Saber Forum

So I spent about 5 or so months creating my Star Wars Jedi costume for the midnight screening of The Last Jedi and one of the many things I had to make to complete the costume were those pesky pouches that are worn on the belt. I knew how to sew, but sewing leather is a little different from fabric and trying to make it look nice is even more difficult. Then the bright idea came, make the pouches with no sewing whatsoever and share the method around so that literally anybody can make them if you know how to glue. So these beauties were born...

(https://i.imgur.com/cqCTpC6.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/9dIU2YC.jpg)

They are made with a kind of bootleg process of using glue to laminate the leather to a piece of craft foam, plus a little bit of wood burning technique for the lines on the leather.

Picture tutorial coming soon...

They look great.

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Thank you kindly!  :)

Looking good! I just finished 2 leather pouches too.

Wow Saso those are beautiful looking!  Fine craftsmanship  :)

+1 for you  ;)

Wow. Very nice!

A point to you! and a comment so this stays on my radar.

Those look very nice! I can not wait to see your tutorial.

These look really good. Nice job.

Appreciate the comments y'all! I'll be working on taking the pictures and posting up a tutorial sometime this week.

Let me start off by saying that if you are making these for the purpose of getting into any Jedi costume club then these *should* fit the majority of the requirements but of course I cannot guarantee that. If you do end up making these pouches and they do get approved then I would LOVE for you to let me know. That would be truly awesome. The design of the pouches I made above is a replica of Anakin’s belt pouch from ROTS and that is the flavor of what we are making.

Ok, so this tutorial could literally be at least 30 pictures long or more so I did my best to cut it down a little and try and show the major steps, then I’ll explain quite a bit on what is going on in text. I do use a couple different pouches to show the steps but if I did a decent job it shouldn’t confuse you too much (I sincerely hope.)

Here's a brief supply list:
-Leather fabric (pleather and textured vinyl would probably work too I suppose)
-2mm craft foam from any craft store
-Super glue
-E6000 glue (really popular general use glue you can get anywhere)
-Magnets or Velcro for closure
-Paint to make the inner foam the same color

Tools:
-Scissors
-Hobby knife
-Wood burning kit (for design work)


First cut out a rectangle of 2mm craft foam that is 5 inches wide and 12.5 inches long. Ignore the fancy cut out design on the left side, we’ll talk about that later. These measurements are for making the larger pouches in my photos above, if you are making smaller ones simply trim off a few inches of the width.
(https://i.imgur.com/YOZzITN.jpg?1)

Next measure 8.5 inches from the right side and mark it with a line. I mark the word “inside” of the pouch just so that I don’t get confused with what happens later, you can do that if you wish.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZFiAlGU.jpg)

You’ll notice right by where I have it marked with arrows that the foam is cut in a little on the top and bottom along the line. It is trimmed by 2mm on the top and bottom down to the end of the foam with the “X’s” on the right side. We have to do this because when the leather is applied to the sides of the pouch later it will make it wider. It’ll make a little more sense later.
(https://i.imgur.com/pirgTj0.jpg)

Time to place the piece of foam on your leather fabric, mark it, cut it out, then glue the two pieces together using some super glue.
(https://i.imgur.com/JIZoNGJ.jpg)

Trim any excess leather off the edges and since they are now laminated together it will look relatively uniform like this. I use super glue because it bonds well, dries in about 7 seconds, and is liquid so it is easy to spread. At this particular stage you might have to go around the piece and make sure the edges are well glued down, sometimes they like to separate if no glue made it to the edges.
(https://i.imgur.com/v36CBFg.jpg)

Trying to make those lined designs on the leather itself after you have constructed the entire thing is very difficult so if you want them, now is the time to do it. I use a chisel tip on a wood burning tool to make the lines. I noticed when I first did this that just holding the tip on the leather and trying to burn a line into it didn’t work at all because the leather had a sort of finish to it. I was able to remedy that by taking a hobby knife and a ruler and actually cutting the lines a little bit into the leather (not enough to go through all the leather and the foam beneath it, mind you.) This creates a channel with which you can run the wood burning tool through and the results were much better.
(https://i.imgur.com/aHsrYlm.jpg)

Continued in Part 2...

