Late Crusader Armour WIP (geared towards the Beast Hunter Brigade). The following we be related to the actual armour work in progress. Other aspects to this kit can be found under the Accessories, Helmet, or Weapons Menu tabs at the top of this page.
Hard hats modified into shoulder bells (credit for this idea is from both Ref Al’drann and Ru’Der Marekar on the Mandalorian Mercs forum). I picked up two hard hats from the local Lowe’s here in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Dots represent where holes will be drilled for metal spikes:
Other half of hard hats used for my knee plates:
My metal spikes came in. I had to make slight grooves into the shoulder bells to make sure the spike screws could come all the way through.
The spikes will be on each shoulder bell (8 each side). Kind of reminds me of Bowser.
So taking a break from trying to figure out my chest and back plates I worked on my shoulder bells, helmet, macrobinoculars, and a LC sniper rifle.
Update 11/5/2016: I’ve bought armour from The Mandalorian Arsenal for the Ramikadyc plates. I only bought the pieces I need for my kit: chest plate, back plate, abdominal/kidney plates, and cod piece. Should be shipped out in a couple of weeks and then I can get my design based off the above picture in correlation with these and move forward on my kit. I’ve got plans in my head for a back apparatus for my helmet hoses to go into.
Update 11/15/2016: That armour came quick, I got it a few days ago and just got around to posting it my progress since then. A lot of people have mentioned that these plates are small. I tried them on and they fit very well. The back plate feels a little small but lines up with the collar plate in size and I can’t say much because I don’t have a back plate with my current kit.
My idea for strapping the chest and back plates together is to use this leather belt I picked up from Wal-Mart for $6.50 in the women section. After I had weathered it (see soft parts WIP), I found it is faux leather and doesn’t smell very good burnt. I’ll run by Lowe’s tomorrow to see what kind of hardware I can find to connect it to my plates.
The first thing I did was flat black the backside of my plates. This is something I’ve done since putting an acrylic black paint on the inside of my helmet; to me it makes the overall armour cleaner with no white showing. I then painted the metallic coats on the front of the plates a let it sit over night (roughly 8-10 hours).
The next morning before I left to work I applied several coats of hunter green to my plates and let it dry while at work.
When I got home from work I heated my knee plates up and bent them to the shape of my knees. I also added a rusty brown to all the spikes on my shoulder bells and then the weathering process began across all my plates. I mostly used a dark brown and flat black spray paint to smearing into the scratches/grooves.
In addition to the paint I swept up my garage and used the grime to smear into my plates. I then used some potting soil to add my grime and weathering to my plates, especially in the crevices. This is where dirt would build up in real life from tromping around the woods.
A trick I used to get the dirt to stick was to heat the back of the plates up with a heat gun. This got the paint on the reverse side sticky and the grime adhered better to the plates. My plates are now done; as far as weathering. I’ll be working more on my back plate apparatus for my helmet hoses. I’m strongly considering only having one hose and a filter on my helmet instead of two.
It is starting to come together really well. Next step after hardware obtained for straps is velcroing it all to my flak vest.
Update 11/21/2016: I started attaching plates, following the same spacing as I laid out in my last post. There is not reference to how far about this armour is supposed to be and I decided to use a little bit wider spacing between the abdominal plate and kidney plates. This was because I wanted my kidney plates to actually cover my sides under the arm; against my rib cage. I ran out of Velcro, though and will need to get more to work with the back and chest plates. I also need to work on my lower armoured parts (i.e. cod and knees) and the soft waist parts. Ideally I’d like to be able to fasten my ammo/macrobinocular belt with girth, sash, and cod piece in place.
Update 11.22.16: Ran out of velcro last night and quickly threw everything on. The girth belt was tucked under my ammo belt and needed leather strapping. So first thing I did when I got home from work today was make strapping for the girth belt.
I then put on everything I have assembled together. I’m still missing my knee plates w/strapping, I could not find my balaclava, my half chaps are coming in on Friday (they and my boots will need weathering), and my back plate still needs some velcro to hold it up closer to my neck.
My conceptual drawings are starting to match my kit everyday now.
Please comment on anything you are seeing that I should fix now, I’m getting closer to completing my kit. I’d like to fix the little things while I have the motivation to do it.
Update 11/24/2016: Yesterday I finished the leather strapping on my knees.
Velcro was added to the knees to keep them in place in addition to the leather strapping.
This is what they look like on my kit (see image below). The right knee is slightly crooked, I hope to resolve this with my half chaps positioning the material of my flight suit straighter.
Update 11/25/2016: My half chaps arrived today, the last component of my kit. So after altering the chaps to hide the zipper and weathering both chaps & boots I kitted up.
I tried everything in my kit, anything a beast hunter might do, like kneel or lay on the ground.
This shot is my character (Rex Dha’Werda) with macrobinoculars out, looking into the distance. Might be a fun one to Photoshop in the future.
I love how mobile I am in this kit. I can kneel no problem, jump, bend, tip, lay down and get back up without help.
I took the regular pre-app pictures and after running them past my clan Alor’ad and Ruus`alor they are putting them up on my regions pre-app board. This kit is getting close to submission and every tweak is making it that much better.
Update 1/5/2016: Today I got a decal for my truck and for my armour of the Late Crusader ring. I adhered it to the left on my chest plate and then weathered it.
It needs a little bit of work with some actual dirt and grime from the garage, but I’ll wait until it warms up past 15 degrees before I venture out there.
Mandalorian Armour 