MB's KST armor tutorial

[mrbungle]

OK, let's make it happen ,captian!!!

 

this is a tutorial on how to put my kashyyyk scout armor together. when you get it , i do some trimming on the armor but let you do the final trimming. some like alot of return edge, some do not. the return edge is the edge of the armor that turns down at the edge of the armor. you are going to need some skill to put this kit together. anyone who has done a TK or clone should not have any problems with this build.

 

the most important thing is to take your time and have fun.

 

this is the basic kit. minus helmet.

 

for this build you are going to need.

table top sander or dremal tool.

sand paper, 60 grit and 100 grit.

clamps

glue.

spray paint. primer grey. the darker the better.

some plastic forsale signs.

heatgun.

and lots of free time.

 

there are some dimples and stuff in the armor. the camo paint job on this costume will hide some stuff, like bad spots and stuff. first you are going to trim all the armor edges. leave some return edge on all the armor parts. about an 8th of an inch

 

do not cut any of the actual armor off. if you cut off a any of the length off a piece it will give you fits trying to put it on. mainly the tops of the front plate and back plate.

 

i did this kit out of hips. it holds paint better than abs and bonds well with glues and bondo. bondo is your friend. when working with bonod , wear a mask. the fumes and dust can give you lung cancer. lung cancer is bad.

ALWAYS SAND THE PART LIGHTLY BEFORE YOU PUT THE BONDO ON. it will flake off if you do not.

 

EDIT

 

i put the taniks together for you. so you do not have too.

 

 

of the parts the back plate and the tank are the only rough parts of the kit. they are very deep pulls and it is hard to get good looking pulls of the back plate and tank. you are going to join them together and bondo them any way. so it will hide some of the imperfections of the casting.

 

also there will be thin spots in the armor. mainly on the back plate because of the depth of the pull. i have tried everything i can to get rid of them . other than going to a thicker plastic. which i am thinking about. but the thicker the palstic, the less detail you get.

 

if you get a thin spot. get some fiberglass resin and mesh. lightly sand the inside of the thin spot , put resin on with a cheap paint brush, then put the mesh on and cover with a coat of resin with the cheap paint brush. i kinda of dab on the mesh. this also works well on cracks on the edges if you crack one.

 

you want your armor to look like this.

 

if your armor looks like this , then you need to do some more sanding on the return edges.

 

after that prime the piece with primer. any bad spots will now rear thier ugly head. if need be do some more sanding and priming. it should look like this when done with this stage.

 

more later.

[Army Scout]

Consider this topic PINNED!

 

Great work!

 

Chris

[mrbungle]

thanks ,chris.

 

now that the hard part is out of the way. we can move on to the other parts that need to be glued and bondoed.

 

the bicep and shins are the other to hard parts but not as bad as the back plate and tank.

 

on the biceps. they come in two halves. trim the armor down and cut a straight line on the edges that are going to meet. once you are happy with the way the two halves meet up cut up some strips of the forsale sign you bought. cut it up into 1 1/2" strips. if you need to make them bigger than the parts provided. you can buy some sintra from the hobby store and cut strips to the width needed. making the bicep piece bigger. you are going to fill in the gap with bondo.

 

cut the strips to the length needed to fit inside the bicep part. use the heat gun to bend the sign strip to turn with the return edge of your bicep piece. glue into place and put your clamps on. you are going to glue the strips on both sides of one half of the bicep piece. then glue the two haves together with the strips in the inside of the bicep part.

 

the flat looking end is the bottom of the bicep piece and the rounded off end is the top.

 

it should look like this.

 

 

and glued together , they should look like this. on this bicep piece make sure the green fits in the slot before you paint it. you might have to do some sanding on the slot and the greeb to get a tight fit.

 

 

next the bondo. lightly sand the bicep pieces down with the 100 grit sandpaper. then apply the bondo. 2 coats then sand.

 

here they are finished.

 

do not paint the camo on until you know the piece is going to fit. it really sucks painting something up only to realize you have to work on it and mess up the paint.

 

 

the shin are basicly the same as the biceps. measure ,cut and glue strips and glue together, then bondo.

