Another Tusken WIP

[gogonk]

I love looking at all your awesome WIPs, so I figured I would do one myself. 

(I apologize for any grammatical errors you may find here; English is not my native language)

 

I started with my mask build and used Blaxmyth’s pepakura file.

My cardboard was a bit too thick, so it turned out very ugly, but luckily the cloth will cover everything later. I added 2 layers of paper mache with wood glue and used some black spray paint to get a cleaner look.

 

I also ordered some leather waste pieces for the respirator and the snout wrapping and laid them out flat to examine the size and color of the different pieces. I hope it’s thin enough, otherwise I will use simulated leather for the mouth, which I will order for my bandoliers soon.

 

Continuing with my respirator build, I measured the spray paint can I used for the mask earlier, and surprisingly it has the perfect diameter, woohoo! I searched the whole kitchen for fitting bottle caps and found three good-looking ones. Sadly, just the yellow one fits on the can. I think the red cap is the best looking one, but I have no idea how to remove the little lip on the can, to make it fit, so I will use the yellow cap.

 

 

Cutting the spray paint cans was a hell of a mess, and the edges do not look very nice, so I put some cardboard in between the two pieces to get more stability. Some burned fingers and silver painted hands later, almost all the pieces shine silver.

 I also dipped my fingers a bit in the paint to get some weathering marks right away. (luckily, I found another juice box for the bottle cap in the trash can and was able to fish it out, yay!)

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find proper wing nuts in the hardware store, so I had to order them online.

A few days later, the wing nuts arrived. They look like they have not quite the right shape, but will use them for now because I wasn’t able to find the right ones here in Germany :/. Do you think they are all right? Anyway, I cut the leather in the right shape, glued everything together and started weathering the respirator. I got inspired by this awesome weathering by prisoner1138 and used some black and brown acrylics.

 I have to say, I’m very happy with the result! (With exception to the wingnuts of course)

 

 

This is pretty long for my first post, but I swear this is the last paragraph. 

I ordered a few samples of cloth for the robes and the mask last week, and after my order got missing the first time, it finally arrived today! (The measurement on the cutting mat is given in centimeters)

 

 

The following two are my favorites so far, I think the left one will be good for the mask and the inner robe. The right one is my choice for the outer robe for now, but I’m not sure if it is coarse enough. Any comments on it? Otherwise, I’m opting for the Oddrun Ikea blanket.

 

Thanks for reading so far, I will keep you updated about the further progress. Comments and critique are welcome. 

 

 

[M.J.]

Hello Bolero,

Love the build thread.

I noticed in the fabrics you had Hessian no there wasn't any, though I noticed the middle fabric like a thick cotton.. 

I'm not the Tusken expert here, though all the fabrics  they wear you can't see through and they're thick, monks cloth  ( in the second photo)was never used but it does match tick some boxes. But I would never recommend it, it has a tendency to pull and was never made for costumes. 

I do like the look of the blanket though. 

 

[Nezhdanov]

Hi,

First question is what type of Tusken are you making? If you haven’t already check out the crl found here for male A New Hope (ANH)

https://databank.501st.com/databank/Costuming:TuskenRaiderMaleANewHope

If you are doing a male prequel Tusken then look here

https://databank.501st.com/databank/Costuming:TuskenRaiderMaleAttackoftheClones

Another thing to mention is that there will be someone in your local garrison that will review any costumes put forward for clearance. It is not always easy to know if they will want parts of a costume altering or not so we will try to guide you for costume clearance and keeping your costume like those seen in the films.

I’m going to assume you are making a male A New Hope (ANH) Tusken. You have made a good start and very sensible to get material samples first. The crl link above gives some detail on materials so for the head wraps it states duck cloth or bull denim.

This is bull denim

Duck cloth

You can use these materials for head wraps, arm wraps and boots.

The inner robe material is less exacting with a general description in the crl. Some use Osnaburg but something similar will work.

Osnaburg

The outer robe material can be difficult. The crl states that the outer robe is very loose fitting and made of a course textured sand coloured fabric like a basket weave fabric.

