Tumbling Down a Rabbit Hole

Well... I don't generally tread blindly, at least, though I may still walk off a cliff...

The cosplay possibility bug continues to nag at me on and off. I've done a good bit of online research about Mandalorian armor costumes. I may not be applying to any official fan groups or anything, but they have some good general guidelines like not having visible logos or zippers and such. But man, there are some things that rapidly spiral out of control.

Helmet: There are a few generally-recognized ways to go. 

- Using a cardboard/paper skeleton smeared with bondo epoxy seems fairly well recommended for doing it yourself. It ultimately allows a lot of hand-shaping possibilities. On the down side, it can be a lot of work and epoxies like this get into the realm of "you should be wearing a respirator mask when dealing with this stuff." That's much more daunting than I would want to get into, I think.

- I've seen a decent-looking helm made out of foam. I'm sort of bothered by the idea of a helm that isn't really rigid, though. I don't think that would satisfy me.

- I've seen discussion about forming a helmet out of sintra (a rigid PVC board), though a lot of comments seem to indicate it would be difficult to form into a full dome, so I'm not sure how feasible that is.

- There are people who have gone through the trouble of molding, and thus sell, formed rigid plastic helmets. Some of them look pretty good. That's pushing a $200 price tag, though, plus time depending on their backlog.

Vest: The typical outfit calls for an arming/armor/flak vest that goes over a flight/body suit and has the torso armor plates attached to it. That makes sense enough. So you need something that fits well enough, is strong enough to suppose the armor pieces (whether by velcro, snaps, or whatever other means of attachment), and doesn't stand out. It actually seems surprisingly (to me) difficult to find vests online that 1) are suitable material, 2) don't have an obvious zipper right up the front, 3) come in some obnoxious safety color, or 4) are not a literal bulletproof vest.

- Any reasonably close option I've found would probably still require some modification. If I'm modifying a garment, why should I be paying $40+ for it to start with? Hmm...

- There are surely vendors on Etsy or wherever that sell vests that are almost exactly what I want. Of course, they run more in the realm of $100-$200. And they may or may not be perfect - always an issue when ordering clothing online.

- If I'm going to have to modify something or pay that much, maybe it would just be better to get patterns and make something myself. Which... oh god, now I'm looking at getting a sewing machine and learning sewing basics for this?

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