Ahsoka Tano (Rebels) Costume Build!

FireflyEmbers

FireflyEmbers

New Member
UPDATE 3/5/16: TEST RUN OF COSTUME COMPLETE. Please scroll down for pictures! :D


Hi all!

Some of you in the Phoenix area might know me as the blue twi'lek bounty hunter running around (and sometimes a pink twi'lek, I have a mild obsession, yes). I have caught the Ahsoka bug though! I'm currently working on a headpiece for her. I will be making it out of a stiff foam for the top montrals then super flexible foam for the lekku. This will make it lightweight but flexible and allow full mobility. The foam I am using is a two-part expanding foam that I've had pretty good success making flexible twi'lek lekku out of for some of my other costumes.


Here's the current rough sculpt of it with one of the lekku already in place to give an idea of what it's going to look like:



Here's the fabrics I have for her clothing so far:



The armor I'm going to build out of sintra. I'm super excited for it. :) I have lots of experience with bodypainting of all colors so I'm not too worried. The biggest thing I'm worried about.... affording damn white lightsabers! LOL
 
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FireflyEmbers said:
I will be making it out of a stiff foam for the top montrals then super flexible foam for the lekku. This will make it lightweight but flexible and allow full mobility. The foam I am using is a two-part expanding foam that I've had pretty good success making flexible twi'lek lekku out of for some of my other costumes.
Click to expand...

What foam products are you using? I've considered using Flex Foam IT III for tentacles, but I'm unsure how "wiggly" it would end up being.
 
I'm using Flex Foam IT products. I have had great success with them for my lekku for my twi'lek(s). Here's the video of the movement of the lekku I made with the FFi VIII:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4G7bnUiyu0

The III is moderately wiggly and I use it as well, but it doesn't really like to drape well. It does, however, maintain its shape while the VIII are so soft they immediately fall and don't really keep a high arch to the top of the lekku. My plan is to use either the III or the slightly stiffer VI (I think) for the montral portion and have the lekku be of the VIII.

I am still looking for another option for the foam -- the FFi is nice and convenient and available, but it's INSANELY finicky. Some of the lekku cast really dense and tough while the very next one I pour will expand way way more and be way less dense and way more flimsy. -_- I'm using the same bucket every time, measured amounts, hand-stirred energetically... it's just so damn temperamental. *L*
 
Cool, thanks for the comparisons between the expansions!

So III expands the most, but VIII is softer?

And I know what you mean... I mixed it inside once and it hardly puffed up... I did it again outside (warm and humid) and the difference in volume was dramatic!
 
OK. So I had the mold done enough that I could mock-up a prototype of the headpiece. The mold ended up being this CRAZY friggin five piece thing that has to be put together in a certain way and then taken apart and holy crap it was crazy but IT'S WORKING so I'm not complaining! I don't have the rear tail done (I ran out of clay) so I used two of the lekku pieces to stand in its place. Then I painted it up (since this one won't be used for Ahsoka, I did an original paint job).


Here's what we're looking at:






(Pardon the mess in the photos, it was the week before a big convention so my house was a TOTAL disaster zone LOL)


It's still just a rough prototype. I need to smooth out the seams on the sides and to finish sculpting the rear headtail so that'll fit nicely there. Does anyone have any suggestions for smoothing over the seams with the foam? I have three ideas that I'm thinking of trying:
1. Smooth On's new flexible putty stuff (I forget what it's called) - I'm concerned because this stuff isn't ACTUALLY super flexible so I'm afraid it'll start ripping the foam where the lekku rest...
2. Liquid latex - I'd really rather not do this one since the whole point of me doing the foam is that it's latex free
3. Fabric with the seam hidden by a heavy coat of Plastidip

Any thoughts?


Still, I wore it all day at a convention this weekend -- 8 hrs plus! -- and was comfortable doing so. It's very lightweight and the nature of the flexible lekku allow me to turn my head and even look up and down with confidence. :D As soon as I get a better picture of my outfit I'll post it here so you all can see what it looks like on me. So with this mostly handled I'm going to start mocking up the armor pieces. I've got them templated out and a sheet of Sintra with their name on it. :D :D :D
 
OK so I'm hoping to wear this tomorrow so I'm busting butt today. :D This is pretty consistent with how I do stuff, unfortunately. 90% wasting of time/mulling and then 10% crazy frantic crafting. ANYWAY. LET'S SEE WHATS UP.


