The Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club likes to make helmets for friends and allies, and sometimes they even make full sets of armor. Tom Hutchens wrote for the StarWars.com blog and detailed how they made a set of Mandalorian armor for former Lucasfilm Events Lead Mary Franklin. They talked to Mary and learned she was a fan of Gladiators so they designed a set of armor to fit those aesthetics.
They were able to make a duct tape cast of Mary’s torso at San Diego Comic-Con last summer to ensure the armor would fit. Hutchens explains the first step:
The first step in creating a set of armor is choosing the proper metal. Because I don’t expect this to be “combat” grade, I stick with a metal that is thick but easier to manipulate cold. Most of the sets I craft are made out of cold-rolled sheet steel, because cold-rolled steel has a higher tensile strength than other non-spring steel varieties. To conserve metal I trace my patterns very tightly, leaving minimum space between each. A good portion of my patterns are hand-drawn, especially for female armor. Patterning (the art of creating patterns) is the single most time consuming and complicated part of the armoring process. Each pattern must account for sizing, movement, and metal shrinkage…one does not simple draw a 2D shape and expect it to translate easily into 3 dimensions.
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