 

the main difference is you want as little return edge at the bottom of the shins as possible. your foot has to fit through there.

 

here are the shins with the strips glued in.

 

here hey are with the bondo.

 

here they are finished. i have cut holes for the shin straps. i bought some canvas belt material for this and when you buy it. get about 4 foot. you will need to use some for the back and chest plate attachment.

 

here is a pic of the straps on.

 

on the buckles of the straps. i took some aluminium flashing and cut it the width of the buckle greeb and a little longer to bend back so it fits like a clip on the strap.

 

here is a good pic of waht i am talking about. the greeb is glued to the aluminum then attached to the belt. once i have shin armo painted camo and finished i will permenently attach the straps and buckles to the shin armor.

 

 

back with more later.

[mrbungle]

now that the hard parts are out of the way we can start putting this bad boy together.

 

putiing the chest and back plat together is easy.

 

you are going to need.

 

velcro.

canvas belt material.

 

i took a piece of blt material and put a long strip of velcro on it. then took the other have of the velcro and cut it in half and put one piece on the inside of the chest piece and put the other on the backplate.

 

now i am pretty skinny so i cut off some of the backplate top armor. so the back plate looks alittle wide.

but on the uncut version they meet up pretty good and you are going to cover the area where the chest and back meet with the rubber straps anyways.

here are the straps and the armor, notice the fiberglass on the backplate , i cracked it removing it from the mold. hey , it was my first one. i have figured out how to remove the backplate without cracking them. i cracked 3 before i got the hang of it.

 

here it is together. you can put this on without any help. which is always a plus.

 

where the back and chest meet. the bottom back plate overlaps the the front. this is accurate. do not try to make them meet flush.

 

we are getting closer to paint, my favorite part!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mrbungle]

now once you make sure the armor fits , you can start painting. i am a big fan a layered paint jobs becaused topical paint jobs look just like a topical paint job up close. props and costumes are all about illusion. we trying to make people think the costume is real not a bunch of plastic,resin and glue.

\

for the paint i used

i used dupli-coat for the crhome and primer. the darker grey primer.

for the base coat i used benamin moore satin latex interior piant.

thake this to the paint store to get the color.

hc-96

+bk 1/2

+tg 1/2

that ios the formula the guy at the paint store needs to make your paint..

 

Polly scale, Panzer Olive green F505113

Tamiya Color, Flat Earth (brown) FX-52 item # 81359

Tamiya Color, Desert Yellow XF-59, item # 817

misting and weathering. black and kahki seems to work well.

 

 

 

 

once we have the armor painted, we are going to start attaching the armor to the undersuit. also we will be puttting the rest of the greebs on. make sure the tank greeb fits before you paint the tank and back plate. but do not attach the tank greeb until you paint the tank. then paint the greeb. then glue the greeb in to the slot made for it on the tank.

 

 

i lightly sanded the armor down with the 100 grit sand paper , dusted it off and painted a layer of chrome paint. i use liquid latex and a small brush to cover areas i want the chrome to come through.

 

notice that the cod p[iece is not painted. we are going to cover it with a white cloth material adn paint it. the armor and cod are the same colors. but the cod is made of cloth.

 

here is the pic of the armor all chrome. boy, ain't that pretty!!!! you are going to paint the inside of the smaller armor parts black so that if someone sees the inside of the armor they don't see white!!! it is all about illusion!!!

 

[mrbungle]

well, tom. you arn't done with the build yet , why are you painting already? the reason we are painting is because the armor needs to be painted before you put all the greebs on. trust me you acn put all the greebs on first , then you get to tape all the greebs off. not fun.

 

here is the next layer of paint. i latexed the chrome paint to show through the paint. then latexed the grey where i want it to show.

i paint the inside of the pieces black. we do not want to see white plastic when we wear the armor.

 

here is the armor after the base coat for the camo. see a layered paint job is not that hard!!!!

[mrbungle]

here are some pics of the greebs beiing put on.

 

the bicep piece with all the straps.

 

i put a notch in the greeb that goes on the outside so that it will fit on the rubber strap that goes around the bicep piece.

the strap that goes around needs to end where the rubber inside greeb is. just run the straps to the edge of the greeb.

