Anybody who has ever been to a Comic-Con can attest to the amazing costumes that cosplayers make in their own backyards to pay homage to their favourite characters in movies, comics, anime, and TV. One of the most famous cosplay groups is the 501st Legion – a group that makes movie accurate costumes of ‘evil’ Star Wars characters, including Darth Vader, Boba Fett, the Emperor, and every type of trooper (Storm, Scout, Dark). The 501st Legion is involved with many different organizations, especially the Make a Wish Foundation, where they fulfill the dreams of kids who want to meet Darth Vader and a contingent of his stormtroopers. While the 501st Legion is incredibly focused on detail, another group – The Mandalorian Mercs – is more focused on individual creativity. In the Expanded Universe, which refers to all the books, comics, and stuff outside of the core movies, the Mandalorians all had a similar visual style in their armour but each individual would customize their suit for their personal needs and style (like Boba and Jango Fett).
Some groups don’t even build costumes. For example, the R2-D2 Builders Club, who build functional models of that famous astromech droid. In addition to R2-D2, members make their own R2 units, as well as R1 through R5 models. Most of these units are remote controlled with working lights, sounds, and sometimes even tools.
How does one actually make cosplay armour? In many cases, the suits you see at Comic-Cons are made by a small number of people who sell their work. A full custom fitted suit can cost thousands of dollars, and is manufactured to exacting standards, fitted with padding, often including a full microphone and speaker system. Many of these suits are made using vacu-form processes and fiberglass, which makes them very strong but also very expensive. But if you aren’t really worried about having all the bells and whistles, or can put in the time and effort to add those yourself, then keep on reading.
This year I decided to make my own helmet for Comic-Con (FanExpo Canada specifically) and hopefully finish in time for IRS as well. While the snow day forced the cancelling of classes and kind of killed our costume party, it was still a great day, and some people may have seen the helmet pictured in this article. It is essentially made of fiberglass, but without the vacu-form molding.
The basic structure is made out of cardstock (100 lb) paper cut into approximately 500 pieces, folded and glued piece by piece. This paper modeling is commonly known as papercraft, and is not to be confused with origami. The goal of papercraft is to make 3D shapes out of paper, by assembling many individual pieces of the outside shell, based on corresponding tabs. The individual shape of a piece may seem weird, but when properly assembled, the flexibility of the pieces results in the model achieving the curvature and shape of the desired subject.
You can find printable papercraft patterns in pdf online. Some of my favourite papercraft models are a six foot tall Bumblebee (from Transformers) and a particular site that has every single Pokemon – both normal and ‘shiny’ versions. When you are using somebody else’s model, you benefit from them having already figured out the flat shapes that are required to make a 3D model.
You can also make your own model if you can’t find the exact subject you want, or a model in the level of detail you wish to achieve – and it’s not as difficult as you would think. The most common program used is Pepakura Designer, available from tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/ in both free and Designer ($38) versions. The program allows you to import a 3D model from many different industry standard formats and ‘unfold’ the model, breaking it down into 2D faces and suggesting a basic layout for the pieces. This initial suggested layout is always stupid for anything more complicated than a basic cube, as it normally results in multiple pieces overlapping on a sheet of paper – impossible to cut out. You can then use the program tools to split large pieces into smaller segments, and change the fold points of the model. For the Stormtrooper helmet, the model resulted in approximately 5000 faces, and about 500 pieces. Basic models are easy to organize for printing, but more complex models take exponentially longer. The difference between the free version and the Designer version is that only the Designer version can save files. Personally, I found the investment worth it as I ended up spending a lot of hours over my co-op term breaking up the 3D model to make it easier to build.
To obtain a 3D model, Google reveals that many people have done their own 3D modeling and have made the files available for free on the Internet, including the Stormtrooper helmet model I used. It should be noted that the higher the polygon count of the model, the more detailed it is going to be, the better defined the curves will be, and the better the final model will look. However, the higher the polygon count, the smaller and more numerous the paper model pieces are going to be. The model will be more detailed, but it will take much longer to build and will likely bring you to the point where you want to crush it in anger. The other trade-off comes in during the fiberglass process, where you will need to use automotive body filler to smooth the model. The blockier the model, the more body filler you are going to need ($$$) and the longer it is going to take to get the model smooth.
Once you have your 3D file unfolded, split, and printed to pdf you need to print the model. Here, you again have a decision to make. You could print the model on regular paper, which is approximately 20lb weight, but then your model will be really flimsy and will probably just dissolve when you apply the resin. So I would advise using cardstock, either 80lb or 100lb. I used 100lb cardstock, which is the same as business cards. FedEx Kinko’s will sell you the paper and you can print it for a pretty good price – don’t try printing on card stock in a home printer with a roller feed because it will either jam the printer or crease the paper a lot. Use an office style printer instead. I would definitely advise labeling the pieces in either Pepakura or by hand afterwards while referencing the unfolded file, as the many pieces will all start to look the same once they are cut out.
