Welcome to the Drali Mandalorian

If been asked so many times about my armor.. and oh course I love informing people but my poor fingers are so tried of typing! :D I've made this for you! the fans of mandalorians!

I plan on adding a male area soon. 

Step 1 : Helmet : bucket  

2010 Mandalorian Mercs Costume Standards: NO BOBA FETT ONE PIECE RUBIES!

Now there are ways of making your very own helmet from scrath, but thats not what I did. I went to a costume shop and purchased a Jango Fett helmet - Rubies one piece. It costed $80. Shop around for a helmet on ebay or amazon. You could also get a Jango Fett rubie two piece helmet, its not as strong as the one piece but it'll work. The easy thing with the one piece is that all you have to do is replace the visor.

 Rubies two piece helmet is the cheapest you can get. When you take it out of the package you'll realize that the helmet is in two pieces, don't freak out. We'll fill that in with some Bondo, then sand it down.

 Yes that ugly line is an easy fix. Just get some Bondo and apply it on the top and the inside of the helmet. Let it dry for 24 hours, which might be long but you want to make sure that its dry.

When its dry you can begin to sand the extra bondo away. But remember to be careful

I added a light to the green helmet.

Step 2: Replacing the Visor

If your a member on TheDentedHelmet.com you can go into the Cargo hold and see if anyone is selling a visor for cheap. But I always go to the same seller on ebay. All you have to type in is 'boba fett visor' now a couple of different visor are going to come up. Rembrandt-enterprises is the seller your looking for. He sells three different kinds of visors. I've always purchased the standard boba fett visor. But feel free to message him if you want to double check. Shipping takes alittle while, but the visor is totally worth it.

Now that you have your visor its high time to get rid of the old one.

For the one piece rubies all you need is a box cutter and that crapper thin plastic should be really easy to cut.

The two piece rubies all you have to do is pop out the visor, which takes some time believe it or not. Once that is done you need to sand down the little bumps that are left behind. Purchasing a Dremel is allways a good idea.

After all the plastic is gone you're going to need a hot glue gun and some patience. Before you do anything with the glue, try to get the visor into place on the inside. This can be kind of tricky with the shape of the helmet, the visor does have some bend to it, but it can break....trust me, I know. Once you get the visor where you want it, start glueing from the bottom of the visor. Once you get the length glued in good the rest is easy, just be sure your using a good amount of hot glue to fit everything in it. Also your going to want to check the front of the visor and make sure nothing is dripping to the front. Once your finished glueing your done. The bottome picture is of the Rubies two piece

Step 3 : Soft parts

Girth Belts: Boba Fett wears a grith belt under his ammo belt, his is a dark redish brown color. Now you don't really need this but it adds a nice touch. Now for my girth belt, I made this. If anyone would like one please feel free to become a member and send me a message. Though this isn' t the normal type of grith belt.  

Ammo Belt: I purchased my ammo belt on ebay it costed me about $45, its worth the money. Trust me all the pouches work and are perfect when your at a con and need pockets. It fits a small juice box in too. Now this is a normal Boba / Jango Fett ammo belt you can find this all over ebay. SHOP around please! Someone is always selling it cheaper. I also have Jedi boxes and food/energy/protein pill contain which are carried by the jedi. Now you don't need to have this belt but you do need one.

Flight suits : The flightsuit you can purchased anywhere, ebay, amazon, or even a workers retail store (if its open to the public). My first flightsuit was 100% cotton which worked fine for me. The second flightsuit was a military issue I got off ebay.When your looking at flightsuits you don't want it to be to tight, I know some women want to go for that 'sexy' look but I don't think mandalorian women were trying to be sexy while killing jedi and sith. Its personal choice though.

Flak vests : Please do not use a T-shirt. I used velcro for my armor. So I picked up some light gray cotton mixed fabric from a local fabric store. I used one of my t-shirts for a pattern and just left out the sleeves.These pictures are of the back of my flak vest, due to my fabric being a bend it has some pull to it. You can see where I placed the velcro strips to close my vest. Don't worry about the four strips on my back those for my back plate. I do custom orders for flak vests.

Gloves -  Now you can do whatever you want with gloves. Fingerless is allowed though. I do have arm wrapping for the bottom of the gloves so you wouldn't see the black string.  I used to have fingerless gloves but Ive upgraded to these.

 Neck Seal: You can use anything for a neck seal, I used to wear a scarf but I upgraded to the real deal. I got this pattern off of TheDentedHelmet.com, you can do a search for 'neck seal' and I'm sure it'll show up its by 'Ladywhosewsforus'. I don't own it and I'm taken credit just spreading the word.

You need to pick a fabric and take you neck measurement (add three inches). Cut two pieces of the fabric and sew three of the four sides, as in the photo with the blk lines. ^ ^ ^

 Your going to need batting for the inside of the neck seal. Remember to flip the the two pieces of fabric inside out, as you can see in the second photo. Once you get the batting inside the two pieces you'll to start pinning, the length and how many rows is up to you. I went with an inch wide and five rows.

After you pinned all the rows set your sewing machine to staright line (with some color thread) then just sew in a staright line. As you see in my second photo some of my lines are abit off but I'm not to worried. The Large piece of fabric sewn to the bottom of the seal is called a 'dickie' it'll be tucked into the falk vest. Last thing to do is add he velcro to bothsides (hoop/loop).

 Step 4 : Boots or shoes

2010 Mandalorian Mercs Costume Standards: NO LACES can be showing.

I wear boots and shin guards This is my personal choice its really up to you in the end. No heels! Think about it, you're going to walking around for a long time! Why would you do that to yourself?

These are my leg wrappings I dirty them up with some brown dye andspray bottle.