The oddrun Ikea example you gave looks similar to monks cloth to me so might do the job. Monks cloth is allowed in the crl but not accurate to the film.

Ikea oddrun

Monks cloth

Here is an example of the outer robe material me and my wife used. It had been washed at this stage. My outer robe weighs around 3kg and hopefully  you can see the heavy weave.

The material we used is shown here as an example of outer robe material and not that it is an ideal type of material to use. Hopefully other members will add their thoughts on the materials.

I think you’ve created a good respirator and although the flare nuts are not as in the film they may pass clearance.

I think you have made a good start at the head. I would just mention a few things from the papakura head you’ve referenced versus what is seen in the film.

The pepakura head you’ve referenced has more metal nose showing than in the films and the leather should wrap over the nose more. The nose shape is a little different to the film too so alter that when making yours. The eye stalks have slits that are at an angle rather than horizontal so alter this in your build if you can, it’s not critical but will help be more accurate to the film. The side metal ‘splitters’ have a little ridge on the end so add that if you are able, again not critical but will just help make it like the film. The creator of this head estimated some of the sizes so it might help to make the mouth a little larger to help with how your build will look when complete. 

I think this is a good head and good use of a different approach to building a Tusken head but I wanted to mention some things you could do when completing yours.

Head from ANH film

This is a long post but I hope it helps!

[gogonk]

Hello there!

 

I realized I never updated you on my Tusken WIP.

I completed it in 2022 and trooped many troops up to this day!

This is a Tusken made by a broke College student, so please don’t murder me for not spending hundreds of euros on the original fabrics, thanks! I think overall I probably spend round 200€, but I really don’t remember that well.

 

 

Okay let’s go:

 

Robes/ Soft parts

For the Inner robe, Waist sash, arm wraps, boot wraps and the helmet I used the same fabric and the available patterns on the forum. I know it’s not screen accurate (especially for the helmet) but It’s really hard (and expensive) to find the right cloth here in Germany.

Anyway, I bathed it in a lot of black tea. Don’t do it like me and leave the tea bags in there until they break- cook that soup and take them out before you put your cloth in there. Stir well, add spices, take a sip and voila! I had to remove a lot of strings from the wraps and they got knotted up together. 

 

 

This was the finished inner robe. I later replaced the waist sash cord for a thicker one.  Much better.

 

 

Boots and Arm Wraps

I used rubber boots. To my surprise they fit well and I don’t get blisters even after trooping all day. And I can jump in puddles for free weathering! Yay!

But one thing I would like to warn you about if you also use rubber boots:
do *NOT* use Hot glue for gluing on the cloth. I did this the first time and everything was fine until I had my first long troop. The hot glue formed a really weird slimy/ Oily(!?) goo in combination with the boot material and that wasn’t fun and nothing sticked any more. After talking to a Tusken friend I tried Pattex and it works a lot better. I still sometimes have to reglue stuff, but not that often.

 

Arm Wraps were made with an old tshirt and lots of hot Glue. The gloves are not perfect, but I tried looking everywhere for those nice cotton work gloves, no chance. 

 

Bandoliers

 I used the available patters and made them from fake leather, belts and leather scraps.

 

 

Outer Robe

I used the Ikea Oddrun blanket. (yes I know, monkscloth is not screen accurate) If you want to go this budget route as well: Ikea has them under a new name every few years. Currently, it’s called “rönnbärsmal” and not available in beige everywhere, but I think they will change it again soon.

I have the luck to not be a giant, so two blankets with head and arm holes and a slit in the middle sewn together at the shoulders were perfect for me. I made some delicious black tea fabric soup again and weathered it with acrylics at the end. Even possible for sewing noobs like me.

