Dark Forces II - Grave Tusken

[Jehudah Design]

Good evening.

Many years ago I bought a PC game called "Dark Forces II - Jedi Knight" and thought it was a good game. Some time later I got an interest in the Tusken Raiders and made my own costume from scratch, then I remembered having encountered a bunch of Tusken Raiders in this PC game. The first times I played the game I didn't really pay much attention to what they looked like, but now after having made a Tusken Raider costume, I noticed that the Tusken Raiders in the game looked nothing like the Tusken Raiders at all. I figured out shortly after that these were a different sort of Tusken Raiders that had been taken from their homeworld and trained to rob graves and such, therefore being named Grave Tuskens instead. A closer look at them made me think that they actually looked pretty cool, so I decided to start making a Grave Tusken costume. I believe that I am the first person ever to make a Grave Tusken costume too. Here is the game model from the game:

The game is getting old as you can see, but since I have all the game model texture files, it wasn't too hard to re-create everything.
Here is what I have so far:

So far I've come a long way with this costume after only a few days work now that I finally finished cleaning out the work room, and I started this costume maybe over 5 years ago, so you can imagine how messy my work area was...

Tomorrow I will prepare the gloves and start making the mask, hip pouch and bowcaster, then this costume will finally be complete.

I was told before that I could not join the 501st Legion with this costume since the PC game was so old, but it's really not that bad as you can see all the details good enough, also it is an official Star Wars character. Maybe if someone could find a picture of a Grave Tusken in the Dark Forces books, I will get this costume 501st approved...

Hope ye likes it.


-Dark Side Sith Lord.

 

[Sean Hebein]

I LOVE seeing Dark Forces 2 stuff! I was actually reminicing yesterday about what an awesome game this was back in the day. The costume looks great! POST MOAR PICS!

 

[BRRogers]

Oh man! Jedi Knight was such a great game! (The game that got me into gaming)

Anybody else remember the Mandolorian Wars? Massassi temple is still up and running all the old patches too

But yeah,
So awesome to see someone showing this game some love. I only ever recall seeing a Kyle Katarn before so this is especially awesome!

Are you going to be doing any of the weapons along with? Crossbow? Rail-detonator?

 

[Jehudah Design]

@Hebinator - Yeah these games are pretty awesome, and I own all of them including the now hard to get Dark Forces. Thanks for liking my costume, I will post more photos soon when I get more parts done. I'll get some poses out that will take you back to those days of playing this game

@Tsuyosa - I don't remember any of those games, but I do remember having seen a few Kyle Katarns out there, so maybe I can contact one of them to share photos so I can edit Kyle Katarn into my photos of the Grave Tusken costume. The Grave Tuskens had either a crossbow or an E-11, but since I've figured that the crossbow is the original weapon for these guys, then I will build the crossbow for this costume.


Now on to finishing the rest, not looking forward to the bondo work on the faceplate when I can only do this indoors in the winter...

 

[Twinsen]

Great start on a cool costume from an awesome game ! I've played JK for many many many hours... Good times :thumbsup

 

[jaymay023]

Looks awesome so far, I remember playing both the dark forces games years ago. Ahh the memories.. I wonder if anyones done a dark trooper armor set yet?
Great work, can't wait to see the mask.

 

[FANGS]

Wow....that looks great! I've never seen that character before so thank you for posting the reference pics. Looks like you are right on track with it!

 

[SITHcamaro]

Man, I have no idea how you are able to decipher anything from those blocky renders, but what you've done looks a lot better! lol

 

[Chris Wyman]

That's really neat! What a fun idea for a costume.

 

[Jehudah Design]

Thanks for the good words, everyone
@SITHcamaro - Well it helps having grown up with MS-DOS games and things like that Also having the texture files was of good help.

I finished the gloves and the hip-pouch today -

The gloves were just altered by ripping out the lining and sewing them in a bit to make them tighter against my hands, otherwise they would look too blocky against the rest of the costume. The hip-pouch was just sewn from scratch, and I always seem to have just what I need, so found a nicely weathered brown belt for it too..

I also found a website where someone had downloads to enhance the game models from the game, and the Grave Tuskens looked pretty darn good now in the screenshots on the site. Tomorrow I will try to install that and see them closer in the game. If anyone can provide me with pictures of Grave Tuskens from any books or comic books, then that would help me a lot with getting this costume 501st approved...At least I hope so...

 

[Jehudah Design]

Well the model upgrade for the Jedi Knight game didn't work at all on my computer, and now that computer is not working at all so I'm reduced to this laptop where I have no files to show you of the progress of this costume. Still I can say that I've found a way to make a face cast to make a Grave Tusken mask, and now that mask is finished apart from the leather cap thing and the air-filter or whatever that thing is, so after getting a new computer next saturday, I can show you some photos of that.

