SW:TOR Inspired Sith Lord Costume

[DJDace]

Hey everyone! Just got back from San Diego Comic Con where I finally got to debut the costume I have been working SO hard on over the last few weeks. I played SW:TOR from release and really dug the idea of new, non-canon Star Wars characters that fans of the universe could create and enjoy. I modeled this costume on that idea, of a Sith Warrior in custom decorative/ornamental leather armor and molded leather face mask. For the cloak, well, my wife - superstar tailor that is she - found the perfect black burlapish type fabric that was exactly what I had envisioned. She made the robe based off a Jedi robe pattern she modified, only she made the hood ridiculously super deep as I had requested. I am wearing a a Japanese hakama underneath the robe and until I get proper boots, just some black cross trainers (walking around Comic Con demands comfy footwear people!).

The vambraces and mask are all hand carved and tooled from 9-10oz tanned tooling sides. Each item is lined with additional leather - the mask in a thin suede and the vambraces with thicker oxblood colored tooling sides. All the straps and buckle points are hand cut and assembled. I used some nice decorative rivets on the armor pieces - red jewel rivets and some nickel plated spots. I tried to keep the carving motif simple and geometric for ease of repetition and to give the symbols a jagged, hard edged feeling in keeping with the Sith. I felt it was also a nice contrast to the organic nature of leather armor in a Sci-Fi setting. The mask is fully formed and wet molded to the contours of my face. It will actually sit on my face without straps but obviously wouldn't stay there if I moved around a lot, but that's just to give you an idea of how close it fits to my lower face. The belt is just a temporary piece I threw together in about an hour before leaving for the Con. It's just some Oxblood dyed tooling leather stitched to the top of some 4oz tooling leather with a couple of 1 inch buckles added and a retention strap just under the buckles themselves. While not terrible, I would rather have a nice heavy tooling leather 3 1/2" wide belt carved and stamped in the same style and dyed the same colors as the vambraces and mask. So that will be another step to complete in the coming weeks. Anyways, on to the pictures! I hope you find them as fun as I did!

















My apologies for the sheer volume of images but I am just extremely happy (and obviously very proud) of how nicely this costume turned out. It was my first foray into armor pieces and the formed and fitted mask was just a hairbrained idea I had that I never expected to actually work out as well as it did.

The next phase for this costume is to finish the rest of the armor I didn't have time to complete for Comic Con. In the image linked below you can see the pieces cut for the torso armor. It will be 2 pectoral plates, 1 large back plate and 2 largish shoulder guards. Each piece will be custom carved and stamped in the same type of motify and colors as the mask and vambraces. I have some cool conchos I will be adding in as well. Each piece will also be reinforced with a nice sized piece of sheet steel sandwiched in between layers of leather to provide rigidity and weight. I have high hopes for how everything will come together. Once this portion is complete I will likely make a new carved/tooled belt and a set of greaves and spur straps for some black Sithy boots

[Lord Dracus]

 Awesome costume dude !!!

[Merana33]

Very nicely done!

The only trouble with going the steel plate route will be weight, and since the rest of your outfit is organic materials you may want to carry that through into the armor.
A substitute for the steel would be to take 8-10oz vegi-tanned tooling leather and 'case' harden it with water and mold it to shape. Basically soak it in warm water until it stops bubbling and then bend it into the shape you want and let it dry. When it's bone dry it will hold that shape on it's own, just like you did with your mask.
Obviously you'll want to do this before you dye it. The trouble with case hardening is that you cant tool it, since when you wet the leather for tooling it will start to relax out of shape. And if you tool it and then shape it you'll distort your tooling. That being said, leather is a bit easier to work with than steel, and much less sharp! (LoL!)

[DJDace]

Very nicely done!

The only trouble with going the steel plate route will be weight, and since the rest of your outfit is organic materials you may want to carry that through into the armor.
A substitute for the steel would be to take 8-10oz vegi-tanned tooling leather and 'case' harden it with water and mold it to shape. Basically soak it in warm water until it stops bubbling and then bend it into the shape you want and let it dry. When it's bone dry it will hold that shape on it's own, just like you did with your mask.
Obviously you'll want to do this before you dye it. The trouble with case hardening is that you cant tool it, since when you wet the leather for tooling it will start to relax out of shape. And if you tool it and then shape it you'll distort your tooling. That being said, leather is a bit easier to work with than steel, and much less sharp! (LoL!)

Well I stamped and tooled the mask before I wet molded it to the contours of my face (the teeth you see on the mask are carved into the leather, all the Oxblood portions of the mask and vambraces have been stamped down with a backgrounding tool).  Good, thick tooling leather will retain it's stamping and tooling through wet molding if you really make sure you give it a solid stamping and you don't make the design too elaborate where you may lose detail. I find that using Eco-Flo's "Easy Carve Concentrate" really help with getting a good result with not only wet molding but also retaining your tooling through the wet molding process.

Now, about the sheet steel inserts/layer to the chest armor and shoulder plates; the sheet steel I have and intend to use isn't all that thick so the additional weight won't be all that significant. Mainly I will be adding a layer of hammered/formed sheet steel to aid in the retention of the shape of each piece of the armor, the improved rigidity and because it adds an extra element of realism to the armor. The sheet steel layer won't be the same size as the leather layers either, it will only be about 75-80% of the size because I can't sew through steel and I don't want to have to punch holes in the steel to allow the addition of rivets, conchos and/or other notions or accents to the armor pieces.

I did a few test mock-ups of an armored panel using this layered approach and had encouraging results. Using a combination of contact cement and well placed rivets and seam allowances I didn't note any issues with the steel layer migrating within the armor panel. Additionally, using a metal file and a Dremel tool to grind down and then smooth out and polish the edges of the steel panel it reduced any concern about a sharp edge damaging any stitching. In the end however, if it looks as if the addition of a steel insert will be more hassle than its worth, I may switch to using Tyvek instead.