First of all I sculpted and am just about done molding the back tail. This is what the rough sculpt looked like (of course I forgot to take a picture before I slapped silicone on it):





So while that was hardening up I started on the armor. This is Sintra as a base with Terraflex on top. Each piece I planned out the detailing on top then cut and applied the pieces painstakingly. This means this armor was a solid 6-8 hrs of just cutting and piecing, but I didn't want to just paint the detail on, I wanted it to be fully legit.











Next is a TON of sanding, and the shknees which are the only piece that I'm honestly concerned about. Then tomorrow I'll whip up the cloth pieces and we'll be doing a test run of this tomorrow evening. :D


Yay!~
 
Looking great! I plan on doing a clone wars s3-5 ahsoka sometime in the future, I've been keeping an eye on your website for when you make the child ahsoka lekku :)
 
ShanJ, S3-5 Ahsoka is on my plate after the full twi'lek headpiece. So... mid-to-late summer? Hopefully earlier. :D I've had a lot of requests for it. That one should go a HELL of a lot faster too cause I'm 99% certain I can make it one or two pieces at most.

Matt, thanks so much! :D I'm so excited that five months of work is finally coming together!

OK. Phew. So much done on this costume in the past 72 hrs. LOL I wore it to my first event(s) today! The number of kids who just ran up to me to hug me or who got SO excited to see Ahsoka was astounding. I absolutely LOVED it. I can't wait to have her officially! :D


Right. Let's get down to updates. First things first, I made a new back headtail in the Ahsoka style. It fits really well, though I don't intend to use the product in the back that I used to try and hide the side seams. As you can see, the product I was using (a flexible putty) is a supremely different consistency from the foam and is VERY glaringly obvious. So, back to the drawing board on hiding the seams. One of the guys at Ace Hardware recommended a siliconized caulking agent... I figured, hell, I'll give it a try. It fundamentally will work and at $3 is WAY cheaper than the $30 epoxy putty I was trying. xD So that'll be on the next headpiece.











Keep in mind this headpiece is still my prototype headpiece, so in these pictures and all the ones I took today it is NOT the right paint job for Ahsoka. It's not even really the right colors, though at least Ahsoka's is blue-grey and I was using regular grey.


I really really don't like how straight down the sides are when Ahsoka's are super curved. So what do I do? .... make new sculpts for the sides. LOL So those'll be shorter but more curved for Ahsoka's headpiece. I'm also beveling the insides so that they fit better into the sockets that I already have in the top montral mold. So just like the back one "plugs" in the side ones should as well. I'm hoping that'll really minimize the amount of seamwork I have to repair.


I also have my armor shaped, painted, and mostly assembled.





All but the shknees which I've honestly been dragging my feet on cause they're going to be such a pain in the butt. LOL Any advice on clamshell style shknees?


I'm going to weather them with browns to darken up the light tan that the armor plates are and make the designs really pop. I wore them for like... sixish? hours today and found the armor very comfortable and easy to move in, so that's pretty awesome. I also need to add in the light-up details on the gauntlets and the chestpiece, which should be easy enough since we've done that before. I also think I want to replace my vinyl waist wrap with real leather, as I can wetform it so it matches more perfectly.


So.... wanna see it?!?! :D :D :D


Drumroll please...!







:D :D :D


AAAAH SO CLOSE TO BEING DOOOONNNNEEE


There's also some awesome video on https://www.facebook.com/FirelightCosplay/ Shows off how flexible/swingy my headpiece is. :D I have FULL MOBILITY. I can turn my head, look up and down, even dance. I love this headpiece!!!!


