Road to Revan (Pic Heavy)

[rasendori04]

Hey there, fellow prop makers and costume builders!

This thread marks the start of my journey to making a Revan Costume, and joining the 501st Capital City Garrison, here in Canada. I've loved Revan since forever. He's such a cool character, and his costume, to me, is one of the best in all of Star Wars. When I learned that my area finally had a 501st garrison, I knew I had to join. Thus, it was time to become Revan. I've been researching for almost 6 months now, trying to figure out the ways I could build this costume, pricing things out and studying the CRL on the 501st home site.

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Back in October, the CCG (as I will now refer the Capital City Garrison to) held an event in my city, raising money for a young girl with Leukemia. They had Stormtroopers, and a jedi, and all sorts of characters there. I took my youngest brother with me, as well as one of my best friends, and we contributed, got a photo with the crew, and then got to blast the trooper with some nerf guns. Awesome time, everyone was having fun, especially that little girl. Seeing her smile, despite her sickness, and seeing how much fun, and the kind of work the 501st does, it really inspired me. I've made threads on the RPF before, and never really finished them. This one, I will finish. And one day too, I'll be out there, putting a smile on a younglings face, helping out their family, and making people smile while in costume with some fellow troopers, and Sith, and Mandos. I hope you all enjoy coming along on my journey, down the Road to Revan.

I don't plan on having this thread done in a week, or even a month. It probably wont even be done by the end of the year. There will be times it seems like this thread is dead, but it wont be, it will simply be dormant, as I work to get the stuff for all the pieces, research and purchase materials, and, of course, live my life as well.

Now then, sorry for all that info, I hope I kept your attention long enough to get to this part.

Here is the outline of what I need to do, make, and gather:

Mask
Cape, Hood, and Capelet
Vambraces, and Hand Plates
Cuirass and Abdomen armor
Fabric Bits (Hakama, Fabric Drapes, Shirt, etc)
Lightsaber

I'll be following along what the 501st CRL page for a Revan Costume needs.

I currently have the Mask, which is what this first post will start with, and I also have the Hakama. I used to be a martial artist, and tried Iaido before I started College. I have stuff left over that I don't use, so what better than to convert it into a costume? I plan on getting my saber from Vader's Vault, not to advertise or anything, but I just love their version of the lightsaber.

I plan on making most of the harder bits out of worbla, since I don't have access to a vacuum former, nor really any ways of working with plastic, and since the pieces have to be a rigid material, it seemed like the best bet to me. Thus, I need to make the cuirass, abdomen piece, vambraces and hand plates out of the plastic. Spent a good month researching the stuff, but I don't have any yet, so that part will have to wait. As for the rest of the costume, I'll talk more about it when I get to them. Let's just start with what I have, and have been working on:

The Mask.

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I love Revan's Mask. The story behind it, the shape and colour. It's menacing, iconic... and I can't help but feel drawn to it. Maybe it's the dark side calling to me. Either way, it's the place I started with this costume.

Originally, I was going to make a cast of my face, and sculpt onto it, then make the mask out of worbla, eventually, however, browsing on Etsy there, last week, I came across a Canadian vender selling a raw cast of the mask at a FAR lower price than anyone else selling them for. Plus, the cast looked great too. I pounced on it immediately, and after waiting for the weekend to be over, it finally arrived the other day. I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to get to work, so the next day, I went out, bought a ton of sand paper from 60 grit to 600, and started looking at paints, pricing them out. Still have to get them, but sanding right now is important. I also bought a welding face shield replacement off amazon for 12 bucks, in which the reviews were almost all costumers who used the shield for their clones and mandos, so, I figured it would work for my mask. I should be here very soon, and I'll be able to cut and test fit it in.

As per the CRL, Revan's Mask must:

Extend to the top of my head,
Have a heavily weathered dark grey and Rust red colour scheme, and,
A dark lens to obscure my eyes while wearing it

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The mask I ordered is made of urethane resin. So, I'm sure I'll have to find a plastic compatible paint, which won't be too hard. Just hoping I wont break the bank. It seems most stores are selling the paint cans at about 10 - 12 dollars, canadian. I'm hoping to find the most cost efficient store for now, as I need to get about... oh.... 3-4 cans of paint, and a can of clear coat. I'll keep looking around, maybe Canadian Tire will have a good price. I also need to hit up the local fabric store in search of some snap clasps. Revan's mask has those sort of weird silver vent things at the bottom, and I think the bottom half of a snap button would look perfect.

