AT-AT Driver costume build in a month

Hi folks. This is my first project posted here, I thought I'd put up some pictures and info documenting the AT-AT Driver costume I'm trying to crank out in time for Halloween. The bug hits me every year with barely enough time to make something awesome, but I might pull it off this time. Special thanks to Clutch and others who built similar costumes, I've found tons of useful reference info on this forum. This costume isn't going to be 100% accurate (or even 80%), but I'm trying to capture the look on a budget and time crunch as best as I can.

It started with this helmet, a fairly poor resin recast I bought on eBay for about $40 a while back. It looks like a cast of a vinyl Tie Pilot helmet to me, based on the warping. Maybe Don Post? I'm no expert. It was fairly pock marked and the mohawk was a mess, but it's a good starting point. Here it is after stripping the first coat of primer (Rustoleum, wouldn't stick even after a thorough washing).



I rebuilt the mohawk with plastic card (garage sale sign), corrected(ish) the mohawk front, ground off the screw details, did tons of filling and sanding. Here it is almost done in a coat of primer with dramatic dining room lighting.



I've never built hard wearable armor before, but here's my go at it. I originally planned to cast it in fiberglass from a plaster mold but will be vacuforming instead. Torso armor started as a sheet of pink insulation foam. This stuff is super easy to carve/sand into shape, love it! Being too cheap to buy two sheets I built up the depth only where required (since I wasn't planning to vacuform).

Front:

Back:


Hard angle shapes on the front were built with a for sale sign. The rectangles were cut from styrofoam I had laying around, kind of a bad idea, I should have used plywood or something. Then a coat of spackle and/or Durham's Water Putty, which ended up being a ton of extra work. I ended up going with polyester resin/fiberglass to harden the back, which was also a ton of work. The coating didn't perfectly protect the foam from being eaten by resin/spot putty, so lots of extra work re-filling and smoothing.



They look like this after primer. By this point I had decided to vacuform so I'm not agonizing over the smoothness.


I'll post more later with chest box pics and some info about other greebles.

Wish I knew where to get some BOC siphon cartridge holders! I'll probably end up scratchbuilding the hangers, they're fairly simple anyway.

Feel free to post comments and suggestions. Thanks to all who came before me, this site is truly a wealth of info!

That's a fine looking helmet for a great customized project ... and perhaps you could try ebay for those vintage CO2 cartridge holders you seek?

Chaim

Pedro said:

Wish I knew where to get some BOC siphon cartridge holders! I'll probably end up scratchbuilding the hangers, they're fairly simple anyway.

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I have a set of BOC syphon holders made from originals but the interior circuit part is not 100% accurate. PM me if interested

I've scoured eBay quite thoroughly for the BOC holders...in the UK you can get modern replacement holders that are similar but would still need work. Thanks JKNO for the offer, but I think I'll pass, the "filled in" look on those holders doesn't quite do it for me, I should be able to scratch something fairly easily. But if anyone has unmodified casts of the real ones I'd definitely be interested.

So on to the chest box - This is a pretty simple build with plastic sheet. I drew up the plans in Illustrator based on photos of the prop. Here's mine with a simple printout of the decoration taped to the front to see how it looks. The round parts on the sides are some kind of 2" pipe cap that I found at Home Depot. These appear to be styrene so were easy to work with. If I were to do it again I'd use a PVC pipe for the rounded bottom, as is I used .02 styrene supported only at the sides, and it's thin enough that it's a little fragile. It cracked a bit when I used liquid cement to attach the bottom rectangle. I may need to fill the bottom with plaster or something to strengthen it.



Here's the primed piece. I'll be adding LED lights as well. Tubing is also from Home Depot, a washing machine drain hose (you need 2, one for each side. Not as flexibile as I'd like but it was cheap and looks good.

Boom! Thanks Sym-Cha for prodding me to check eBay again, I just scored a set of original BOC holders for $22! Sweet.

Congratulations ... I'm glad to be of assistance any way I can and I love your work in progress like a true propmaker scouring for parts that could be used for building ... remember 'Don't make it real, make it believable!'

Chaim

Thanks! As I said via PM, scrounging parts is at least half the fun.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any detail about the brow greebles next to the hanger hoses? They're very hard to discern in all the pictures I have, just looking like black rectangles with a white decal. Anyone have better pictures, perhaps of an unpainted kit from a Laws or similar kit? I'm sure it would be simple to scratch if I just knew what I was building!

I'm pretty sure you've seen this in your research, but just in case...

http://www.starwarshelmets.com/original atat helmet.htm

This is the best resource for helmets, hands down.

Wes

Pedro said:

I've scoured eBay quite thoroughly for the BOC holders...in the UK you can get modern replacement holders that are similar but would still need work. Thanks JKNO for the offer, but I think I'll pass, the "filled in" look on those holders doesn't quite do it for me, I should be able to scratch something fairly easily. But if anyone has unmodified casts of the real ones I'd definitely be interested.

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No problem. They were for free. But congrats on getting the real ones! you only need to make their interiors after cutting the extra part on the wider side

Yep, I've spent numerous hours on the Star Wars Helmets site, a great resource! I wish he was a little more systematic about getting pictures though, some more orthographic views and detail closeups would be really handy.