Anyone found any non-game photos of the Grave Tuskens by the way?

 

[Leiasolosinger]

Wow...I am floored that you are doing this costume. Dark Forces II was my first Star Wars game, and is still one of my favorites. Admittedly, I have a Jan Ors costume hanging unfinished in my closet...

I checked the three Dark Forces graphic novels, and didn't find any photos of these characters. Good luck, I still hope you can find a way to get this 501st approved when you're done.

 

[Art Andrews]

Very cool! My only suggestion would be to shorten up the shoulders slightly... right now they look like wings. Absolutely LOVE the weathering!

 

[daska skirata]

Whow!! Great idea/progress!!
I never tought someone in the costuming universe would have this brilliant idea! This motivates me to do a Dark Forces/Jedi knight costume!

What are you planning for the face?

Again, Brilliant!!

 

[Teroch]

Wow, awesome. Makes me want to pop in DK2 and start playing again. Old it maybe, but relaxing it is.

 

[Jehudah Design]

@leiasolosinger - I think maybe I am the only one who has ever made this costume too, unless the game model was based off a real costume back then. DFII might have been my first Star Wars game too, had to go far into the city to get it, and still it's a great game. Thanks for looking through the photos for me, too bad there were no Tuskens there. I hope I will get this 501st approved too, it is an official Star Wars bad guy anyway.

@ART ANDREWS - The pauldrons look sort of thinner in that photo because of the angle of the photo, and the reason why they look a little too long in the photo is because the mannequin I am using doesn't have full shoulders, so it will look better when worn by someone who does.

@daska skirata - Thanks. Yeah you should definately make that Originally I wanted to just have a latex mask for this, but when looking at the game model you can see on the back of his head where the leather cap is open that they have a very human-like hairline, so I thought that since I've already got hair and all that I could just make a half-mask to cover up my face instead of punching hair into a latex mask. Here in Norway we usually don't have stuff to make those things out of, so the face mask was made out of fiberglass instead. Now it looks like a cross between a cat and a hairless Wookiee.

@Teroch - Thanks Yeah it is still a good game after all these years, I just hope I will be able to play it too when I get that new computer with Win7. The game was meant for Win95 and things like that..

 

[Jehudah Design]

Now I'm back with a new computer that works pretty darn good, so now I can show some progress photos of the mask. Only the mask and bowcaster left to finish now to complete the entire costume, then we'll see what will happen with the 501st... Most likely nothing...

Since this country usually don't sell things to make facecasts and stuff like that with, I had to improvise a bit to make a facecast for the Grave Tusken mask.
And the way I did that was to brush hot melted wax all over my face, then reinforcing it with fiberglass and brushing on even more wax to make it sturdy enough.

Then the mold was filled with fiberglass bondo to make a facecast that would shape the inside of the Grave Tusken mask. Clay was used to give the inside some clearance at the mouth.

Then a layer of fiberglass bondo was applied over the facecast. This became the mask.

After that the features of the face were shaped in bondo and fiberglass.

Some shadow effects and such were painted onto the mask first.

Then the skin color with a contrast enhancing goo was applied.

The skin was then made a bit more brown and brushed with wax to make it look more real, though it doesn't really look that real in this photo, better without the flash so close to the mask.

After the mask was done, the leather helmet thing was made with metal eye shiels and things like that... I don't know what to call any of this.

This is just a temporary tube to hold the respirator thing in place. I tried to make it out of a thick solid aluminum wire, but to have the wire at the right shape means that I can't get it on my head in the first place.

The facemask is not held in place by anything and is sort of sagging while the respirator is not straight either, but still it's sort of looking like a Grave tusken.
I made my facemask to look a little bit younger than the Tusken in the game since that looks like a very old being, and my own character is not that old.

Later I will buy two USB LED lights with flexible tubes to use for the respirator instead, then I can just pull the respirator tubes over my head and bend the respirator towards the mouth of the mask. Shouldn't matter much what the tube looks like when they are based off a few white and grey pixels anyway.

After this costume is done, I will use makeup on my eyes and neck to match the skin color of the mask.
Hope ye all like it.

 

[daska skirata]

Impressive, tough I hope your still doing the aging someday. That would even look more perfect!

What are you planning for the neck?

 

[Jehudah Design]

Thanks. I don't think I'll be doing that on this mask, but maybe I will make just another face mask some day that looks older.
For the neck I was planning to just wear makeup to match the skin color, but I might buy some sort of stretchy fabric of the same color that I can cover my neck with. Most likely the first option.

 

[Amish Trooper]

I see this link has a shot. From the look of the shot it looks like he is wearing an animal pelt with spots.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Grave_Tusken.jpeg