Have no artistic talent, but really want to make Stormtrooper armor. Help!

I think the title pretty much says it all. I have almost no artistic skill whatsoever but I really want to make some Stormtrooper armor that I could possibly wear to C3.


--Locked at request of Jedi_Knight150

 

Check the Welcome thread. It answers all.

 

I checked it. I wasn't really able to find any links that helped.

 

sorry to be so blunt,but here it goes.

dont waste your time.

now with that said let me explain.

at C3 there will be literally hundreds of 501st members wearing "matching" suits of trooper armor.if you were to learn the ways and be able to make your own suit and wore it to c3 then youll stick out so bad youll want to leave.

to make trooper armor means creating a handful of molds,like 30 or so.these molds take hours and hours to make.even crappy molds take forever!then you have to buy the plastic and build a vacuumform table.once thats ready youll have to vac over 50 pcs of plastic.
not to mention that abs plastic used on the trooper suits is hard to come by.i tried to buy some and was told id have to buy a truckload.and this is common.

if your serious about getting armor then get a job and earn some money.you can make enough for trooper armor in a few weeks,seriously.if your a teen then cut some grass or something.
youll spend hundreds of hours trying to make your own.instead be realistic and go meet the local 501st members close to you.

again,not trying to be mean,but this subject pops up all the time.and id rather be honest with you.

now if you wanted to make a "for fun" suit then thats different.ive seen cardboard and stuff that really looked cool.
but again,this isnt going to cut it at a major event.

 

Skippy pretty much nailed it. I wouldn't think about making my own unless I loved the idea of making the armor at least as much as the idea of owning it. Overall, you'll likely spend more to spend a lot more building than buying. Then there's the time spent reserching every square inch of the suit. Then the time making molds for each piece.

Personally, I'd just fork over the cash to someone who'd already done all that work. (I say this as one who doesn't have armor, doesn't plan any time soon to acquire armor, but after the Clone Wars series, would really love a set of Clone armor like Obi-wan's...)

FYI, Studio Creations has a decent tutorial on vacuforming:
http://www.studiocreations.com/howto/index.html

 

yeah, trooper costumes are not the kind thing even an artistic person should consider building out of scratch.

 

If you didn't want to have it done by C3 then I would say go for it. There are few things more satisfying than building your own armor. But, considering you probably haven't done anything like this, I would buy it your first time out. Considering just the body cast is an effor and a half, don't do it until you don't have a deadline. If you say 'I need armor by this date' then chances are you'll end up rushing it, which is never good. I've been working on making my own Jedi Armor (from the RPG) for about a year now, and this entire time has just been spent researching different methods, then trying those methods. Plus, when you have your own moulds you can play around with different colors of plastic and things like that because you can essentially vac as many sets of armor as you want!

Skip, where do you live? I have never had trouble getting plastic, either on-line or from local dealers.

And I would just like to say, don't think you can go out, buy a set of armor, then vac off of that. First of all, it's stealing. Though they aren't copywrited and the seller probably couldn't complain considering he's already tredding on legal thin ice, it's just morally wrong. And it looks bad. It looks so bad that real troopers will spot if from a mile away and shun you for life.