of the pattern and some of the measurements I used.

First I would like to go over the materials that I plan to use in this build. This is a budget build and a prototype so I hope to learn more as I build this.
Posterboard 4 sheets
Tape measure
Pencils and a black marker
Scissors
straight edge ruler
EVA foam 1/4in thickness and 1/2in thickness
Hot glue
Spray-on adhesive
Strechy gold cloth
Black Paint
A zipper for the back
More to come as I go...

As promised here are some of the first progress shots of the armor.

The first shot is the diamonds that make up the center of the armor, I found that making this part first was important since it sets the scale for the rest of the armor. From what I can see the diamond should span from the center of the collar bone down just past the solar plexus, for me this was roughly an 8x10 central measurement, the inner diamond is simply brought in about 1mm to provide the outer lining of the larger diamond. This is illustrated in picture the 2nd picture.

The shoulder is quite possibly the hardest part of the armor to lay out. The total length of the shoulder piece is 26 inches long from front to back so it reaches just below the rib cage of my back.

The front of the shoulder is cut at the exact same angle as the diamond so I used that as a stencil for the front side. the next part was figuring out how large of a curve the neck needed to be so I had to place this onto a duct taped mannequin I made to get the neck cute out accurately, making sure to leave some wiggle room but not much. from there I measured out how far out the armor is to go, the closest I've found is almost 13 inches. The best part is this part can just be inverted to work for the other side of your armor! I've included a test fit as well to this on my dummy.

Did you ask me for info? If you did, I apologize for being rude. I did have a tutorial in progress on another prop sentai/pr forum site but I never got around to finishing it and have no idea if the site still has what I put up there.

Hey, I've seen that second photo before. I actually made it from a bunch of my scans in one of my threads on RB.

Any way, good luck with the build.

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

Yeah Man! Id like to see how this turns out as well!!! Need to see more Rangers on here!!

King Ranger said:

Did you ask me for info? If you did, I apologize for being rude. I did have a tutorial in progress on another prop sentai/pr forum site but I never got around to finishing it and have no idea if the site still has what I put up there.

Hey, I've seen that second photo before. I actually made it from a bunch of my scans in one of my threads on RB.

Any way, good luck with the build.

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Actually King I never heard from you on there, but if its alright if I run into any snags or problems could I pick your brain for advice, your kind of the undisputed master of the dragon shield? I actually found that picture compilation on a random google search. But thank you guys for the support!

One thing I really want to point out, I'm not going for 100% when I build my complete cosplay, I've never been fond of the original green that was used so i want mine to be a shade or two darker, but that's down the road

Tonight I added a few more parts to my over all patterns soon Ill be able to get the foam and start construction, hopefully the foam will sit better than the poster board.

As you can see here I made the "claws" and collar for the shield and the arm band. The collar required a little bit of work since I had to attach my shoulders to the dummy then try and stencil out what I need, I'm somewhat pleased with the result. The 2 smaller ones may need some trimming to make them fit right.

The arm band is marked at 13 1/2 inches long by 3 inches wide for my arms at least, I had to compensate for the fact that the band goes around my bicep and needs to be a bit loose.

The claws I just traced a 3rd shoulder part and then had to free hand them onto it for correct placing, since I plan on cutting these out at a 45 degree angle the bases will still be wider. The under strap is about 2 inches wide and about 20 inches long, this may need to be trimmed down some but I'll see what happens.

Hey everyone not really an update but I just got my hands on the highly coveted Legacy Power Morpher, this thing is sick! When I get a chance I'll post some pics

hyperguyver2 said:

Hey everyone not really an update but I just got my hands on the highly coveted Legacy Power Morpher, this thing is sick! When I get a chance I'll post some pics

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lets see!

thaks for the tuturial its helping me alot, and for the other you lucky basterd

TimeWithoutTheE said:

lets see!

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nevets said:

thaks for the tuturial its helping me alot, and for the other you lucky basterd

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Here you guys go, yeah the hand work is nothing special but its an idea of what to expect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw-rfYJ4eLM
Right now I'm going through a bitter divorce and am hoping to return to my work soon. Nevets, I'd love to see your work as well

Ok folks after a nice long and very bitter break from my work I'm back and ready to try and complete this shield. I looked over my pattern and have come to realize that my current pattern would result in something that would be blocky and nowhere near where I would want this to be, so back to the drawing board for me. After doing some redrafting on some 18x24 newsprint I came to a more rounded design that I think will be more accurate, now granted its no King shield but gotta start somewhere lol. I have provided a sequence of side-by side with my v1 pattern compared to my v2 pattern. The pieces that I have cut are on 1/4in EVA foam, I figure this will offer the most mobility and will not look so clunky when I make the claws out of 1/2in EVA. Personally I'm happy with the result and will proceed with it to see what I can get out of it. Hopefully these drafts will render me a decent prototype that I can improve on, especially since I got a co-worker who caught onto my work and is begging me to make him one when I'm done. Since tomorrow is my day off I will be working a bit more and hopefully have a better update for everyone

Never wanted to be the Green Ranger...I did, however, really wanna be the White Ranger. Jason David Frank was always the best Ranger!!!