Kirk0
Active Member
I took the plunge while out with some friends in a bar and bought one of these for Halloween a few weeks ago from ebay for £220 (seller has since reduced it to £205) I bought it from a UK based seller who imports them from China, these suits are all over ebay etc.
These are the images so knew it wasn't going to look great on arrival but hoped I could make it look better:
I knew it was a risk when I bought it but knew that with ebay protection if it was really terrible I could return it, delivery from this particular seller was great I ordered it late on a Saturday night it came in 9 days. Listing states one size fits all... it does not I'm 6'3 and its about a foot to short for me in the legs but luckily the fur is very long and hangs down a lot and the boots I've made are quite tall so this all fills the gap.
It came in such a tiny box I'd say around a 40cm cube, that was a mask, full body suit, gloves, feet covers and bandoiler/bag all crammed into a 40cm box.
First thing I came across when opening the box was the mask:
Yeah..... moustache glued onto the lip, patch of fur missing, crooked nose and mouth and one eye bigger than the other.... this pic is also after i'd spent a fair amount of time brushing the hair to make it look a little better.
I immediately took a bunch of pics and sent them off to the seller he offered to send me out a replacement mask but I said I'd prefer a partial refund of £40 and I'd get the mask looking ok myself, after a little back and forth I got the £40 refund.
So onto attempting to make this mask look something presentable..... First thing I did was remove some hair from the bottom of the mask where it wouldn't be noticeable and hot glued it onto the bald spot, I then carefully removed the moustache and reattached it where it should be took, a scalpel to the eye (which for some reason was partially sewn closed which was about 50% of the problem to make it a similar size to the other and finally I partially glued the mouth shut to even it out.
That left it looking like this:
Still wasn't happy with it as it was lacking any shading around the eyes making them looking ridiculous and the other eye still wasn't right.
I decided it needed some shading and opted for using permanent marker and smudging it while it was still wet, this was the result of that:
I left the mask at that for now and took it home and spent quite a lot of time brushing the whole thing and this was the first test fit:
As it had been stuffed in a tiny box for delivery I decided to leave the suit on a hanger for a couple of weeks while occasionally giving it a brush.
I decided I'm not using the gloves they're really thick rubbery, uncomfortable and hot but they won't go to waste (the fingers will be used to make some Ewok toes and the fur will be used on the boots)
In the mean time I went to work on my wife's costume (ewok build in another thread) and building myself a cheap Foam Bowcaster.
I won't go into detail on the bowcaster its just some EVA foam jigsaw mats cut out of some hand drawn templates I made and glued together with whatever greebles I could find lying around a wooden dowel and a couple of Christmas tree ornaments. Only thing I had to buy for this was the mats so it cost me around £5 to make and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome:
It was then back onto fixing parts of the costume, first thing I wanted was a working bag, the one that came with the costume was rubber and only half a bag it had no back.
I ordered a cheap secondhand leather satchel from ebay, its not accurate but its fine by me and looks better than it did, it also gives me somewhere to store my phone and wallet etc. I just simply cut the bag off the the bandoiler and attached the new one to the bandoiler with some black chord.
Next step was the feet, I hate foot covers they slip off easily and make it very difficult to walk, every costume I've made I've ended up ruining a pair of boots and this one was no exception.
I glued the feet covers onto some boots and used the fur from the gloves to cover the tops of the boots. I also made my wifes Ewok boots while doing this I told you those gloves wouldn't go to waste!:
I have since trimmed the fur on the bottom of the feet as it hung down about 8 inches and walking in them was a bit of a trip hazard.
Next I went back to work on grooming the body suit, it had been left hanging for two weeks and I spent a good half hr brushing the suit and it looked much better afterwards.
I also applied some hair wax to the mask, groomed that again and gave the moustache a trim. I hot glued a some foam inside the top of the head in a cap shape to help it hold its shape and give it a little added height.
So.. this is the final results of the costume I spent all day yesterday doing the boots, grooming etc and this is the final test fit:
And Finally a side by side comparison:
So would I recommend these costumes, if you're willing to put some work into it then yes, if you want an out of the box awesome costume no.
