RotJ B-wing Pilot Outfit (Image Heavy)

[Blue Leader]

Greetings,

I've been posting a slow update thread over on the Rebel Legion forum, but I thought that I might post a thread here as well. It's always fun to interact with other costumers, and I've been rather proud of this one... So why not show it off? Heh heh. :lol

B-wing stuff is my passion. I love the ships, I love the outfits the pilots wear... Heck, if Star Wars was real I'd want to be a B-wing pilot. So for the past couple years I've been working on a B-wing pilot outfit. I actually debuted it at Star Wars Celebration V in Summer 2010, but since then I've found more and better references, and anal as I am, I keep wanting to make this outfit as accurate as I possibly can. Much to the displeasure of my wallet. Since then I've been making changes to it-- making new parts, changing other things...

Here's my outfit from last year...

Since this picture the flak vest has been shortened and shaped to make it more accurate, new greeblies for the flak vest have been made, I've been working on a new "belt box" (the black box you see hanging from my belt), the leg straps/ejection harness has been remade, I bought a better pair of gloves, I started working on a new helmet, and I made a custom blaster. The blaster really has nothing to do with accuracy, I just made it for fun.
I've also lost some weight since that picture was taken-- almost 40 pounds. Still more to go, though.

Anywho, here are some recent pictures...

First off, here's my cap, based on an AN-H-15 cap. It's brown instead of tan just because I made my helmet silver with black lining, but I'm planning to make a second cap in the future out of tan material. Than I'll have both. Heh.
The cap isn't quite finished yet.
The first picture I'm just holding the cap. In the second picture I put the cap on one of my Halloween props. Hey, it was sitting there, I figured I might as well use it.

Next is my belt. The primary change to the belt was swapping out the "envelope" on the front of it with something more accurate.
The belt is also a little too big for me now (I never thought I'd be able to say that!), but it's not too bad right now. I'm waiting to lose more weight before I just make a new one.

This is the new belt box. This was just a "test pull" and it didn't turn out very well, but at least the process works. I'll be making two styles: the style with trim seen on Nien Nunb and Ten Numb and the style with another small box on top and with a silver stripe. This one is the latter version, but it's far from done.The other style, the Ten/Nien version, is still being worked on.
I didn't think about it at the time but I should have set this box over my belt so a better idea of its size could be had. I'll do that next time. Either way, it's about 2 1/2 inches wide and roughly 4 inches tall.

Next is the helmet I've been working on. I first made the helmet out of PaperClay, which took me about eight months, and once that was finished I made some rubber molds of it. After that I made a resin copy-- two actually, but the first one came out really bad.
I tried to make the helmet as accurate as possible, of course, but it still has some flaws. Still, it does the trick until BactaReality starts selling his copies. I figure I can just repaint this helmet once I get one of his and turn this one into a display helmet. But right now it gives me something to wear for the time being.

First layer of paint...

If anyone is curious, here's the blaster I made. I wanted something small because I thought something big like a DL-44 or DH-17 would detract from the overall look of the outfit... I found a toy gun at Toys 'R Us and thought that it might just do the trick with some paint and modifications...

My blaster needed a holster, so I went about trying to whip one up. This is what I came up with...

Last night I put on the outfit and had some pictures taken. As I mentioned the revisions are by no means complete, but I thought these worked well as progress pictures.
The belt is a little loose, and part of it is being weighted down by the blaster and holster, but I'll fix that up with Velcro. I just haven't gotten to that yet.

Other than what I've mentioned I plan to change the the way the buckles on my gaiters connect to something more accurate; after the first of the year I'll be starting a whole new flak vest out of a better material and with more accurate buckle connectors. I also want to replace my chestbox as the current one is a little too big, but, again, I'm kind of waiting for BactaReality because I really don't want to make another one from scratch.
But I've still got plenty more to do to keep my busy...

 

[Blue Leader]

By the way, I do have one question for everyone. I thought someone here may know.

Anyhow... After watching the deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi (Blu-Ray) I noticed that the black plastic side-release buckles on the flak vest don't connect to the vest by webbing straps (like I have on my current flak vest), but rather seem to connect to it with some sort of plastic or metal rectangular piece. I was wondering if anyone here might know what these pieces are and where I could find some, or had an idea as to something similar I could use?
I've been searching around trying to find something but I haven't been able to yet.

Here's what I'm referring to...

(I know that this is an A-wing pilot, but it's easier to see the piece here. Both A-wing and B-wing pilot flak vests seem to have it.)

And if anyone would like to see some pictures of my older pieces, like my chestbox, gaiters, or even my old helmet, I can post them up. I just didn't bother because I'm hoping to replace them soon (in the case of the helmet and chestbox) and modify the gaiters a little bit.
Or you can just see them on the costume page at Cosplay.com.

 

[jaycee9]

Nice job there!!! Looking AWESOME

 

[Blue Leader]

Thank you.

 

[Blue Leader]

A few days ago I started painting the helmet, and I've got about half of it done now, give or take. Unfortunately, I had to paint it with a foam brush instead of with my air brush because I made the mistake of putting a couple layers of primer on first to give the helmet a solid white coat... But the primer dried kind of bumpy and cracked a little bit in a couple places, so I had to use a foam brush to put the paint on thicker and cover those bumps and cracks.
Ah well. When Bacta Reality starts selling his copies hopefully I can use my air brush on that, and I can also (hopefully) just do a better job of painting it. At that time I figured I'd just get all of the paint off of this helmet and repaint it differently, anyway.

The design itself isn't really based an any particular Star Wars character. It's a custom scheme. Though the silver was inspired by Ten Numb/Nien Nunb's helmet...

There's a few holes drilled into the helmet as well. Wire and cords will be going into those holes.

 

[trooper1m]

Is it possible that the buckles are attatched to a loop of fabric the same material as the vest and that the loops are attatched to the underside of the vest and poked through a slit in the fabric?

 

[Blue Leader]

Could be, but I'm not sure. That rectangular area I circled in the picture above (and the URL below) looks too smooth to be material. It looks like plastic to me, but I'm just guessing. Plus, whatever those rectangular things are, look like they're black while the flak vest is a dark gray.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g...me Projects/B-Wing Pilot/awingPilotCircle.jpg

 

[Blue Leader]

Though I'd toss up and update for the heck of it...

I finally finished my helmet. I'm not 100% pleased with it but it'll do for now until something better becomes available. This was my first time using fiberglass and resin to create something like this so even that's a bit rough, and there was a lot of trial and error, but even so I'm fairly pleased with the results, even if it's not perfect.

I'm planning to put together two more helmets in the future for displays: one with a yellow-green/clear gradient visor and one without a visor.

This was also my first attempt at weathering something like this.