So the reason I started this project is actually pretty funny…my armor didn’t fit anymore BC I had gained weight and it was overall in pretty rough shape from years of trooping. UV damage and lots of mileage had taken its toll. My once proud suit sat untouched so I decided to re-fit it. I tore it apart to make larger shims and really took it down to the bare bones to paint it in order to have a uniform color now that it had started to age and after I got it all painted I for some reason forgot about the project and my suit sat unfinished in my closet. Just pieces now it couldn’t be put on my mannequin for display and it made me so mad every time I saw it, a constant reminder of unfinished work that made me sad at the same time because I wanted to wear it again. It was like every time I looked at it I just saw disappointment…..so finally I decided to pick it back up. Funny thing was that by the time I picked it back up….I had been abroad for quite some time and lost all that weight making the purpose of the rebuild not as necessary because it would now at least have fit .Still yellowed and a bit beat up but it would have not been enough to motivate me to tear it down and start over. I have always thought “Deathtroopers” were cool but I mean I could never imagine doing all that damage to my TK, it’s like being mean to a puppy or something. I was starting from square one because some parts of the TK needed to be replaced, the build, wear and subsequent teardown made it an absolute necessity. So somewhere along the way I really started to fall in love with the Zombified TK but like I had said I didn’t want to do all that damage and at the same time did not want to limit places that I would be welcomed because this isn’t the type of setup to be wearing around little kiddos and such. As some of the replacement parts started to come in I had a little idea…slowly this idea started to develop and come to fruition. What if I could do both? Monetarily a new suit was out of the question at the moment So I would need to make 2 versions of the “same suit” with some parts being interchangeable. It had become apparent that the old parts would be perfectly suitable to be used as damaged parts I would just have to make the colors match. I have a TK not TD, no matter how dirty it is, it’s still a TK, so I figured…..ok whatever I will make my TK nice and dirty at this point the worst thing that can happen would be a top to bottom repaint and since I had already had to do that to start this project by painting the suit white again, I felt good about giving this a shot. After I talked to someone and had ordered a new set of biceps from him I asked him if he had any “B” pulls he would mind throwing in there when he sent them, just to see what I could get my hands on. When the box came it had almost enough stuff to do everything I wanted. I got a new set of biceps, both top parts of the forearms, both shoulders and both straps that hold the chest and back piece together. Because I ended up getting more than I thought I went ahead and decided I would also make a different chest and back piece so those parts came next followed by the helmet. So what I had now was 2 sets of everything from the ab plate up, everything from the ab plate down would be used as the bottom of either one. Switch out the top half and you have a different set up……I had the parts, I had the idea….now it was time to get to work.
Here is the direction I took and needed to match with both "Top sets"
I searched the web and came across all kinds of zombie masks but was just real hesitant to drop the 50$+ on the mask I liked most only to turn around and cut it to shreds. Lots of the Deathtroopers I had seen (most*) miss the mark (maybe BC they are Stormtroopers. Ba dum dum tshhh! See what I did there ? Eh eh?) They would just cut chunks out of the suits and splatter bright red fake blood over them, to me they looked awful. So my mindset was not only is less more in this case in regards to blood and gore but I was really stuck on this dirty dingy picture I had in my head. Like not that the character died and just came back but like he died and laid in the crud for weeks while his body decomposed and eventually he reanimated in the grossest way or something. I don’t know let me go ahead and say this place (THE RPF) is filled with so many talented individuals and I by no means am an expert in anything, this is actually my first little post and all I really did was paint this stuff, I didn’t make the armor…………anyone who has built up a TK or something can agree, you didn’t make it but you made it. Before I got started I did read the 501st CRL BC what I figured was I would set out to have it approvable and follow the guidelines and submit pics, if it doesn’t get approved then that’s ok but if it does that’s cool too. Im not really one to alter my stuff if I am really in love with it so the costume being approvable for 501st events comes second to my opinion of it (WOW I SOUND LIKE A JERK THERE) I just mean that if Im happy with it in the end and it does not get approved I just wont wear it anytime I got to an event where I would be representing the 501st if that makes sense but I think in the end I will have followed the specs….we will see though.
Back to the mask, I ended up getting one of those 7$ airsoft skull masks from Amazon rather than a full head or face latex mask. 1) like I already said they were too expensive to want to destroy and second It would be easier if it was rigid all its own and not to mention latex is hot. So I got this little mask and most of this was all “let’s see how this goes”…it was a skull so the mouth was pretty closed, just a small slit where the teeth met so I snapped the bottom part of it off, opened the mouth up a bit to try and make it look more “bitey” and glued it back together. I used Elmer’s glue and toilet paper to sort of build up the mask area so it wasn’t so smooth giving me a bumpy nasty surface to paint on sort of like decomposing skin or something. Here I sort of just played with the colors, I used some of my wife’s makeup and acrylics, most of this will be hidden behind the helmet and shadows so it didn’t need to be perfect.