As for materials, you will need a hobby cutting board so you don’t slice up the table you are working on, a hobby knife and spare blades (they will dull surprisingly quickly for cutting through paper), and simple white glue. Work on small sections at a time and cut out only a few pieces at a time so you don’t lose them or get them confused. I found that a good process was to have one or two sections going at a time, cut, glue and hold one piece for a bit until the glue is tacky enough to hold, then cut, glue, and hold a piece on the second section. By the time the glue is tacky on the second piece, the first will be strong enough to start the process over again, attaching the next piece to it.
Another tip that I learned after hours of experimentation and horrible frustration is to plan the section you are going to build before you start, and choose them so that combining sections will be easier later on. As an example, in the Stormtrooper design I assembled the nose section up to the top of the mouth, then the mouth and chin as another section. When it came to assembling the final model and attaching these two pieces, the joint ended up right on the edge of the mouth and was extremely complicated and difficult to glue and hold correctly. Instead, building the mouth into one of the two sections with a few rows beyond would have put the joint on a simple line instead of on the complicated mouth section. Other areas in the model also required additional reinforcement, which the unfolding process cannot identify. You need to anticipate weak points, identify convenient joints, and problem areas that would benefit from a different construction process.
As you can see from the pictures, the final paper model will be relatively strong and stable – this is another benefit of using cardstock over paper, as the model can pretty much support its own weight without imploding. However, it will easily collapse under excessive loading, or if it gets wet (of course), which is why you will need to use a fiberglass resin. While you would normally use fiberglass sheet (a kind of mat of interwoven glass threads) soaked in resin, here the paper itself acts as the binding ingredient (so technically it really isn’t fiberglass). The resin comes as a two part mix: a gel-like resin and a small tube of hardener. Follow the instructions and you can mix up the resin and apply it liberally over the entire helmet (put a sheet of wax paper underneath to protect your work surface) and it will soak into the paper. Don’t apply too much resin as this could cause the paper to break down, and you will need to start over. One or two coats of the resin will bring the helmet to a point where it is basically fiberglass. If you really want to make it fiberglass you can put the resin soaked mat material on the inside. This will strengthen the helmet substantially, but is really annoying as the resin and mat will stick more to your gloves and brush more than to the helmet itself (I have a pair of solidified gloves and a paint brush that are literally solid fiberglass as proof).
After that optional stage, you are now going to improve the helmet structurally. The resin is very strong, but brittle, so you now bring automotive body filler into the mix. The filler is not very strong, but very pliable, so if you mix the two together you get a product that is strong and flexible to give the helmet a bit of flex. Mix the resin and body filler (which is also a two part product) in 50/50 proportions. Pour it into the helmet and spin it around to cover the entire inside. After one or two coats, you could probably stand on the helmet without any problem (not that I’m going to try it any time soon). You may have noticed that I didn’t mention anything about the eye lenses – they are built the same as the rest of the model (paper, resin, and everything) which could be cut out later. The great thing about the model now is that you can use sandpaper and a Dremel tool to cut out the lenses and smooth out the surface.
At this point the helmet is strong but still has the polygonal surface of the paper model, so you need to prepare automotive body filler, apply it to the surface, and sand it smooth. As previously mentioned, if you made a more simplified model then you are going to be using a ton of body filler. I probably could have spent more time on this step, but in my goal to get the helmet done for IRS (and the Toronto Comic-Con, March 8 to 10) I sacrificed a bit on the finishing process after noticing some basic model assembly problems that no amount of smoothing would be able to fix.
Anyway, you are now onto the painting stage. Apply a layer of sandable primer, followed by basic gloss white automotive paint in multiple thin coats to allow for drying between layers. I used regular acrylic paint for the grey and black trim areas. A gloss clear-coat finishes off the helmet, with some added foam padding on the inside for comfort.
Overall I’m very happy with the result – especially since I had to do most of the resin and paint stuff in the garage in -10ºC weather, which seriously impacted the curing time. I’m thinking my summer project may be a full set of Mandalorian armour, hopefully finished for FanExpo in Toronto, August 22 to 25. If I have sparked your curiosity with home armour construction and you have any questions, feel free to email me jonmartin1138@gmail.com. I can also provide some of the 3D models I have acquired in my searches – including helmets and most of the full body armour for a stormtrooper, scout trooper, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Iron Man, Daft Punk Tron, deadmau5, and several others including many of those Pokemon models and that Bumblebee one I mentioned. Have fun with your armour manufacturing!
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