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For now, sanding. Starting off, I used a pencil and drew on the forehead of the mask, trying to see the high and low areas. I wanted to make sure it was even there, as much as possible because it was the biggest area. Then, I got the 60 grit out, and started sanding.

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About an hour in, I took a break, having gotten things looking pretty nice. In the raw cast form, the area fro the visor was, or course, filled. I had never truly seen myself in the mask, except for in poorly taken selfies (I hate selfies...) So, I grabbed a drill, a bit, and drilled some holes to see out of. But that wasn't enough for me. I needed to see the mask for what it could be, I needed that whole area cleared. So I drilled some holes in each corner, and then went in search of one of my dads dremmels. We recently moved, and still have a lot to unpack in the garage, so it was about an hours search before I gave up looking. I thought that was the roadblock for the time being, until I saw a hard saw on the wall.

I'm sure a bunch of you readers just cringed.

But I needed to see through the visor area, and used the tools at hand. After about three minutes, the visor was out, and, while I do have to clean up that area, I can see out nicely.

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Oh, and don't worry, that cut on my hand was from my dremmel search. Anywho... I need to find a file to even out the visor area, but I wont be able to do that till later tomorrow. My dad is bringing me some files from work. For now, More sanding. There were a couple spots on the cast where the mask was asymetrical, so I had to sand down some areas to make them more even, or to clean up a 90 degree angle or two.

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For example there. That is the left.... no, right side of the brow. Sorry, directionally challenged sometimes. It wasn't very even, however some 60 grit and elbow grease and I cleaned it up nicely. After a break for dinner, then my nightly show run, (it is a Wednesday, after all), I got back to work sanding. I made it up to 100 grit, before calling it a night.

And that's all I have for now. Tomorrow will be more sanding, and I am expecting the lens to arrive, so maybe I'll cut and test fit it in. Maybe I'll even pop out to a hardware store and look at paint. However, if all I end up doing is just more sanding, I'll probably not post until it's all done, or I've started paint. Till then, Toodles~

And May the Force be with you.

 

[rasendori04]

Hey there, RPF!

I'm back again with another update on the mask. I've made a lot of progress since my last post...wait its been a month since I made that post? My bad. The mask itself is pretty much done, I just need to get some straps for it. I originally bought some nylon straps, but a family member brought to my attention that I might need something with a little stretch if I'm not going to be using a buckle, which I wasn't planning on using. so I've been waiting to get down to the fabirc store to find so good quality elastic bands for the straps, and maybe some velcro. I've been waiting to have that stuff and have it attached to the mask before making this new post, but in the end I decided to make this post, and once I get the straps attached, I'll write up the final update.

But without any further ado, here is what I've done since my last post.When I last updated, I had made it up to 100 grit sandpaper before calling it a night. Well, the very next day I finished sanding, and my lens did arrive. So I cut out a shape that I felt would fit best, and would be most comfortable, the taped it in temporarily. That was all I could do that day, until my dad got home and brought with him some files from work. With that, I touched up some areas, like that last picture from my first post, as well as a couple areas that needed a little cleanup, then re-sanded those spots before calling it a night.

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The next day, I went into town in search of paint, and other stuff. Minor details and such.

It was too late for me to start painting when I got home, so the next day, I started painting. I started with the grey. So, I'm gonna go ahead and say, I know next to nothing about paint. I know some kinds don't sit well with others, and some are meant for certain things. Aside from that though... So when I started painting the mask grey with the enamel paint, it was strange to me how liquidy the paint was. It wasn't really sticking to the mask at first, kept running off like water on oil. I've no clue why it did that, but after an hour of letting it dry, add another coat, another hour, and another coat, and the mask was well covered, so whatever the problem was, it all worked out. After that, I let the mask dry for a full 24 hours before going onto the rusty red colour.
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Fast forward 24 hours, and I masked off the areas that needed to stay grey then hit it with the red. The red took about 3 coats to get it how I wanted it. I did notice though, it came out more orange than I would have liked. I tried not to let it bother me too much, while also thinking of how I could fix it, if I had to. So, once again, I let it sit 24 hours to dry, then I went on to start weathering. Armed with a set of paintbrushes, red, black, brown, and silver acrylic paints, I went on to dirty up and scratch the perfectly clean mask.

