Alexander Lam conceived Shogun Vader back in 2007 after reading about the samurai influence on Ralph McQuarrie's conceptual designs for Star Wars. He chose the name because Shogun means "general." In the few years since he began working on Shogun Vader, Lam has gone through three costume designs and is currently working on a fourth.
Lam's armor is made primarily of dyed black cardboard topped by a shiny black posterboard that he says you can find at stores like Michael's. He uses double-sided tape to fuse the materials. The gold trim is made of a similar posterboard, although it is mirror-reflective. He uses wide shoelaces to tie together the pieces in a fashion similar to the samurai armor he found during the course of his research. (via boingboing.com)