 

 

once you have the greebs and the rubber straps glued , take a razor to trim off any excess rubber hanging of the rubber parts. now this part is ready to paint and wether.

 

now the back tank greeb is suppose to fit in the hole on top of the tank and sometimes it does and other times it does not.

you will have to sand the bottom of the greeb to get it to the correct thickness to fit in the gap left for it. worse case is you have to cut out the bottom of the greeb slot on top of the tank to make it fit and glue a piece of plastic up in the tank to keep the greeb in place.

 

you want the tank greeb flush with the surface of the tank.

 

 

 

 

on the toe armor i used a 1/2 inch o-ring for the greeb there. you can find them at most hareware stores.

[mrbungle]

here is the camo before we do weathering with spray paint. still have a few pieces to finish painting but it is getting there. the idea is to paint the camo on and not make it to busy which i have almost done. it is fine line.

[mrbungle]

here is how i made the straps for the bicep piece. i took a rubber bungy strap that you can buy at the hardware store. cut off the ends with the hooks , then cut the strap in half long ways. then glue in.

 

it should look like this.

 

on the knees i just glued the straps in. my leg is skinny enought to put through the strap. but for bigger folks. glue the outside strap and use a snap for the inside. i also glued in an elastic strap under the rubber one to help the knee armor to stay in place.

 

[mrbungle]

for the shoulder bells, i bought some cheap knee pads from the hardware store. i removed the straps and painted them black. then glued them in the bell. you can use velcro to attach the bell to the sholder. the knee pads give you that lifted up look that the kst's have.

 

 

 

on the cod piece i bought some material that resembles the cod piece in the reference pics. hot glued the cloth to the cod piece then painted it.

 

and here the armor fully painted. i still have to paint some silver on the greebs here and there. and i have the boot straps put in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lonescout]

Looking good! Can't wait to see it on you! Great Job MB!

[mrbungle]

thanks angelo

 

small update, your KT should look like this. the people that bought this armor i have made new shoulder straps that are longer and easier to attach to the chest and backplate.

 

anywho here is what your kt should look like.

 

 

now go troop!!!

[tk 7261]

im not sure on how to do the belt part of your kit. could you write up a little something to help me. i dont know it is came in two peices or how to paint or if i need to paint it or what

[mrbungle]

hang tight, i will try to get some pics up tommorow on how i did mine.

 

 

[Acrylikhan]

Excellent! Dude, that rocks!!!

[Guest Skupilkinson]

Sweet tutorial Tom! I'm hoping to pick up a set of this armor from you real soon so this tut' will come in dead handy!!!

[tk 7261]

belt bump

[mrbungle]

oi! sorry about the wait.

 

 

ok i put velcro on the top of the belt flap. that will go under the bottom of the cumberbund edge. the spare peice of belt is used to fill in any gap there might be on the waist. i took a piece of belt material and put velcro on it and the extra piece.

 

the buckle is trimed and glued into place on the belt. and i used suede leather strips fro the straps coming off the buckle and the pouches.

i found some d rings i used on the pouches and made a hole and glued them into place. then covered the pouches in cloth.

 

on the new cod pieces , there is no top flap. take some of the suede leather strips and glue them into place on the cod and belt after you have the cod covered in the monks cloth. the reason i stop using the flap on the cod was that the flap made the belt flat on top of the cod. i still have to update mine.

 

[tk 7261]

thanks man

[shadowmantis]

accidentally posted in wrong spot, sorry,

erasing

[Boba Leo]

Awesome tutorial !!!!!!! Thank you very much

 

Leo

[Jimah]

One question for you Mr B... how are the rubber patches best attached to the shoulders of the chest armour? Is there a requirement on how these are attached (ie: TK can be attached both front and back, or free floating @ the back)...

[mrbungle]

superglue is what i use. but if you come up with better method , use it.

[Bloodclaws65]

I think I will use magnets to attach rubber patches .

 

Does anyone the have the measurements for the boots straps on the shin armor there are 2 slits that the straps run thru on both sides top and bottom Thanks for the help.

[Fettski]

I used 1.5 inch canvas straps spaced 1.5 inches apart