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There was a little runoff that wasn't dry, and so I ended up making prints in the pain in some spots. However, they are not too visible on the mask.

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It was here that I ended up changing the orange to a more red colour. I mixed some red with a tiny bit of brown, and went over top the rust orange. It was perfect to me. The exact colour I saw when I looked at pictured online, as well as those from the game. Then, using some silver I added scratches, some black and brown became dirt, and soon enough, I was done. Turns out, I forgot to take pictures at this stage, my bad. However there isn't much difference between this stage and the next.

Looking back at some pictures, I noticed that the red across the top brow wasn't so much a hard line as a quick blend into the grey. So, with a sigh and a shake of my spray can, I did some light, quick bursts across the brow, creating that fade effect. I then let it dry for an hour, then went over some of the covered scratches with some fresh silver. Now the paint was done. Finally. I was and am very happy with how the paint came out. For my first time doing something like this, I think it came out very close to the source.

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Before going on to the clear coat however, I needed to attach the small vents at the bottom of the mask. I picked up some snap clasps as I said I would, and they were the perfect size. I used some super glue, that was actually usable on the plastic the mask was made out of. I had to re-stick them a couple times, but I eventually got them to stay. I knew they would look right for the part.

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After letting things dry and cure for another 24 hours, it was finally time to add the clear coat. I picked up as matte a clear coat as I could, because I didn't want the mask to be glossy. It was the first time I ever used this kind of stuff; I didn't expect it to smell as it did. Even with spraying it outside, that was awful smelling stuff. I gave the mask a twice over with the finish, then, once again let it dry. The clear coat took longer to dry than the paints. I left it for three days and it was still a little sticky by the end of third day. However by day 4 it was nice and cured. Even the smell all but disappeared. Now that that was all done, I went on to attaching the lens.

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I used a 7/16" drill bit, drilled the holes into the lens, dropped the lens into place, then used a sharpie to mark where the holes would go. Then, I used the same bit, and drilled some shallow holes for the screws to attach the lens. I then test fitted the lens. the last thing I needed to do was add padding to the lens.

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I picked up some foam shoe inserts to be that padding. I put the lens on the shoe insert, traced it with a sharpie and cut out. I then traced along the inside giving a thin pad to go along the edge of the lens. I cut that out, took off the protective film on the lens, and then glue the pad on with hot glue. I then used a lens cloth to clean off a few strands of hot glue and took off the other side of protective film. I then screwed the lens in place for what I hope will be its permanent home. Though, it will be easy to replace should it get scratched.

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So, that is all the progress I've made. The mask is pretty much done, as I said, all I need are elastic straps to be able to wear. So, I'll update again with some final pictures of the fully finished mask. I also ordered a black turtle neck from Amazon, which I will have to add a piping along the upper chest. After that, I'll just need to get the Worbla for all the plastic bits, and fabric for the cape and belt stuff. If I had a million dollars.... I could have all the materials I needed for this costume by next month. Stupid money. At least I can say I worked hard for this costume. XD

But that is all for now. Till Next time, Toodles~

And may the Force be with you all!

 

[Sym-Cha]

Looks great I love threads with lots of research, elaborate texts, pictures and most important passion to create something wonderful

Chaim

 

[JaxAndTheMoon]

Looks great I love threads with lots of research, elaborate texts, pictures and most important passion to create something wonderful

Chaim

Agreed! People who really elaborate on the research and ideas behind their work are always what I love most!

 

[rasendori04]

Thanks guys. I felt that with this costume, and what I'm making it for, it needs to be well thought out. I get many ideas for small things, familiar shapes and such. I feel that perhaps my sharing the idea could help someone else out, or perhaps give someone else an idea for a similar project.