What Stormtrooper Armor Really Made Of?

I’ve always enjoyed rewatching Star Wars movies because every time I do, I catch some details I missed before. Last night, I decided to revisit A New Hope, and sure enough, I spotted something hilarious.

Did you know some stormtroopers have gaffer tape wrapped around their armor? Gaffer tape! It turns out the material used for their costumes was so fragile that pieces would crack or break during filming.

Seeing that got me thinking—what was Stormtrooper armor actually made of during the film? My first thought was the obvious: just plastic, right? But as it turns out, the story behind it is way more fascinating than that.

Stormtrooper Armor Was Actually Just Plastic

According to StarWars.com, “Armor pieces were vacuum-formed out of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic and only a few of the helmets were made out of ABS; the rest were produced in high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Twenty-four of the original stormtrooper costumes remained and a fresh coat of paint and white gaffer tape could only do so much.”

Now, if you’re like me, you probably just read acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and thought, “Huh?” 

Basically, ABS plastic is a durable and lightweight material often used for things like LEGO bricks. It’s great for props since it holds its shape pretty well. 

But HDPE? That’s the stuff used for milk jugs and storage containers—sturdier but not as crisp-looking.

A New Hope was made on a tight budget, so they had to whip up those costumes quickly, and it showed. The vacuum-forming process wasn’t perfect, and the armor took a beating during filming. 

By the time The Empire Strikes Back rolled around, they were still using those same original pieces—just spruced up with white gaffer tape and a fresh coat of paint.

But the information is so little about the Stormtrooper armor, I don’t think I can accept that. I have also found out another source I can say this is the best so far.

You can find this details by yourself in the Star Wars Costumes The Original Trilogy 2014, from the page 29 to 31.

How Stormtrooper Armor Was Made

From Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy (2014), we get a fascinating look at how the iconic stormtrooper costume came to life. 

This iconic design was the brainchild of George Lucas and Ralph McQuarrie, with McQuarrie initially experimenting with the armor’s look through preliminary pencil sketches.

When it was time to bring the designs to life, sculptors Brian Muir and Liz Moore took on the task. Muir shared some insight, saying, “The only thing that wasn’t done from Ralph’s original concepts was the back of the costume, because there was no concept art to show it. I just had a single sketch to go by.” 

He also explained that “each component was sculpted on its own, with a gap between each one, because it had to fit anyone from 5’10” to 6’0”. The only way to make that work was to have a gap between components, and if someone was bigger, the gap would increase; if they were smaller, it would close up.”

Interestingly, the stormtrooper helmets were not sculpted in the same studio. According to the book, “The helmet was actually sculpted outside of the studio.” 

Manufacturing the helmets wasn’t easy either. Their design included undercuts, or areas of negative incline, which caused the plastic to fold back on itself and get stuck on the mold during the forming process.

Why Gaffer Tape?

Up until now, we might not have known the exact purpose of the white gaffer tape on stormtrooper armor, right? But the book provides insight into why it was needed, sharing stories from John Mollo, the costume designer for Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.

After production wrapped, the armor pieces were sent to the costume department. From there, the team had to figure out how to assemble everything without any instructions. Colin Wilson described the challenge: “The pieces arrived without any indication of what was what. It was like an Airfix model kit. We had to work out what they were by offering them up to our own bodies.”

John Mollo added more detail about the rushed timeline: “We had something like four days before shooting when we finally got all of the pieces. We just played around until we eventually managed to string it all together in such a way that you could get it on and off the bloke in about five minutes.”

This is where the role of the white gaffer tape becomes clear. Assembling the armor might have been manageable with practice, but maintaining it during filming was a different story. 

Mollo explained, “We used to dress them on the set. They could get into the black leotards in the dressing room, and then come down to the set and we would put the armor on. Once they were dressed in the white outfit, they could not sit down. After a while, the men got tired and tried to sit down, and of course bits and pieces started to come adrift.”

From this, we can guess that the white gaffer tape played an important role in helping the actors keep the armor pieces in place and preventing them from falling apart during filming.