With the helmet it was funny because it’s like quick, drink a bottle of wine and get out the plastic cutters, it’s going to hurt us both. So wine in one hand tissues in the other I attacked my newly assembled TK lid like a rabid Ewok. To me the bucket is such an iconic look and I wanted to handle this part delicately because while I did want to go exposed Zombie face I didn’t want to lose that iconic look of the TK lid. I looked at lots of pics beforehand and had thought that some of the parts that were cut away on some of these other builds were too big and then distracted and took away from that look so I really wanted to try and achieve a good balance between Zombie and TK. (Did I ? I don’t really know but I’m pretty happy with how it ended up) So every step of the way I just kept reminding myself “less is more” and that’s how I ended up with the amount I cut away. You can see the hole follows the natural edge/shape there so you still get that iconic look and shape while still having been able to tweak it a bit…..or at least that’s what I was going for haha. All the paint was done with acrylic, the blood is burnt sienna, of course black, a tannish khaki color I used as a type of wash to make the yellow color and there is some greens in there also. I used a dremmel to make some of the larger “cracks” and the right ear cap was NOT CUT down enough and I didn’t notice until I was really looking at it put together so I cut a little hole in it and put in that corrugated tubing…..I think it does a pretty good job hiding that error but its very apparent looking at the picture of the helmet without paint…look at that thing! ITS HUGE! First test fitting I almost cut my nose completely off, the way the skull mask was fixed in the helmet there was a very sharp edge and it sliced my nose like a razor…..so that needed to be cut down a bit so that it would be real blood coming outta there. All in all though in the end I am happy with the result, it is what I was going for and there are a few more details I will need to get in there and do but for the most part its done-ish.
I just all this from my desk @ work so let me get back home and snap some more pics and updates and come back and check the progress and we can get all caught up.
Here is the direction I took and needed to match with both "Top sets"
I searched the web and came across all kinds of zombie masks but was just real hesitant to drop the 50$+ on the mask I liked most only to turn around and cut it to shreds. Lots of the Deathtroopers I had seen (most*) miss the mark (maybe BC they are Stormtroopers. Ba dum dum tshhh! See what I did there ? Eh eh?) They would just cut chunks out of the suits and splatter bright red fake blood over them, to me they looked awful. So my mindset was not only is less more in this case in regards to blood and gore but I was really stuck on this dirty dingy picture I had in my head. Like not that the character died and just came back but like he died and laid in the crud for weeks while his body decomposed and eventually he reanimated in the grossest way or something. I don’t know let me go ahead and say this place (THE RPF) is filled with so many talented individuals and I by no means am an expert in anything, this is actually my first little post and all I really did was paint this stuff, I didn’t make the armor…………anyone who has built up a TK or something can agree, you didn’t make it but you made it. Before I got started I did read the 501st CRL BC what I figured was I would set out to have it approvable and follow the guidelines and submit pics, if it doesn’t get approved then that’s ok but if it does that’s cool too. Im not really one to alter my stuff if I am really in love with it so the costume being approvable for 501st events comes second to my opinion of it (WOW I SOUND LIKE A JERK THERE) I just mean that if Im happy with it in the end and it does not get approved I just wont wear it anytime I got to an event where I would be representing the 501st if that makes sense but I think in the end I will have followed the specs….we will see though.
Back to the mask, I ended up getting one of those 7$ airsoft skull masks from Amazon rather than a full head or face latex mask. 1) like I already said they were too expensive to want to destroy and second It would be easier if it was rigid all its own and not to mention latex is hot. So I got this little mask and most of this was all “let’s see how this goes”…it was a skull so the mouth was pretty closed, just a small slit where the teeth met so I snapped the bottom part of it off, opened the mouth up a bit to try and make it look more “bitey” and glued it back together. I used Elmer’s glue and toilet paper to sort of build up the mask area so it wasn’t so smooth giving me a bumpy nasty surface to paint on sort of like decomposing skin or something. Here I sort of just played with the colors, I used some of my wife’s makeup and acrylics, most of this will be hidden behind the helmet and shadows so it didn’t need to be perfect.
With the helmet it was funny because it’s like quick, drink a bottle of wine and get out the plastic cutters, it’s going to hurt us both. So wine in one hand tissues in the other I attacked my newly assembled TK lid like a rabid Ewok. To me the bucket is such an iconic look and I wanted to handle this part delicately because while I did want to go exposed Zombie face I didn’t want to lose that iconic look of the TK lid. I looked at lots of pics beforehand and had thought that some of the parts that were cut away on some of these other builds were too big and then distracted and took away from that look so I really wanted to try and achieve a good balance between Zombie and TK. (Did I ? I don’t really know but I’m pretty happy with how it ended up) So every step of the way I just kept reminding myself “less is more” and that’s how I ended up with the amount I cut away. You can see the hole follows the natural edge/shape there so you still get that iconic look and shape while still having been able to tweak it a bit…..or at least that’s what I was going for haha. All the paint was done with acrylic, the blood is burnt sienna, of course black, a tannish khaki color I used as a type of wash to make the yellow color and there is some greens in there also. I used a dremmel to make some of the larger “cracks” and the right ear cap was NOT CUT down enough and I didn’t notice until I was really looking at it put together so I cut a little hole in it and put in that corrugated tubing…..I think it does a pretty good job hiding that error but its very apparent looking at the picture of the helmet without paint…look at that thing! ITS HUGE! First test fitting I almost cut my nose completely off, the way the skull mask was fixed in the helmet there was a very sharp edge and it sliced my nose like a razor…..so that needed to be cut down a bit so that it would be real blood coming outta there. All in all though in the end I am happy with the result, it is what I was going for and there are a few more details I will need to get in there and do but for the most part its done-ish.
I just all this from my desk @ work so let me get back home and snap some more pics and updates and come back and check the progress and we can get all caught up.
