Yes, back the HoC talk.
I want to cut Jesse a little slack. Not for his attitude, but for his costume building.
Follow me on this, okay?
I know when a tv show like this is made, they shoot footage for a pilot, edit it, and then take it to those television conventions and shop it around looking for a network to buy the show, order more episodes, and green-light it for production.
Based on what I've seen so far, I'm guessing some of this show was filmed in 2011 and 2012.
I'm also guessing Jesse is a member of 501st and Trooper forums, possibly cosplay forums. It doesn't seem he's a member here.
The 'using camping mats and hot glue and bondo' to make armor is quite new, popularized in the last 1-2 years.
His technique to 'armor' building is very much like what I've seen guy 'armor' builders use in the last 10 years I've been following costumes and cosplay.
If you wanted to make an 'armor' costume your choices were:
1. Modify existing armor (trooper)
2. Carve bucks and vac-form your own
3. Make and mold in resin or fiberglass
4. Shape metal
5. Use flat plastic and shape with heat
6. modify off-the-shelf stuff to your needs (football/baseball stuff)
7. Cut up garbage cans (even that is really new)
If Jesse knew about the RPF, saw the many armor (Iron Man) builds and saw how amazing foam armor can be when done right I'm sure he would be working with it. I think if his parts on the show were filmed in 2011 or he only goes to 501st type forums he might just not have caught on to that the rest of the costuming community is doing.
If I was making a Steampunk Trooper, taking a brown undersuit, some hard parts and giving them the old copper paint job, and using leather on other parts I'm not sure mine would have looked any different from his. I think his building skills are fine, he's just not a creative designer. Making a (fill-in-the-blank) Steampunk costume is a really beaten dead horse at this point in cosplay.