This is the Way

 For Halloween this year, my boys and I decided to make Mandalorian armor for our costumes. After looking at some of the high quality cosplay suits some people make (see the Mando Mercs cosplay group!), we decided to just go cheap and make everything out of cardboard. 

We started out in August, by watching some tutorial videos and downloading some templates for the helmets. We started with a test printing on regular paper:

Next, we printed the templates again and made the shells out of paperboard.

A bit of papier-mache added stability to the base helmets, and covered up the seams.

 

In September, we finally got around to the painting stage.

We had to order in some shading film for the visors, and it was a bit hard to work with, but we managed. Here's me trying on my helmet. I redid the cheek panels in green later, as my wife thought it looked too clownish in red. And Stevie, my younger boy, ended up repainting his whole helmet from "watermelondelorian" to "Cincinnati Bengalorian" a few days before the events (pictures below).

Once we finished the helmets (other than a few touch-ups here and there), we moved on to the gauntlets. For these, the templates were all for Boba Fett gauntlets, but we all decided to customize our own weapon load-outs on them. 

My right gauntlet, with whistling birds, flame thrower, and cable projector. 

The cable projector (the odd-shaped green thing) ended up being a bit uncomfortable. 

Here's Steven's left gauntlet, with blaster/laser, and energy shield generator. I had an energy shield generator on my left gauntlet, too. The blue disks  on the next picture are cut from a plastic file case. We used magnets to attach the "shields" to the gauntlets, but in the end the magnets weren't strong enough and they would fall off too easily.

Here's Steven's right gauntlet, also with whistling birds, flame thrower, and a holdout blaster on the bottom.

My left had the personal shield generator (discussed above), as well as a rocket launcher. I added a rocket later.

I forgot to get pictures of Flynn's gauntlets during the crafting process. He went fairly simply, with a flamethrower on the right, and a retractable vibroknife on the left. 

At the end of September, and into early October, we started working on the armor. Also, you can see that Steven didn't paint his gauntlets until after we'd started in on the armor.

 

We ordered some cotton cloth and made vests to hold the armor plates, as well as capes for the boys.

 

No one noticed my cheeky addition to my armor.

I made myself an EE-3 blaster carbine out of cardboard. Flynn and I also crafted a sniper rifle for him, based off of the one used by Crosshair in The Bad Batch. For Steven, he just wanted us to paint one of his water guns black, so we did. We also bought an extendable pole from the dollar store, painted it silver, and made a bescar spear for Flynn.

In the end, it worked out pretty well. Flynn and I wore our costumes out to my buddy's bar on Saturday the 28th, and had some fun. And on Sunday the 29th, there was a trunk-or-treat for the kids, which was also a lot of fun. 

With local band Goths on the Beach. (The choking pose was her idea.)