So you like being a stormtrooper on the Death Star, but you can’t see a thing in that helmet, and the whole thing gets a little too hot for you? Or maybe you just moved into the Jundland Wastes and all the other Tusken Raiders seem cool and collected when you’re sweating your ass off. Then this is the tutorial for you! Putting a small battery-powered fan into a mask or helmet can make all the difference in the world and allow you to stay in costume for hours on end in air-conditioned comfort. It’s an extremely simple circuit, but I try and give you a few tips that can certainly make the difference between success and failure. Here are links to some of the parts I use: There are also small centrifugal blowers that can work very well if you need to blow air up onto your lenses or if you don’t have an opening to pull air in through. I’ve never used these before, but would like to try them sometime. Maybe in my new Master Replicas UK CE helmet. Hmmmm.
In this tutorial, I explain how I don my Star Wars stormtrooper armor and fight for the forces of the dark side. My armor is what is commonly referred to as “FX” armor. It originated as a fan sculpt, so it’s not all that accurate, but it’s a good size for us larger troopers. I’m 6′-3″ and 220 lbs. so I don’t think I’ll be able to squeeze into the more accurate TE2, AP, or TM suits, even though I own a TM helmet that I bust out from time to time. The original stormtroopers were purportedly around 5′-11″ and 165 lbs. or so. Of course they made up for their stature with giant seventies fros. Check it out in the book “The Making of Star Wars.” I should also note that while the assembly method presented in the video works very well for me, there are about as many ways to dress a stormtrooper as there are troopers to be dressed. Online tutorials (like this one) have helped spread the info, but when it comes down to it you just have to do what you can to make your armor fit your body. In the future, we plan to do several armor mod tutorials including one specifically for sandtroopers, the dirty brethren of the 501st legion. Until then, thanks for stopping by and enjoy the video!
We decided to assemble this site at the end of May, and have been working diligently toward it’s launch ever since. The idea was simple – video tutorials about costuming. The execution has been a little more complicated, especially so since we owned no video equipment prior to having this grand idea.
But don’t worry. We plan to launch in October. The parts are coming together. I hope to see you back here once we’ve got the bot up and running.
What is this site all about? I’ve been an avid costumer since I was a kid. I remember when my “Aunt” Alice made me a vampire cape complete with standup collar. It wasn’t even Halloween, but Alice understood kids and knew that I’d wear that cape all day every day if I were allowed to, so she gave it to me in the early summer. It has had a long and useful life. It must’ve gotten washed a million times to get rid of that coppery child-sweat smell. It also got some glow-in-the-dark Krystal iron-on skulls and wolfman heads at some point (if you’ve never heard of Krystal, don’t ask). It was tortured and worn thin and loved beyond belief, and it was one of the best doorways my imagination ever trod through.
When you wear a costume, you become someone else. It’s like a magical transformation that can always be reversed. You can try on a different identity and escape your everyday existence for a while. As a child, that was my escape (along with my books). I think that’s why I’ve always enjoyed Halloween far more than other holidays and why I’ve rediscovered costuming in the last year or so. So much so, that I found a passion for it that I’m hoping to channel to you through this site. |
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