Part 2

Now the pouch is beginning to take shape. The arrow points to where I had it marked “inside” on the earlier photos. Also notice the inside line that we drew. At this point you can cut the front flap pattern into a shape if you wish. The design I made in the original post is just a simple rounding of the corners with some sharp scissors. You’ll actually see a pouch like that in the next step.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZOHz7t7.jpg)

Ok, so we’ve switched pouches for this next step. Now you just cut out two small rectangles of craft foam that are 1 inch wide and 4.5 inches long, then you round one end of the rectangles so that the pouch has that nice roll at the bottom. Using the line we drew on the inside in an earlier step; super glue those two rectangles in place on the foam’s edges. You can see towards the right side that there is a small gap in the foam. You don’t need to worry about this too much because the leather is going to cover that up.
(https://i.imgur.com/WkrWnZF.jpg)

Now you can see why that guiding line we drew earlier was so important, it basically is your marker as to where the “walls” of the pouch begin.
(https://i.imgur.com/ERGJpni.jpg)

Next we simply trace out the sides onto our leather once again, cut it out, glue it on, and trim off any excess leather on the edges. It’ll look just like this. Remember how we made that 2mm trim on the craft foam on the first few steps? If we hadn’t done that then these sides of the pouch would be fatter than the closing flap.
(https://i.imgur.com/BSwJOJA.jpg)

Now we move on to how to close it, the two main methods I think are Velcro and magnets. I personally like using magnets in my crafts because I always think they are a very futuristic thing to use but Velcro is much easier and very straightforward, you just stick it on. If you do decide to use magnets then you have to go with some powerful ones. Many of the magnets you find at craft stores are simply not powerful enough and so I typically go with earth magnets that you can get online (Ebay is my favorite place to get them.)

You’ll need 4 total magnets for a large pouch and just 2 for making a small pouch. The process for applying them can be a little tricky. First stick the magnet(s) onto the inside of the closing flap, I used E6000 glue for this because it’s thicker and I need it to encircle a little around the magnet so that it holds well. Let that dry completely and then you work on the inside the pouch magnet(s). *PLEASE* pay attention to the polarity of the magnets, if you glue it with the wrong sides facing each other then they are pretty much worthless. Stick some glue on the side of the magnet that will go inside the pouch and push it down in there. Then allow the magnets to pull together by closing the pouch and let the glue inside dry. The natural attraction of the magnets helps the glue have a tight bond on the inside of the pouch, kind of like a vice in a sense. This is hands down the most complicated step so let me know if you guys have questions.
(https://i.imgur.com/BSAUl0N.jpg)

Now we look towards how it will attach to your belt. Use another piece of leather for a loop and then attach it to the back of the pouch. For this particular example I used the E6000 glue on the top and a bit of Velcro on the bottom. It is ok if it looks a little rough, nobody is going to see this when you wear it.
(https://i.imgur.com/AZIxf4f.jpg)

If you are using foam that doesn’t match the color of your leather then you can just pick up a small bottle of acrylic paint that matches the tone of the leather and go from there. I would recommend the traditional process of painting foam by using a few coats of glue (white glue works fine) to seal the foam before applying the paint. You can also paint the magnets too if you wish.

Voila, that’s it! You have a Jedi belt pouch. These can be fully functional pouches as long as you don’t throw super heavy stuff into them. A warning though, if you are using magnets I would *Not* recommend putting anything electronic (like your phone) inside as magnets can certainly mess with electronics. Any questions at all please post them up or message me. Enjoy y’all!

New Member here, and this is FANTASTIC!  Definitely using this for my first ever Cosplay!  :D

Sweet! Welcome to the forum and thank you!! Any questions when you make them just ask away.

Well thankfully for you, you've made this really idiot proof with your pictures and detailed explanations :P

Very cool. Nice colors and design.

I know kind of an old post but will these be nice and sturdy? Like when you buy other regular leather pouches and stuff? Thinking of making me a large black pouch for my Sith costume now after seeing this =]

These won't be as sturdy as say a leather pouch sewn together with waxed thread but it should hold up rather well. Probably depends on how heavy you decide to load the pouch. All the joints of the foam can be reinforced with more glue for more stability (after all, the foam is the core of the pouch, the leather is just decoration really.) Super glue seeps into foam and there is really no chance of it coming apart, the foam will rip long before the actual glue gives way.

simply awesome

This is an awesome tutorial! I'll be sure to remember this and pass it around to people building costumes (might have to make a few myself with some of the leather scraps I have laying around). Point!

I wonder if you can combine this tutorial with patterns from foamcave to get even better designs?

This would also be nice to have in a pdf

Thank you for this great service!!