I've made a lot of progress recently. Let's talk about the helmet. As I said it was a pretty crappy resin recast from eBay. Lots of bubbles, some breakage from removing from the mold before it was cured, and some warpage. I now think it's warped from a bad mother mold and not a cast of a vinyl helmet. Looking at some of the details, I'm thinking the face may be descended in some way from a screen used helmet. It has the bump on the right eye, but that's not a definite sign. However, in cleaning it up this weekend I noticed the vague remnant of the lost detail in the tear, which I'm led to understand was on the ANH helmets. Is the asymmetry in the teeth also an ANH detail? Anyway, here are some better pictures.



Notice how wonky the ears are. Too much work to fix in a time crunch!



Here are the details I was talking about. Think these are the real deal?

Sorry for the attached thumbnails. Seems you can't delete a pic once uploaded? Oh well.

Here's a pic of the helmet as it is today. It's primed, sanded with 600 grit, then painted in Rustoleum pro gloss white. I sprayed the inside black for kicks. I'm really happy with the way it looks! This is my first high gloss finish like this, wish me luck polishing out the orange peel.


I've been collecting a lot of bits as well. I tried the grey coveralls from Dickies first. Waaay to dark, pretty much the color of Krylon primer. (bad lighting in this pic, sorry)


Thank goodness for Amazon's return policy! I picked up the Red Cap grey coveralls instead, much better. Still could be a little lighter/bluer, but given the time crunch I didn't want to mess with trying to dye a white suit. If I have time I'll add the cargo pockets. I also picked up silver 2" strapping from Strapworks. This color works pretty well, it photographs as almost white due to the shine, but looks close to the same grey color as the coverall from some angles. White dyed somewhat darker might have been better, but I'm happy with it.


Weldas Soft Touch TIG gloves for about $18 delivered. I realize the AT-AT driver gloves were all suede and these are closer to the Snowtrooper gloves, but I like the leather look better. Who drives in suede gloves??



And to anyone who's reading, I'd still love any better pictures of the black greeble next to the BOC hangers on the forehead if anyone has them!

I've made lots of progress in the last week, this thing might actually get done! I built a simple vacuform platen based on Crash's instructable (tried a small multi-hole box in the past without much luck). I'm just using my kitchen oven and shop vac. It works surprisingly well, I'm hooked!

However, I did have some issues with my bucks. Having ignored much online advice against using insulation foam I found that it really isn't sturdy enough. I coated the back armor in polyester resin/fiberglass, and it held up pretty well under the heat and vacuum. The front didn't fare so well, having been hardened with Durham's water putty. I ended up with a lot of crush marks and pretty much destroyed the buck. So I decided to fill the pull I had with plaster and repair the lost detail. Of course I had the bright idea of putting a layer of water putty/fiberglass as the surface, thinking it would be more durable and smoother than the plaster. Well, it's smoother! But some of it came apart when pulling the cast from the styrene, requiring more repair than I would have needed if I just poured plaster. Lesson learned!


None the less I was able to get this buck fixed up and get good a good pull. I went through more machinations than I care to describe here for the shoulder bell, but ended up with a strong enough master in the end. Raised detail was created with a pull from the plain master and some wood (see, I do learn!). Here's the master, along with the shoulder connecting piece (balsa, at least that was easy to build!):


I did get some bad webbing on the first pull, but adjusting the angle fixed that.


What's that in the background? Moon boots from eBay for $15 spray painted with Duplicolor vinyl/fabric paint. It sticks to the rubber sole surprisingly well!

Here are some more pics of the armor. Got all the parts pulled! Now I just need to finish detailing and painting the helmet, assemble the straps, and probably 20 other things and I'll be done!



And finally a few gears I'm working on for the chest and helmet greebles. These are resin cast, the small ones from an RC car part and the larger one from a wrapping paper tape dispenser. The latter will get some more detail before it goes on the chest.

Not sure if anyone is reading, but here are a couple more pics. I have the chest box nearly finished, adding details with stick on vinyl, most of which I got free from the sign shop that sold me the styrene for vacuforming. I drew up templates in Illustrator based on existing refs and cut out the different color details by hand. The lights are a cheap 2 for $3 LED strip I got on ebay. These are flexible so I just cut off the extra LEDs and folded it over to get the 5/6 pattern. (had to cover 1 LED in electrical tape as their wired in groups of 3)

I also managed to get a somewhat better pull of the chest armor by heating up the mold first, eliminating most of the cooling marks you can't see in the other pic. My wife is grateful to have the oven back!

This is great realy enjoying this build, keep up the good work :thumbsup

Wow ... you're making great progress indeed ... and your propmaking skills are incredible

Chaim

Thanks! I'm getting a little concerned about getting to a presentable state by Halloween, but am enjoying the process and having a blast.

Concentrate ... stay on target ... stay on target

Chaim

I hope it doesn't just pact on the surface!

Pedro said:

I hope it doesn't just pact on the surface!

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Nah, you're good! This is great stuff - keep the pics coming. Oh, and if you're able - can you get a video of using the vacformer, because it'd be very useful to show others thinking about the process. Looks like you've pretty much sorted out the bugs. BTW - might pay to let your wife know the oven is just on loan!