Step 5: Weapons :

2010 Mandalorian Merc Costuming Standards : If your going to use a NERF gun "labels" and "warnings" removed, a repaint and significant modifications.

lAll my weapons are NERF guns. You can purchased them at Toys'R'us, target, walmart, any kind of big name brand chain store. For those who have the money, check out ebay for some awesome Star Wars prop guns. If you do go with the nerf gun choice, all you need is come black and silver spray paint. Best to go outside lay some newspaper on the ground, place guns on top and spray. Let them dry then flip over and repeat. The silver you can use for detail, maybe add a symbol.

Step 6: Beskar'gam - Iron Skin- Armor

So now you have everything but your Baskar'gam. Hopefully by now you have an idea of what colors you want to use for you armor and helmet. There are many ways to make female armor. I choice the mannequin way, I purchased a half mannequinn on ebay with my cup size. When your looking for a half mannequinn make sure they do NOT have nipples. I know I know, you think I'm crazy but my manneqiunn had nipples and I had to sand them off....

Some women don't like the profile on this type of armor, but I do. I want people to know that I'm a woman and not a small child.

 After I sanded the nipples down, I draw on the mannequinn the chest places and the ab plate. I used a trash can for the neck,shoulders. back, knees. Which ThedentedHelmet.com has templates for, please feel free to vist them. 

OKay so the picture of the left its my template drawn on to a piece of 3mm sintra, the picture on the right is those templates cut out. THose line you see going in the center of the chest were also cut, with a heating gun, heat the sintra until it becomes soft and bendable. Then careful pull the two cut endd that are side by side together causing the middle to pop out. Hold till hard then do the same with the longer line near the bottom. Then following the directions on the jar, mix your bondo (you can pick bondo up at walmart,auto-zone) Bondao is used to repair cars. Let it dry a few hours before you reable another coat to cover the lines and sharp edges.

This photo is the chest plate with two coats of bondo, I'm still not happy with it I'm going to do another coat before I sand it down. The picture on the right has one more layer of bondo. I just need a power sander and I'm good.

 Step 6 : Part 1: Knee Guards : Okay so this isn't the shape you need to have but you do need something protecting your knees. It can be any shape you want and whatever colors.  I upgraded my  knee gaurds. This are the standard Jango/Boba Fett knees, I dind't trim them at all.

The Photo on the right is my NEW knees. They are smaller fit my body type and I can kneel down in them. I also got rid of the grey trim. :D 

Step 6 Part 2: Gaunlets : This is something that you'll probably want. Though you do need somthing to be protecting your fore arms. Otherwise it looks kinda bare. If you join the Mercs its somthing you should think about getting, its wealth the money.

 Step 6 part 3: shoulder guards : OKay so you may have noticed the designs on my shoulder pieces. No picking a symbol is a personal choice, you don't one if you don't want. THe Medic symbol is from the mandalorians mercs I didn't make it. NOw here are some example. (mine and my botfriends shoulder pieces) You do need some type of protection on your shoulders.

 image -^ Medic            ^ tusken raider                     ^ mando symbol          ^ ""

Step 6  Heating and shaping :  for heating you can do this three ways. Oven, heat gun, and boiling. The oven is probably the simplest way to heat and shape. Turn the oven on to 300 degrees and place a tin foil covered cookie sheet pan. PLace the plastic on the sheet pan and WATCH the plastic, it will heat up fast.

You can pick up a heating gun at your local Job Lot or Walmart, those are the two cheaper places I've found them for like $25. Or you can go to Lowes or home Depo for $35. If you plan on useing sintra or trash can purchasing one of these will make your life some much stress free.

Shaping is easy becasue once you get the sintra or trash can heated up its flexible. But sure to wear work gloves or oven mits when your shaping the plastic. The last thing you want is burned finger tips. ouch!

purchasng sintra or just finding it : There are tons of website out there at sell sintra but you have to watch out and look closely at the prices and how thick the plastic is. My friends and I found a local sintra seller in RHode Island we had been looking for a good place to buy it. We drove to the building address that was on their website, it was in a run down industrial area. As we walked to the front door, we noticed the builing looked run down and the grass and bushes were over grown. Needless to say the front door was locked all the light shut off and we even looked in the windows...there was nothing but boxes and boxes of paper. No desks no computers. And nothing was in english.

Just be careful.

A Safer way maybe go to a local sign making shop and ask for thier scraps or mistakes. Becasue they just throw it all away in the end. I was lucky enough to get a ton of sintra from my local 501st garrison, who got it from a sign shop.

Weathering and battle damage: First rule of any kind of damage on your armor. MAKE THE PHYSICAL DAMAGE BEFORE YOU START PAINTING! this makes life easy. do all the physical damage right after you sand. scrath marks, blaster burns, chipping on the edge of the armor.

Okay so all your damge is donw. Now its time to pick out the colors. I used a few colors in my new kit.

Note the damge on the plate riiight here^

So used orange, brown, red, tan,white. I like the way it came out. Spray paint it really cheap at Walmart! its like 3$ not bad. So the paint is dry now what? Weathering an some more damage. I use acrylic paint brown, black, chopper and some sivler model paint. For the scraps and deep cut marks I mix the brown and black together and add some water to make it fluid like. Using a paint brush i dip the brush in the paint and then into the cut/damage all the way down the whole lenght of the scrap.

After I like to used a paper towel and just wip away some of the extra paint, that to causes some nice stain marks near the damage. Weathering the whole kit of armor will take some time and you need to have some self control and know when enough is enough. I based this kit off of the Friaxan Shark and when its done I hope to have it be a show piece for out clan when we go to Cons and events.jjjjjjj