Star Wars sewing and Armor Building
I’ve been sewing for over 15 years, and I feel like it’s my general area of expertise. See my page Things I Learned While Making Things in the workshop for more rambling on this. But even with 100+ costumes under my belt, there are still new things to learn.
An example of this is: with the 501st, and their heavily regulated movie replica costumes. If you haven’t heard of it, the 501st is a charity organization which builds Star Wars movie replica outfits; mostly armor for Troopers and Mercs.
If you’ve ever seen Storm Troopers in a parade, or visiting a hospital or school, it was local volunteers from the 501st [not Hollywood studios].
In 2018, I started doing sewing work for a 501st builder.
Apparently, there’s a huge market for screen-accurate Star Wars costumes, since the film studios that own the copyrights aren’t also selling those costumes for public sale. So the home makers/builders of these high quality costume-armor pieces are aggressively protective of their market shares. And so, I was asked to working directly for an armor builder, because his customers kept asking if he could recommend a builder for some of the other pieces.
I started with flak vests. It took 4 tries to get the collar accurate, and I’m still not happy with the fabric choice. The 501st website has the requirements with descriptions of how it’s supposed to look, but no recommendations on how to make it. No sewing patterns or material close-ups.
It’s supposed to be made out of something like Tackle Twill fabric, which is a durable sports fabric with a slightly shiny finish. Some people use a thinner satin-like fabric, which has the right shine, but not the right feel; and some of mine are made of a thin canvas, which feels right, but doesn’t have that same shine.
For a few weeks, that collar was the most annoying thing I had ever tried to sew. But I got it eventually. I made my own patterns. The vest Is fully lined and has some quilt-batting inside the front, sleeves, and collar, to fluff it up. There are some button holes on the back shoulder area for the jet-pack to attach with the under harness. The sleeves are quilted, and the collar has pleats. I only made them in XL size, best fits chest measurements 42-48inches. It’ll fit a thinner person than that, but it’ll be baggy. Alterations are always an option. I made 10 of them in Grey for Boba Fett. ALSO see my Boba Fett costume.
I did some small white female ones on custom order. and I made myself a teal one.
After that, I started making casts of armor pieces. Helmets, chest plates, shoulder pieces, arm, leg, ect.
See my workshop page for Mold making, for the simplified process of how to make molds. For these large armor pieces I used Rebound25 Brushable Silicon Rubber to make the molds, and for the mold shells I used fiberglass for the larger pieces and plaster wrap for the smaller pieces.. and then Semi-Rigid Urethane Resin for the first few armor casts [later switched to Black Onyx Fast liquid plastic with fiberglass reinforcement].
We worked to get a full set of Mandalorian style armor for sale.
It was very labor intensive, but with the Covid-19 pandemic shut-down in 2020, I had a lot of time.
An example of this is: with the 501st, and their heavily regulated movie replica costumes. If you haven’t heard of it, the 501st is a charity organization which builds Star Wars movie replica outfits; mostly armor for Troopers and Mercs.
If you’ve ever seen Storm Troopers in a parade, or visiting a hospital or school, it was local volunteers from the 501st [not Hollywood studios].
In 2018, I started doing sewing work for a 501st builder.
Apparently, there’s a huge market for screen-accurate Star Wars costumes, since the film studios that own the copyrights aren’t also selling those costumes for public sale. So the home makers/builders of these high quality costume-armor pieces are aggressively protective of their market shares. And so, I was asked to working directly for an armor builder, because his customers kept asking if he could recommend a builder for some of the other pieces.
I started with flak vests. It took 4 tries to get the collar accurate, and I’m still not happy with the fabric choice. The 501st website has the requirements with descriptions of how it’s supposed to look, but no recommendations on how to make it. No sewing patterns or material close-ups.
It’s supposed to be made out of something like Tackle Twill fabric, which is a durable sports fabric with a slightly shiny finish. Some people use a thinner satin-like fabric, which has the right shine, but not the right feel; and some of mine are made of a thin canvas, which feels right, but doesn’t have that same shine.
For a few weeks, that collar was the most annoying thing I had ever tried to sew. But I got it eventually. I made my own patterns. The vest Is fully lined and has some quilt-batting inside the front, sleeves, and collar, to fluff it up. There are some button holes on the back shoulder area for the jet-pack to attach with the under harness. The sleeves are quilted, and the collar has pleats. I only made them in XL size, best fits chest measurements 42-48inches. It’ll fit a thinner person than that, but it’ll be baggy. Alterations are always an option. I made 10 of them in Grey for Boba Fett. ALSO see my Boba Fett costume.
I did some small white female ones on custom order. and I made myself a teal one.
After that, I started making casts of armor pieces. Helmets, chest plates, shoulder pieces, arm, leg, ect.
See my workshop page for Mold making, for the simplified process of how to make molds. For these large armor pieces I used Rebound25 Brushable Silicon Rubber to make the molds, and for the mold shells I used fiberglass for the larger pieces and plaster wrap for the smaller pieces.. and then Semi-Rigid Urethane Resin for the first few armor casts [later switched to Black Onyx Fast liquid plastic with fiberglass reinforcement].
We worked to get a full set of Mandalorian style armor for sale.
It was very labor intensive, but with the Covid-19 pandemic shut-down in 2020, I had a lot of time.
All photos are copyrighted.
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