Rebel starfighter pilot (2023-24) – Hard kit

A snubfighter pilot with soft kit only still looks plenty cool, but it’s the pieces of hard kit that really sell the look! (For full details on the processes used to make each of these elements, check out our original post)
The first thing to add is (per the Rogue One visual guide) the “Novaldex Diagnostech life support unit”, aka chestbox!

Materials:
Masonite board ($2-3 @ Reuse Center); rocker switches, knob, and tiles from Darth Hair; hose from Habitat for Humanity ReStore ($3);

Hose elbow: scratchbuilt from $5 worth of plumbing parts (Home Depot), bamboo, bondo resin, and two hard drive magnets (these stick onto a matching steel washer inside the flightsuit for a tight fit):

Mini ‘belt flares’:
These I made from sections of 3/8” dowel, painted with silver acrylic (enough for a dozen for a buck or two at the local Creative Reuse Center), then burnished after the paint had dried.

The lower five are post-burnishing; you can really see a difference in texture!

Wrist commpad:
Bought along with the flightsuit from Wampawear ($10?)

Code cylinders:
-Matched pair from ‘Elvis Trooper’ ($10/ea)
-Alternative example (seen worn by Wedge and others in the OT) from the now-defunct BaileyBuilds ($17?)

‘Boot flares’:
-Flares are .86” wooden dowels (another buck or two from the Reuse Center).
-The carrier cuff I sewed from 2” green webbing (Strapworks again – although I think technically the loops are supposed to be made of something more canvas-y) and Velcro, backed with some Soviet milsurp canvas from a plash-palatka rain cape:

We’re almost there, but something’s missing…

Koensayr K-22995 Helmet!:
This is a ‘Black Series’ Wedge Antilles helmet I found semi-locally on fb marketplace ($90) and repainted:

Let’s see how the final look compares to our initial concept art:

All told, not bad! From what I can tell, had I bought readymade softgoods (and an assemble-it-yourself helmet kit), the total would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $730, but I figure this whole kit cost around $450 total (about half of which was elements I already had, bought over several years).
Compared to something like a screen-accurate Vader or Boba Fett, a Rebel pilot is a fairly inexpensive kit to put together, and I hope that this project shows that there is room for a bit of visual variations within the ranks!