DIY Christmas Gifts: Darth Vader Shoes

I got the idea from pinterest and followed the link trail back to this website...His shoes are AMAZING.  

I basically copied the chest plate shoe.  The Darth shoe was inspired from a lamp  I found on google images.  I knew it was something I could paint, and I'm super happy with the way it turned out!

So, I altered this pair on black shoes I picked up from Sears.com for under $20.  I was thinking I wanted to do grey shoes, but they were SOOO cheap.  The black ones had heavy rubber soles and seem like they will last, but those grey ones (which I thought were the same just a different color) were so light...the soles were that foam-y stuff and they just felt cheap!  So I returned them!

I used fabric paint for the black and white, mixing the two to make the shades of grey.  I used regular acrylics for blue and red.  Hopefully they will hold up to everyday use!

I tried to paint a little Death Star and a TIE fighter on the backs...The Death Star turned out better than I thought, but for how simple a TIE fighter is, it was hard to paint that small.  Better paint brushes would have helped!

I used "stencils" to make the lettering.  I just cut out "star wars" and used spray adhesive to adhere to the shoe.  Then it was super easy to paint in the letters!

I used "stencils" a lot on the front of the shoes, too.  I wanted straight, crisp lines and the stencil allowed me to do that!  I kept drawing and cutting out sections, adhered it to the shoe with the spray adhesive, then painted.  The fabric paint dries pretty quickly (touch dry within minutes) so I could easily move on to the next section.

I hope my brother-in-law likes them.  I'm totally in love!


see the 2013 version of Hans and Chewbacca here.