Dredd 2012 uniform - belt equipment

[wayouteast]

I'm putting together a complete uniform from the terrific 2012 Karl Urban 'Dredd' movie. It's been on my wish list ever since the movie came out and I honestly don't know why it's taken me so long to get around to it (other than the complexity!) and I need to get it done before I get too old to be a Judge and have to take the Long Walk!

I've got the helmet (made from a fibreglass kit some years ago) and a full set of leathers, vest, gloves and boots (from the excellent Leather Next) although there's a bit of detailing work to do, especially to the boots, and of course I have the fantastic voice-activated interactive Lawgiver from Chris, Craig and Paul- Props3D and BeakZ (the build of which is detailed here). To go with all this I need the rest of a Judge's working gear, so I've been spending some of my free time in the last few weeks working on a set of belt equipment.

I've used resin printing - using STL files from Thingiverse (belt buckle, flashbangs, gas grenade and breach mine) Cults3D (boker knife) or CGTrader (mag holders and medkit items) - hand-made leather work - from online templates or done by eye - and some other scratch-building like the zip-cuff holders which are made from kydex and plasticard . The med-pouch gave me the most trouble as it uses heat-formed kydex, leather, felt and elastic as well as a small length of piano hinge to get the drop-down function.

The flashbangs have a working switch and flashing LEDs and are held together with small magnets to allow access to the button cells that power them, and the breach mine has a magnet in the base so that it can stick to a vertical (metal) surface. I took the Glock magazine STLs that came with the mag holders into Blender and combined them with one of the STLs from Chris's Lawgiver so that they match in size and shape.

The belt buckle is also resin-printed, and JB Welded to a cut-down 'loop and pin' buckle so it functions as an actual buckle.

It's been a time-consuming process but I'm very happy with the results so far.

I'm currently working on a holster and straps for the Lawgiver, which should complete the full set of belt equipment. Then it's on to the boot armour. And I have an idea for a very basic version of the glove communicator screen maybe... we'll see.

 

[Rusty85]

This is great! I was watching this the other day and it reminded me how much I want to do one of these costumes as well. How is the quality of the Leather Next suit?

 

[wayouteast]

This is great! I was watching this the other day and it reminded me how much I want to do one of these costumes as well. How is the quality of the Leather Next suit?

It's actually REALLY good. I was surprised how heavy weight the leather is. It's very good quality, well made and certainly accurate enough to the original suits that only a very discerning eye and a close inspection would find any difference. All the zips are good heavy-duty brass and they even have the inner zip between the trousers and jacket at the back which stops them drifting apart!

The leather under jacket even has the embossed eagle and shield/name on the shoulders (it's 'DREDD' by default but you can get them to make it 'JUDGE' for £25 or a custom name for £125) and all the leather textures - the perforated and the 'carbon-fibre' - are there. They even have the accurate 'luggage' tags on the shoulder pauldrons. The boots don't have the armour or Sidi straps, so you have to do those yourself, but are otherwise pretty accurate, especially for the price.

Watch out for the sizing... they tend to run a bit smaller than you expect. I'm 6'0" and 159lbs, with a 40"chest and I wear 34" waist jeans. At their recommendation, I went for 'Large' for everything, and I certainly wouldn't want to have gone any smaller - I can get into the jacket and trousers but they are snug to say the least! Looking at the screen uniforms, though, they do seem to be form-fitting so I'd rather that than 'baggy'.

Here are some photos, if it helps.