Snowtrooper: Costume assembly

Our Snowtrooper costumes consist of sixteen different components per set: pants, shoes, knee plates, crotch piece, abdomen plate, pouches, thermal detonator holder, jacket, chest plate, shoulder straps, backpack, shoulder bells, arm guards, hand plates, gloves and helmet. In this post I will go through the fastenings and assembly.


The crotch piece has a plastic buckle on the side on a canvas strap. The buckle was placed on the side, because opening the buckle would have been hard to find the buckle under the cape with thermal detonator etc. on the way. The pouches have double loops and they hang on canvas belt, which goes through the abdomen plate. The belt has a plastic buckle on the side. The thermal detonator holder has two aluminum "loops" to keep it on place.


The knee plates has elastic band glued inside the outer edge of the piece. On the inner side and on the end of the elastic band is Velcro.


The shoulder straps are fastened to the chest plates with screws and nuts. Between the strap and the chest plate is craft foam cushioning, so that the parts would sit tightly and not scratch each other. The canvas straps of the chest plate suspenders and similar straps with D-rings for the backpack connects to the same screw. The harness is fastened with a plastic buckle on the back.

All the parts from the chest set. Here you can see how the chest itself is constructed from four pieces.

The arm guards have elastic bands on the wrist. The cuffs on the guards are craft foam. The palm plates attach to the gloves with Velcro as well as the shoulder bells to the jacket. The backpack has canvas straps with Velcro glued and screwed on it. The straps slip trough the D-rings when worn.


The helmet has cushioning on the forehead. The buckets are actually so form fitting that they don't need anything else. The visor is attached to the dome snugly with Velcro. I wanted the visors to be removable, if we ever needed to pack tightly: the domes can be stacked, like almost all of the armor parts in the costumes. That is also why the back cowl on the helmet is taped on and not glued.

Front.

Back obviously.

Under construction: Luminara's accessories

Next to leather gauntlets and cloth Luminara has few more accessories. She has a brooch fastening her cape on next to pair of belts and a lightsaber. The brooch I made last year already. I thought about re-making it, but after I examined the reference pictures I settled to it. There is still painting and weathering ahead, but I could say I'm on the winning side with it.

I've done lot of brain work with Luminara's belt buckles and few days ago I took the bull from its horns and started crafting. I've seen buckles that resemble the original ones, but never have I found exact copies. Nitpicky as I am, I had to get as close as possible. I have the simpler buckle done and fail-painted. The spray paint I used was really poor quality. I was able to get the bubbles out, which can still be seen in the picture. I'm going to paint it again with acrylics and trim the edges a little.


After painting the buckle, I need to weather it with black paint to give the design more depth. I also need to make the other, more difficult one and then come up with a fastening mechanism. I'm leaning forward to making the front of the belt “fake” and hiding the real buckle or snaps to the back, where the belt is covered by the cape. This way I would not need to worry about ruining the buckle while trying to make a tongue to it or about breaking the whole thing.


We have thought about applying to Rebel Legion with Luminara and Barriss, which makes having a lightsaber or the hilt of it necessary. I started constructing version 1 saber hilt a day prior to the buckles. The base is a carton tube from baking paper container and the covering is craft foam. There are insulation foam structures in both ends of the hilt. With the previous materials the hilt is really light, but looks neat. After covering it with glue I will paint it and add buttons and other required details.


As I stated the saber is just a version 1. If we get accepted to the Legion, we will make sabers with the blade later on. I also wanted to have little simpler props to work on now, because we are going to wear the costumes in two months and we will be busy on our own quarters for at least a month.

Snowtroopers got shot a bit

We didn’t take photos at Tampere Kuplii for few reasons: our pouches weren’t suitable for carrying my camera and we didn’t see that well under the helmets to actually get the model on the screen of Yoki's digital one. But Sunday morning we left our hotel early to take some photos of our costumes. Here is the outcome:

Back from Tampere Kupl-z-z-z

Home, sweet home, I say and send hearts to Yoki who needs to travel three hours more. But I bet we both are really happy with how the con went despite the tiredness. I will write more of how everything went from the last minute repairs to well rehearsed competition entry next week. Now I can hardly get this two paragraphs post ready. It has already taken ten minutes…

My Tusken impersonation. I'll also load the few photos we took next week.

I think this will only apply to the Finnish readers, but you can find an open voting on Aamulehti’s webpage for the best costume at Tampere Kuplii! Go and cast a vote!