 

 

 

Helmet

This is my finished helmet. Greeblies were 3d printed. I redesigned the head spiked after some time so I could screw them into the helmet instead of glue, as they fell off quite frequently. I’m quite happy with the shape overall, but maybe I just looked at mine for too long at this point. I don’t want to be mean, but I feel like a lot of weirdly shaped and not good-looking helmets get approved, so I hope I’m not one of them.  The mouth folds are fake leather, as it was the only one thin enough for the folds. The rest were from the leather scrap box I bought.
And oh wow, I hate the view out of this bucket. All my friends said they had bad view but it's so awesome in comparison to a tusken, damn. I can't even look at the camera when someone's taking pixtures because most of the time I don't see where is is, yay. But at least I can sit and lay on the floor, right?  Always stay positive and stuff

 

Gaffi

I made two gaffis to this day actually! Both were made from stormtrooperguys stl files, but my first one broke in half all the time. For my second one, I added a wooden rod in the wood part and 3d printed dowels in the metal parts. I also didn’t glue the metal and wood parts together, so it’s a lot easier to transport now. And I always have some spare end spikes (also not glued in) with me, as they break easier through usage.
I still like the wood color/ weathering of my first Gaffi more, but I think my second is also okay. Many people have asked me if it’s made from real wood, so here’s a quick tutorial for the weathering:

1.      Generously brush dark brown and black acrylics everywhere.

2.      Wait some minutes so It's not super wet anymore, but also not dry.  

3.      Take a paper towel and rub the paint off with a good amount of pressure. Some of it will stay on, but you will get light spots as well, contributing to the wood look.

4.      Make sure little cracks and the details are filled with black paint

5.      Seal with transparent spray paint

Done!

 

First One (don't mind the crack):

Second one:

 

 

Neck Seal

Now, there’s one part of my Tusken that’s always causing problems and I would love your input. I tried different things for hiding my neck and especially the lower back of my head over the years but I’m still not happy. In the beginning I had some kind of neck seal that was basically left over cloth wrapped around my neck and held together by Velcro. This was okay but my not perfect colored balaclava was still visible at the back of my head/neck. Last year I made another one with a kind of hood, but it’s a little annoying to get under my helmet and I haven’t made a good closure system on it.
I think the main problem is that I have a lot of long hair and my helmet won’t fit on my head if I put my hair up too high, so there will always be a kind of bulge.

 

I thought about pulling out the fabric straps inside the back of my helmet again. This is probably also more screen accurate depending on the picture you look at. But I think the fabric being at least a little more loose at the back as seen in the reference pictures will also conceal my head a bit better. But I don't want as much fabric as seen in some of the crl pictures.

In addition to that I want to sew a “proper” neckseal with a well placed Velcro or zipper. I will probably wrap some cloth on the neck part of the seal like with the arm wraps, but I will pay attention to not make it too bulky.
If any of you has a pattern for a neck seal I would love to see, otherwise I will orientate myself on a mando neckseal and update you on my progress here.



If you read so far: thanks! I hope you enjoyed. 
Last but no least, some of my favorite pictures:

 

 

Future Plans:
As explained above, I really want to redo my neckseal.
Also I just ordered an usb 40mm fan to hopefully fit inside the mouth. 
I case I don't forget again for a few years: stay tuned for updates coming soon

 

Happy trooping and thanks for reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nezhdanov]

Welcome back and thanks for the detailed wip!

You’ve done a good job on your costume so I won’t mention anything about some of the materials [emoji4]

Unfortunately materials are not easily available around the world and in Europe it can be a struggle to find all the costume elements needed.

I like that you have managed to get quite a lot of folds in the mouth and the eye stalk cut outs are rotated. I like that your head wraps are random and loose fitting and your arm and boot wraps also suits the costume well.

I think your weathering is good also but my favourite part is that you have a lot of material for your outer robe so that it has a lot of folds. Many costumers struggle with having a lot of material in their costume so oddly I am most impressed with this in your costume!

There is a lot of variation of this costume approved with many struggling with the look of the head. It can look goofy quite easily but your costume head does not look strange or goofy so well done!

For the neck wrap it might be difficult with your hair length.

We used a neck seal kind of like those found in stormtrooper costumes. This goes over the shoulders, wraps around the neck and covers the chin and neck area fastened with press studs. It does take some tucking into the head though but does stay in place. The inner and outer robe go over this so it blends in with the costume.







Thanks for letting us know how your costume went and I hope you continue to have fun with it [emoji4]


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[mattleshman]

Hi! How are you? Can you share patterns for de bandoliers? I have the one from UK 1908 Enfield.