I'm happy with it, overall it cost me less than £200 and I think it looks great now, will it get into the 501st etc? No, but that's not what I wanted it for, its a costume to go out drinking in over the weekend and to go trick or treating with the kids on Monday.
These are the images so knew it wasn't going to look great on arrival but hoped I could make it look better:
I knew it was a risk when I bought it but knew that with ebay protection if it was really terrible I could return it, delivery from this particular seller was great I ordered it late on a Saturday night it came in 9 days. Listing states one size fits all... it does not I'm 6'3 and its about a foot to short for me in the legs but luckily the fur is very long and hangs down a lot and the boots I've made are quite tall so this all fills the gap.
It came in such a tiny box I'd say around a 40cm cube, that was a mask, full body suit, gloves, feet covers and bandoiler/bag all crammed into a 40cm box.
First thing I came across when opening the box was the mask:
Yeah..... moustache glued onto the lip, patch of fur missing, crooked nose and mouth and one eye bigger than the other.... this pic is also after i'd spent a fair amount of time brushing the hair to make it look a little better.
I immediately took a bunch of pics and sent them off to the seller he offered to send me out a replacement mask but I said I'd prefer a partial refund of £40 and I'd get the mask looking ok myself, after a little back and forth I got the £40 refund.
So onto attempting to make this mask look something presentable..... First thing I did was remove some hair from the bottom of the mask where it wouldn't be noticeable and hot glued it onto the bald spot, I then carefully removed the moustache and reattached it where it should be took, a scalpel to the eye (which for some reason was partially sewn closed which was about 50% of the problem to make it a similar size to the other and finally I partially glued the mouth shut to even it out.
That left it looking like this:
Still wasn't happy with it as it was lacking any shading around the eyes making them looking ridiculous and the other eye still wasn't right.
I decided it needed some shading and opted for using permanent marker and smudging it while it was still wet, this was the result of that:
I left the mask at that for now and took it home and spent quite a lot of time brushing the whole thing and this was the first test fit:
As it had been stuffed in a tiny box for delivery I decided to leave the suit on a hanger for a couple of weeks while occasionally giving it a brush.
I decided I'm not using the gloves they're really thick rubbery, uncomfortable and hot but they won't go to waste (the fingers will be used to make some Ewok toes and the fur will be used on the boots)
In the mean time I went to work on my wife's costume (ewok build in another thread) and building myself a cheap Foam Bowcaster.
I won't go into detail on the bowcaster its just some EVA foam jigsaw mats cut out of some hand drawn templates I made and glued together with whatever greebles I could find lying around a wooden dowel and a couple of Christmas tree ornaments. Only thing I had to buy for this was the mats so it cost me around £5 to make and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome:
It was then back onto fixing parts of the costume, first thing I wanted was a working bag, the one that came with the costume was rubber and only half a bag it had no back.
I ordered a cheap secondhand leather satchel from ebay, its not accurate but its fine by me and looks better than it did, it also gives me somewhere to store my phone and wallet etc. I just simply cut the bag off the the bandoiler and attached the new one to the bandoiler with some black chord.
Next step was the feet, I hate foot covers they slip off easily and make it very difficult to walk, every costume I've made I've ended up ruining a pair of boots and this one was no exception.
I glued the feet covers onto some boots and used the fur from the gloves to cover the tops of the boots. I also made my wifes Ewok boots while doing this I told you those gloves wouldn't go to waste!:
I have since trimmed the fur on the bottom of the feet as it hung down about 8 inches and walking in them was a bit of a trip hazard.
Next I went back to work on grooming the body suit, it had been left hanging for two weeks and I spent a good half hr brushing the suit and it looked much better afterwards.
I also applied some hair wax to the mask, groomed that again and gave the moustache a trim. I hot glued a some foam inside the top of the head in a cap shape to help it hold its shape and give it a little added height.
So.. this is the final results of the costume I spent all day yesterday doing the boots, grooming etc and this is the final test fit:
And Finally a side by side comparison:
So would I recommend these costumes, if you're willing to put some work into it then yes, if you want an out of the box awesome costume no.
I'm happy with it, overall it cost me less than £200 and I think it looks great now, will it get into the 501st etc? No, but that's not what I wanted it for, its a costume to go out drinking in over the weekend and to go trick or treating with the kids on Monday.
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