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For this tutorial I assume you already have your base mod class set up.

All existing vanilla textures can be found under YOURFORGEFOLDER\mcp\temp\bin\minecraft\armor and \textures

Ok, so we're going to learn how to create custom armor. To start, make sure you have these texture directories set up: one under
YOURFORGEFOLDER\mcp\src\minecraft\mods\YOURMOD\textures\items
and the other also under textures but named "armor" (without the quotes). The inventory icons will go into the items folder while the on-character images go into armor.
Now onto the coding. Let's start with your base mod class. First you need to create a material for these items. You create an armor material like this:

public static EnumArmorMaterial tutArmor = EnumHelper.addArmorMaterial("TutArmor", 15, new int [] {2, 5, 4, 3}, 10);

Let's break this down. "TUTArmor" is self-explanatory, it's the armor name, but I'm not even sure where it's used or why it's needed. 15 is the endurance of the armor, I'm not sure how it's counted, but you can reference the other materials in the EnumArmorMaterial class. For convenience I have included them here:

 CLOTH(5, new int[]{1, 3, 2, 1}, 15),//this is leather
CHAIN(15, new int[]{2, 5, 4, 1}, 12),
IRON(15, new int[]{2, 6, 5, 2}, 9),
GOLD(7, new int[]{2, 5, 3, 1}, 25),
DIAMOND(33, new int[]{3, 8, 6, 3}, 10);

This also brings us to the integer array and the number 10. The array says how many shields are filled by each piece of armor (they are counted in half shields). The 10 is the enchantability, which is also quite self-explanatory, just reference the other materials. Now underneath that declare and initialize the armor items like this:

 public static Item tutHelm = new TutorialArmor(5000, tutArmor, 0, 0).setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabCombat)
.setUnlocalizedName("tutHelm");
public static Item tutPlate = new TutorialArmor(5002, tutArmor, 0, 1).setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabCombat)
.setUnlocalizedName("tutPlate");
public static Item tutLegs = new TutorialArmor(5003, tutArmor, 0, 2).setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabCombat)
.setUnlocalizedName("tutLegs");
public static Item tutBoots = new TutorialArmor(5004, tutArmor, 0, 3).setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabCombat)
.setUnlocalizedName("tutBoots");

If you have created an item already this shouldn't be too new. By the way, you will get an error because we haven't created the armor class yet, but we'll get to that. The first number in each initialization is the id, I'm assuming you already know how that works if you're this far into making a mod. The second parameter is the armor material, in here you put your armor material name. The second number is for the render prefix for the player. Some tutorials I followed had you add stuff to the proxy classes, but that didn't work for me nor do I think it was necessary, so I found an easier and better method to make the player render correctly. So, until I either figure why you might need to mess with the proxies for this or one of you do, leave this at 0. The third number is says what type of armor piece it is, 0 is the helmet, 1 the plate, etc. They are all shown in the code. The creative tab for these kind of items is the combat tab, but you can omit this part if you don't want/don't need people to access it easily in creative mode. For your own creative tab for your own mod I will make a tutorial later Setting the unlocalized name is probably for the textures, but since we override that later anyways I don't think it's too important, but you should probably leave it to be safe.
Now, you should know how to add the in-game names and crafting recipes, but if you don't I'll post them here. These go in the load method (I used sticks for the crafting because it was not necessary to create a new item for these demonstration purposes, just replace sticks with your item):

 LanguageRegistry.addName(tutHelm, "Tutorial Helmet");
LanguageRegistry.addName(tutPlate, "Tutorial Chest Plate");
LanguageRegistry.addName(tutLegs, "Tutorial Leggings");
LanguageRegistry.addName(tutBoots, "Tutorial Boots");
GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ItemStack(tutHelm), "xxx", "x x",
Character.valueOf('x'), Item.stick);
GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ItemStack(tutPlate), "x x", "xxx", "xxx",
Character.valueOf('x'), Item.stick);
GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ItemStack(tutLegs), "xxx", "x x", "x x",
Character.valueOf('x'), Item.stick);
GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ItemStack(tutBoots), "x x", "x x",
Character.valueOf('x'), Item.stick);

Let's get onto the armor class. It has to extend ItemArmor and once you have finished inheriting the constructor add this method for the inventory icons:

 public void registerIcons(IconRegister iRegister)
{
if(this.armorType == 0)
itemIcon = iRegister.registerIcon("SJTut:TutHelm");
else if(this.armorType == 1)
itemIcon = iRegister.registerIcon("SJTut:TutPlate");
else if(this.armorType == 2)
itemIcon = iRegister.registerIcon("SJTut:TutLegs");
else if(this.armorType == 3)
itemIcon = iRegister.registerIcon("SJTut:TutBoots");
}

This is a lot simpler than it may look. The if statement checks what type of armor piece it is, to display the correct icon. The four strings you see state the location of the textures. The part before the colon is the folder under "mods" that I told you to create in the beginning. The part after the colon is the file name of the icon (without the .png). Now onto the perhaps more confusing looking player model textures for the armor. You have to have the method getArmorTexture override the method of the same name in Item. The finished method would look like this (with your mod items and images in place of mine):

 @Override
public String getArmorTexture(ItemStack armor, Entity entity, int slot, int layer)
{
if(slot == 0 || slot == 1 || slot == 3)
return "/mods/SJTut/textures/armor/TutArmor_1.png";
else if(slot == 2)
return "/mods/SJTut/textures/armor/TutArmor_2.png";
else
return null;
}

Once again, you have an if statement to check the armor pieces. Note that the helmet, chest plate and boots are in first file, while the leggings are in the second one. Reference the existing armor images to create your own. Do not forget the first forward slash otherwise you'll have made the same mistake I made at first and be really confused as to why you were getting an error

Now you should be set! I hope this tutorial helped you further your mod and better understand the code you are developing

This is a lot easier than you might think. All you have to do is add this code to your mod class, replacing "Tut" to whatever you want:

 public static CreativeTabs tabTut = new CreativeTabs("tabTut")
{
public ItemStack getIconItemStack()
{
return new ItemStack(Item.stick, 1, 0);
}
};

The stick, but once again you can change that to whatever you want, is used to display the tab (like the combat tab has a sword). Now when you use

.setCreativeTab()

you can just plug in your tab name like this:

.setCreativeTab(tabTut);

However, when you try this code you'll get a weird name when hovering over the tab. To correct this add this code to where all your other name registrations are:

LanguageRegistry.instance().addStringLocalization("itemGroup.tabTut", "en_US", "Tutorial Mod");

After "itemGroup." comes whatever you put as the string for the name in the initializer of the tab. Then the last string is what you want to be displayed as the name.
That should be it Hope it helps!