Moldwarped's Mimban TK Build (Retrospective)

[moldwarped9]

Hello all fellow dirt-clad troopers! My name is Malte, I'm from Sweden and I recently finished my Mimban TK. As with most of my 501st builds, I'm doing a sort of retrospective on the build now that it's approved and (mostly) finished. Enjoy!

 

Armor: 

I purchased an armor kit from 850 ArmorWorks, I won't go on about the armor assembly, since it's a topic that's already covered well enough across the forums. The "mud" look was achieved by mixing various acrylic paint (mainly black, brown and greys) with plaster and water, playing around with different viscosities and methods of applying and occasionally wiping of the paint. I believe I ended up doing 4-5 layers of paint, going darker with each layer. I also sanded the paint surface lightly in certain spots with fine steel wool and sandpaper to bring out some texture and a bit of the white plastic underneath.  

 

Helmet: My helmet is 3d-printed in PLA and SLA-resin, with files from 3DPrintArmory, the helmet was painted in pretty much the same way as the armor, I was just a bit more careful to not sand through the white paint and bring out the original filament color/primer under the white.

Backpack: I’m not gonna do a super-deep dive into building the field pack, since all the information already exist wonderfully written and researched in the thread by ireachy and mr paul and I pretty much just followed that as much as I could. Gathering all the military equipment, the grenade box, Swedish backpack frame, etc. and then assembling it all. I brought the backpack along with the costume to its first troop back in November, but funnily enough I didn’t end up wearing at all during the whole weekend, because of the long antenna, could barely stand up straight with it in the dressing room, let alone walk through doors with it…

 

Poncho/Cape: Nothing too special, just got me a surplus Plash Palatka, I believe they were Romanian versions with two armholes, but it works just fine for my purposes, mine didn’t have the leather grommets on it, so I simply glued on some leather rings, works great. I dyed it black with the same methods for dyeing the ALICE pack as described in the Field Pack Thread.

Pauldron: I ended up making my own pauldron, mostly since I was on a deadline for a upcoming con. I found some patterns on one of the forums, and used some faux leather to make my own, it’s not the best, but it works for the time being, probably going to be getting a new one eventually.

I don’t have a blaster yet and I found it really hard trying to pose without a blaster, like what am I supposed to do with my hands?! Anyway, normally I’d 3d print a blaster, but I’ve recently tried to move away from 3d printed hand props, mainly since they brake so easily. I’ll probably purchase one made of resin or rubber, anyone here got any suggestions of where to get any of the mimban blasters? Preferably in Europe.     

 

Happy to be a part of the Mudskulls!

[bigwam]

Hi Malte,

the mimban is a great character. I also like this trooper.
You showed a great construction report, it's always great to see how a costume is made.
I noticed two things that I would have changed:
I would have closed the gap in the helmet and made the forearms a little smaller. So they stick out a lot and twist, as you can see in the last picture, they always twist a bit. I would change that (also the shoulder bells) so that that doesn't happen. This allows fans to see the insides of the costume, which takes away some of the illusion.

Regards bigwam

 

[Two_squirrels]

yaaaaaas!!  More Mimban love, always a good thing to see