Nice work, man! I would be interested in picking one up when they become available.
Hey, that's great- and thanks again for your high-quality boots.
I've seen some very good Max customs, but they all seem to have one thing in common:
The shoulder pads are much too thick and puffy. The one in the film is pretty thin; not much protection.
With that in mind, I made my own custom pad. I did a LOT of research. Discovering the true outline was tricky,
because we never see it laying flat.
I knew I didn't want to make an actual sewn-and-stuffed fabric pad, because I wouldn't be able to control the final result very well. So, I came up with a way to simulate the whole pad and make it look real, with total control.
First, I deduced what the accurate outline was. I used some thin, flexible plastic from a file folder.
I bent it over the shoulder, and used a sharpie to draw on the front, then the back, on the yellow plastic.
Then I took it off of the figure, and drew a curved line along the neck area to connect the front to the back,
and then I cut-out the plastic template.
I placed the template onto a piece of 1mm-thick leather, traced around it, and cut-out two identical leather pieces.
One piece I used for the base form of the pad, and the other I cut to make raised areas for the middle and for the edges.
I used a Dremel to bevel the edges of the glue-on-top leather pieces so there would be a 'trench' where the stitching would later be.
Next, I glued the leather cut-out edge and middle pieces to the leather base. Then, I basically upholstered the whole thing with some black fabric which had the perfect texture and thread scale. I folded the edges of the fabric over to the back and glued them in place, one small section at a time, snipping the fabric with scissors to make small sections to glue around corners and tight curves. After the pad was covered with fabric, I stitched all the way around, about 5mm from the edges- where the 'trench' was hidden under the black fabric. Stitching along the hidden trench pinched the fabric down to the flat base, creating a realistic padded look.
Once all that was done, all I had to do was add the shiny black leather along the neck area, (with a thin leather strip rolled inside to add thickness) apply the 1mm metal dots, and make the straps with a steel buckle. I think it came out looking quite realistic and accurate- and my black guard looks great sitting on top of it.
In addition to the guards, I'm considering selling do-it-yourself kits for the under-pad, with instructions and all the materials included:
2 leather cut-outs, black fabric, 1mm metal 'rivets', 3mm-wide straps, shiny black leather strip for the neck area, and even enough thread for the stitching. If you buy both the pad-kit and guard, I'll include some extra leather straps that go through the four tiny slots to attach the guard to the pad, and I'll give a little discount.
(but sorry, no buckles- that's up to you to find, because I'm runnng short of them)
