The Clone Wars Jedi General Armor Project

As some may know I was one of the people to foolish enough to try and put together an Obi-Wan costume from the new The Clone Wars movie and show before anything had hit actual screens. My target date was San Deigo Comicon in July 2008 in order to get some exposure and hopefully work the premier. Well, everything worked out and I did get to work the premier. But I ended up having to build a lot more of the armor myself than originally planned. If you wanna read about that check my progress thread:

http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=44963

Over the course of last year I did small upgrades here and there, arriving at the current state of the costume:



After I finished some people started asking me if I had any plan to either reproduce, build, or copy my armor for others. Fact was, at the time, I didn't. I was wholly concerned with finished my stuff for Comicon and then after that tweaking it for later events. After everything died down in the Fall I started to think about the possibility. I talked to my friend Donny (foxbatkillr on many forums) who has a lot more molding and armor building experience than I have, about whether this idea was feasible. He encouraged me to go ahead and so it all got set in motion around Christmas time.

Out initial plan was to fill a gap that had opened up when one armor maker fell off the face of the planet and no one was making the chest armor anymore. This had left some folks high and dry with almost finished costumes only missing chest armor. My chest armor was built in sintra with the help of the illustrious Obi-Dan Bergren, He had some templates and helped my cut out the shapes. We put the rough together in about 6 hours one Saturday a few days before Comicon. I tweaked, filled, heated, shaped, and finished it in the next few days. The result looked like this:



During Christmas break we put plans together to mold this armor in silicon.

Molding:

A day after New Year's I drove down to San Diego to Donny's place with my armor in hand to get some silicon on it. Out initial intention was to cast it in fiberglass. We didn't want to announce anything and the first pull would just be a copy for myself. In case we totally screwed up we didn't want anyone counting on us or laughing at us. Especially here on the RPF. We're basically newbies to this process so if there's anything that we did wrong or in a weird way don't call us out too hard. Please. Our fragile egos can't take it.

We set up the armor in Donny's kitchen and mixed up silicon for a brush-on mold.



We worked long into the night with a few bumps here and there. Mostly the cold weather was impeding the cure time a little. We got to a good base point around 11:30 pm and I headed out for the 2 hour drive back to Burbank.



Donny finished up the remaining layers of silicon and added the fiberglass jacket in the days afterwards. We were a little nervous but the mold came out great. it picked all the details; even the sintra texture and the glue residue from the velcro on the side tabs of the back plate.



We don't have a ton of pictures because we were more concerned with making sure we were doing everything correctly. It was a new process for me entirely and Donny has more experience with box molds and pour in type stuff. But the mold turned out good and we started making plans to get a pull in glass soon.

Truly impressive stuff!

Rich

First Pull:

In the weeks after the mold was finished I went about ordering supplies that Donny sent to me. Gel coat, styrene thinner, thickness gauge, respirator, air gun, etc, etc. We were finally able to get together last weekend to try and get a pull out of the mold. We made a trip to Home Depot for fiberglass supplies and set up on Donny's balcony. The gel coat went on great with the air gun; really quick and even. Fiberglass stage went without incident as well. The only hitch we had was cleaning all the gel coat residue out of the airgun. The instructions did a poor job of explaining how to take it apart and we ended up removing knobs that didn't need to come off.







We wrapped everything up by about 5 pm that day and I headed back North. Donny let the fiberglass cure overnight and pulled it from the mold the next day. The results were better than we'd hoped.







The gel coat went on so thick and smooth that, for an Obi-Wan style armor, you wouldn't even need to paint. Just trim and weather. It was great. Donny rough trimmed the armor to get a better idea of the shape.



Not too bad for some first timers I would think. We were off and running. This first pull goes to me and I am going to trim it, finish it, and weather it up for my Obi-Wan costume. The second pull goes to an Anakin costumer and will be fully finished, painted, and weathered with included shoulder armor. We want to get 5 copies out and then we'll put them up for sale. We went to stick to a small run type business model. Only put up fro sale what's out of the mold. That way we don't get behind and piss people off.

Future Plans:

Last weekend me and Donny started talking about how far we wanted to go with this. Our original intention was just to get copies of my chest armor out raw. Then I decided I could paint them for a fee since I've done and Obi-Wan for myself and painted someone else's Anakin armor.



Then we started to talk about how people would probably want full sets. Meaning shoulder armor as well. The Anakin shoulders are easy. I've built two sets for two different people so far. Simple shape. I have a template at home already. I'd just need to make one up rough and then we could mold it and do some copies.