Eeeee!~
 
Dancing is the important bit :D That's basically the first thing I do in any costume because I know I'll get bored in a queue somewhere and start dancing on the spot. Cant wait for this to be finished, as well as the CW-era headpiece! You make such awesome stuff :D
It looks to me like, for the schnees/boots, there are two seperate pieces there. I'm looking at these three refs, and to me they look kind of similar in shape to clone trooper shins, almost like the knee and shin were originally seperate, and have just been stuck together, basically. Another difference to the clones is there's a fairly distinct curve on the sides, which as you can see in the first ref I linked continues to curve down at the back. As well, it looks like the boot plate slides up under the shin. I'm not sure if I'm describing this properly as it's fairly late for me (tomorrow morning I'll draw what I believe the flat pattern to be for the shknees). Thinking about it, it might be possible to even paint the bootplate detailing, getting rid of the need for an actual armor plate at all as it looks to me as if it doesnt actually have anything outside what the normal shape of the boot would be. Basically my advice would be on clamshell shknees would be go ask some clones or stormies what they do. Good luck, though!
 
halliwax, ReverendCasey, NightShine, thank you so much!!~ I can't wait to show you her all done, I still feel like she's only about 50% of the way there! LOL

ShanJ, I agree. I originally was going to just buy the femtrooper boots from Imperial Armory and then alter them, but then MASOCHISTIC ME was like "Nuu I should make the WHOLE OUTFIT" or some STUPID thing like that so I didn't. Now I have to make them. Augh. Anyway. I agree -- I think the shin/knee needs to be one piece or one unit, then the boot armor I was simply going to velcro on to my "armor" boots that I use for outfits like this. I've got some stormie friends so I think I'm going to go pester them and basically use that as inspiration.... wish me luck. Getting that compound curve in the Sintra is going to be a paaaaain.


As far as armor, I'm very unhappy with the chestplate. I need to finagle the shape a little bit (it looks right from square on but not from the sides) and probably come up with a more secure attachment -- velcroing it straight to the shirt means its very.. uh... swingy? I'm thinking about reinforcing the shirt right there somehow to keep it in place. I also have to do the Ahsoka paint job on the headpiece, figure out her light sabers, add the lights on the bust and the forearms, and do the shknees (still. HNGH).


I did, however, weather the armor. It was a multistep process!





LOL.


Then riveted them correctly (as opposed to just having sewn everything on), cleaned up the belt a little bit, and this is what it looks like:





I purposely wanted to make it look more of a rusty look rather than a painted on design look. I know she's CGI but translating her to real life I'd like to make her feel authentic and not... cartoony, I guess. So hopefully that translated OK in my weathering choices. I used washes of acrylic paints in varying degrees of thickness/set time to accomplish the look I wanted. I also left the Terraflex rough instead of smoothing it so it would "catch" more of the color I wanted it to have.


Got the lightsaber clips for the side panels drying as we speak, then just need to slap them on.


Hopefully next update will have pictures of the updated headpiece as well as shknees! Nngh I wish I had just bought ones. LOL
 
Lmao I just have to say that the "Black wash!" ... "Brown wash!" ... "Uh..Bronze/Tan/Yellow wash!" etc made my night -- I laughed so hard haha
 
As soon as I've finished up printing my pilot helmet (It's halfway through the second last piece right now), I plan on printing and finishing up a bunch of lightsaber hilts, the first up being Ahsoka's from both clone wars and rebels. Had a couple issues with my art tablet so I'm troubleshooting that before I finish up the pattern floating in my head for the shknees.
 
NightShine, :D :D :D I'm glad you were amused. I was like WTF do I even call what I did? "I dumped a bunch of colors in water until I got one I liked and went from there-wash" was way too long. xD

ShanJ, if I fail out at building the Ahsoka lightsabers, I'll be hitting you up. LOL. Are you building the models yourself or using existing ones?


So I finally FINALLY got the headpiece I'm going to use for Ahsoka all put together... AND PAINTED. (In the right paint job!)


Lookee!!!











I'm so happy with how the colors and pattern came out, did it all freehand so it was fun. xD The colors are pretty much perfect, too. They look greyish until some full spectrum light hits them, then they show up beautifully blue but not obnoxiously blue, you know? I'm very happy with it. I used PAX paint (Pros-Aide + water + heavy body acrylics) for this paint job since it helps seal the foam as well as remains flexible enough not to crack or flake off. The seams I hid with siliconized caulk. I'm over all happy with it, though I wish I had thought to pat it with talc powder as it was drying to dull its shinyness up.


Now to grab a couple of hours sleep before waking up tomorrow for moar worktimes! Yaaaay!
 
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