Hello.
My Instructables is about how to make a cheap and easy to make Darth Vader costume.

So the back story is my father was invited to a party and the theme was imperial. So we thought why not go as the leader of the Empire Darth Vader.

Step 1: Prep and Tools

So lets begin with the Materials
1. Black wellingtons
2. Black cape
3. Black trowsers
4. Black long sleeve t shirt
5. Black elbow length gloves
6. Silver pleather (plastic leather)
7. Cardboard and lots of it!!!
8. Sticky back plastic (for that plasticy effect)
9. Black spray paint
10. Styrofoam
11. Velcro
12. Packaging tape (or any other form of tape)
13. Some paint for details
14. Time

Tools
1. Exacto knife
2. Scissors
3. Paint brush
4. Hot glue gun

Step 2: Shoulder Pads

First I cut out the shoulder pads. This involved cutting two long rectangles dimensions 6x13.5 Inches and one smaller one with curved corners roughly about 8.75x6.5 Inches.

I then put them together, in order to make sure they stayed together i first glued some paper at the joints so it would sick and used hot glue to reinforce it

I then took the pleather and used a mixture of hot glue and pritt stick to glue the material on, I then used my exacto knife and scissors to cut the pleather to the same shape as the cardboard.

Next comes the painting. I used packing tape to make sure the spray paint was striped but I would not advise using it, I left a gap of 2 Inches for the silver and the same for the black.

REMEMBER
always spray paint in a well ventilated area!!!

Step 3: Chest Plate

Now for the chest plate. I started with the front. I made it about 7x6 cm. To make it look better and like plastic I put sticky back plastic on top of the cardboard, then I spray painted it.

Then comes the toppings. I took to smaller pieces of cardboard (about 1.5 Inches squared) and put sticky back plastic on that, I then had to hand paint them red and green like the switches on the real one. I then added half a lollipop stick on each side of the box (I had some from when my sister tried to make lollipops but they burned). And to finish it I used a mirror tile sample with stickers on it (which happens to fit the card board) and I stuck it on the bottom.

Then to make the cardboard stick out I used some styrofoam which was roughly the shape of the cardboard (7x6x5 cm), then to make the sides look like the front by putting sticky back plastic on it and spray painting it. I then glued the front and the styrofoam together.

Step 4: Belt

By the time I came to the belt I had very little time (you must bare in mind i did this whole thing in one night) So I took another sample tiel and drew something similar to the darth Vaders belt buckle with a sharpie.

Step 5: Dressing

Suit up!!

Now you have everything you need to attach it to your clothes, I used the velcro to fix the chest plate to the t-shirt and to make sure it stuck well i put a magimix on top of it over night.

I then used velcro to stick the tile on the front of my father’s trousers.

The last part required my father to be wearing the clothes so he put them on. I then bent the cardboard to match his shoulders and used velcro to stick them in place.

Step 6: Finals and Extras

Extras
I gave my father one of my old light sabers, my father also had a Darth Vader mask (it did all sorts of things like heavy breathing) which covered his face and my mother found some black groves, black wellingtons and a Dracula cape.

I hope you enjoyed it. BYE!