The Obi-Wan shoulders will require a little more work. His shoulders aren't the same shape as Clone shoulders. Currently I use some OSCS shoulder that I cut the tops off to get the shape more accurate but they are a little big and lack the "thickness" of the TV armor. Long story short we're going to have to scratch build, modify, or sculpt something for those.

Obi-Wan's neck seal is another conundrum. I've seen a few different solutions used for people making their own costumes. I made mine with marine vinyl and foam and it's alright but lack the curve from shoulder to neck. I've seen a neck piece from a neoprene wet suit used and painted white. It looked alright but was obviously painted and had a quite prominent zipper in the back if I recall. Obi-Dan made his with some t-shirt material and it both fits the shape of the neck hole and curves up to his neck. Probably the best solution I've seen in terms of look. Though I don't understand completely how he did it. What I'd like to do is sculpt something so it can be made in fiberglass or resin. I'd like it to be rigid and hold the shape of the neck hole. It could be cut to fit together in the back like the back plate does. And if the armor is to be made segmented like the show the neck seal could be used to hold it all together.\



We also talked about trying to mold my forearm gauntlets. No one makes these in the correct shape as most armor makers are focusing on the clones and they have a different style forearm than the jedi. If we were to make copies they could be used by anyone making a generic TCW Jedi General but also for face characters like Kit Fisto, Plo Koon, and Mace Windu.



Another thing we could copy would be my hand plates. The Jedi handplates are different than clone handplates and a drastically different shape than the movie style hand plates.

Biceps could be reproduced using PVC piping as well. There's a lot of stuff we could offer the costuming community if there's interest. We'll be putting up For Sale threads soon for the chest armor when we get a good amount pulled.

Awesome thread. Keep up the great work!

i said it once ill say it again great work love the original shoulder pads

You did an amazing job on this. And Kudos to you for offering castings.

-Adam

Thanks for posting this Chris! Hopefully this weekend is productive!

You guys have made some great progress!

I Can NOT wait to get a cast of these parts

Wanna get my obi-wan started up.

looks great will ya be doing a run

You guys are inspiration to newbs such as myself that these kinds of projects can actually be done! :lol
More updates!

Looking good! I decided to go this direction with my Obi-Wan project as well. Just spent the day sanding and bondoing the shoulder bells and Gorget. Next up is the arms. I'll let you know what I come up with for that collar. I think the only way to get it spot on shapewise is to sculpt it and make it out of a self skinning soft foam. However, I may be able to get a better shape out of a similar method you used.

Good news for those interested...this weekend was very productive!

Yeah, Donny's right. No pics yet but we got a lot accomplished.

- We pulled two sets of chest armor.

- We got a really accurate template for the Anakin shoulders.

- We think we have a good solution for sculpting the Obi-Wan shoulders.

- We started work and got reference for a scratch build of the compad.

I have two pulls at my house that will soon be trimmed and painted. One Obi-Wan and one Anakin. I covered two footballs in fiberglass in hopes to be able to cut and shape some Obi-Wan shoulders out of that. I will be cutting some sintra for the Anakin shoulders tonight. Hoping to get them ready for some silicon next weekend.

Pics tonight.

To answer the questions:

Yes, we are doing a run. We want to get 5 sets pulled and trimmed first before having any for sale. We want to make sure we have the shoulders molded first so we can offer full sets.

Looks great, you two!

Update!

Donny got another pull done on Sunday so we're at 3 and close to our goal of 5 pulls for the first run.

Shoulders:

We worked on getting the shape for the Anakin shoulder as close to screen accurate as we could. Donny wasn't happy with my old template so we took some screen grabs.



I'm really happy with this shape. I think it captures the show shape as close as we could get it. So I cut it out from some sintra and bent it up. I added a foam lip and coated the foam with CA Glue then filled the middle with Great Stuff. Tonight I cut the foam down flat for a good work surface and bondo'd up the sides. It's curing right now. Sanding will start tomorrow night probably. This needs to be done for molding on Saturday.



The Obi-Wan shoulders were a bit tougher. I have some OSCS shoulder right now that I cut stright on the top. They work great but are a little big and have a slightly more complex shape then needed. Donny had the great idea to lay some fiberglass over a football and cut the shape out of that. Bondo it smooth and then cast the result. I bought a couple cheap footballs this weekend and laid some glass on them. I was able to keep the footballs clean with a double wrap of plastic wrap and duct tape. I returned them this morning. Thanks Big 5!

I laid out the rough shape to cut out for the shoulders tonight. I need to cut this stuff outside so it'll have to wait for the weekend.

Good call on reworking the Anakin shoulder. I made mine off of a screen grab as well:



Do I see the wrist communicator on the workbench there?

Yeah, Dan, the last ones I did I drew up really quick without scrutinizing the show.