Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within DeepEyes Armor

[Cadet]

The Deep Eyes armor is a costume I have wanted to do since I saw a group of them at DragonCon 2005 from Nightmare Armor Studios. I had loved the movie and the armor when I first saw Spirits Within around four years earlier, but seeing them in real life lit a fire in me that has smoldered for over 15 years.

For a few years after that Con kits and sets from NAS and another studio called Hanger18 (Who I would later find out built theirs before NAS and who had a much more accurate, proportional, and cleaner set than NAS) would occasionally pop up on TheRPF or eBay, but as I was a college student at the height of their availability, I could never afford them when they showed up. By the time I could, both studios, like the movie itself, had vanished from public consciousness.

Years ago I was lucky enough to snag the helmet on eBay, but it has sat on a shelf for years as I continued to just casually keep an eye out for kits, for pepakura files, for 3D print STLs, any sign someone else remembered this armor and was going to take the initiative on producing it. At some point I had kind of given up on it. And then my friend asked why I didn't just make it myself. Well, I thought I never could, not without someone else's patterns or kits. That's my strength, kit building, not scratch building.

But then I stared at the action figure on my desk. The armor wasn't really that bad. It had a lot of big, flat surfaces. I already had the helmet, arguably the most complicated piece.

Maybe I could.

So, let's find out

 

[RandomRanger]

Yooo, following!

 

[Cadet]

My primary reference for this build has been been the 12 inch figure seen in the first post. The movie had two toy/collectible lines, the 12 inch line and an approximately 5 inch size line. Bring about 6 feet tall, the 12 inch line scales much better for free handing pieces. Working off of that scaling I took measurements of the simpler pieces on the chest and waist and have them fabricated at this point.

Up next is patterning out the more complex pieces in the chest, back, and shins.

 

[SSGLordElmo]

Dude!! That light up looks so epic!! How difficult was it to add the led lights to the helmet?

 

[DirePanda]

Absolutely freaking sweet!

 

[Cadet]

Almost there. Quick test fit of the finished pieces so far. The actual shorts have been sewn, but they were still drying from their dye bath, so just threw on my shop shorts for this picture.

 

[Cadet]

Dye and fabric paint on the shorts is dry and I fabricated and attached the greebkies to them and decided to do a full suit up. The shins are pretty big. If I had to rebuild them, I would do them smaller, as the movie model does have a vertical seam that I missed all the way up the side so that I could build them tighter and then clam shell them. The DeepEyes do have a second soft goods knee pad under the knee armor, as called out in the concept art and partially visible on screen, so I have corresponding velcro on the soft goods knee pads and the inside of the armor that will hold them in place and prevent them from rotating.