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Hi Fellow Troopers, Well, after fulfilling my dream of becoming a Stormtrooper, I decided to take on a small side project. My six year old son Archie has been digging my armor and with Halloween a few months away he informed my that he also wanted to be a Stormtrooper. Two seconds after he announced this, my three year old daughter shouted out that she too wanted to be a pink Stormtrooper. She quickly changed her mind saying she'd rather be a pink Darth Vader because "it would be so cute". Yes it would Daisy....yes it would....but that's for another time. So it's time to get back to the workshop, dig out the build supplies, find new products online and order more stuff in brown boxes. I looked at several examples of kid builds and realized that EVA foam would be the best option to use. It's lightweight, flexible, and seems to be easily cut and glued together. I guess I'll see when I get to that point. For now, I'm starting with the helmet. I went to the trusty and highly praised Walt's Trooper Factory (WTF) for a child sized TK helmet. Walt got back to me immediately with the price and I placed the order. He let me know that delivery was about 6 weeks out from the time of the order. So, I was pleasantly surprised when the BBB showed up the next week. Nice huh? Here's what you get in the box. I'm hosting these images on imgur and trying this for the first time...hopefully you can see the pics. It's similar to my RS lid with a front and back piece, (2) sets of ears, a lens, brow and neck trim, rivets, ear bolts/nuts, cast hovi-tips and blue stripe decals. The ABS is sturdy with a thin spot only on the underside of the vocoder which was the same thin spot on my RS lid. Since I now know how these go together, this helmet build should be quick. Here are some shots of the back lid. It has pretty well defined trim lines...unlike the RS lid. Here's the front. Duh...of course it's the front. Why am I explaining this to you guys...you know what a TK lid looks like! The WTF lid is not quite as crisp/clean as my RS lid in the background but that's okay because it's scaled down about 60%-70% of a full size and still looks good. It's really great that WTF makes these kits for kids....brilliant really. That's it for now. I'm into the painting phase of the lid but for tonight I'll stop here as it's getting late and I need some sleep. Hope everyone enjoys this build and I hope that it proves useful for anyone else thinking about tackling a kid size TK costume. Stay tuned for the next update!

Looking good Darren! Good luck! Regards Marc[emoji4] Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Lens supplied with the helmet is a flexible green sheet that attaches to the helmet via the ear bolts. First marked the centre with a piece of masking tape and positioned the lens across the eyes, when happy with the position marked one of the ears bolt on the lens and punched a hole in the lens. Reposition the lens using the hole and marked the second hole on that side. Reposition the lens again and marked out the holes for the other ear bolts. Found that the rivet in the ear that holds the helmet together stopped the lens sitting flat on the helmet so punched a hole in the lens for that as well. With the lens in position marked out the nose area and cut that out from the lens. Near the top of the nose cut out placed some double sided tape to hold the lens to the helmet. The tape was stacked together so it was about 7mm thick. Aluminium “fly screen mesh” cut to size and hot glued in place behind the frown. The sharp eyed would have noticed that before fitting the lens the Aerators where installed. The Aerators supplied with the helmet have a thread bolt moulded into the base which makes it a bit hard to line up so 3d printed some Aerators were hollow and had a flat bottom. Positioned them into the recess till it looked right and marked with a pencil. Drilled the hole and fitted the Aerators supplied.

Marked up the rear traps, 5mm gap at the bottom and 4.5mm at the tops gave me an even spacing for the 12 vertical lines. After marking the lines took the masking tape off before painting but on reflection leaving the tape on would have given me a sharper edge. Using the tear decal made up a template from thin plastic then transferred the lines onto the helmet before painting. Helmet black highlighting done including the rank stripes. Decided not to hand paint the Tube stripes these are the decals purchased from Trooperbay. Trooperbay has an excellent video on applying the decals so won’t bore you with how it was done.

Benham have a retail in Feltham south London and I think Birmingham. There's also PS-Composites in St Albans (call first to check they have what you want). These guys are one of the suppliers for Leavsden Studios and have been used in Star Wars films and also potters and all sorts. They sell some more oddity stuff like Gun foam etc Mbfg which are in Ireland but popular and competitive on pricing and shipping. I suspect the R1 shore helmets use one of the resins they sell but need to order some to test for that brown hue.

Now that's some paint skills

With this build I want to add lights and sounds... so the question is where to store the batteries? I opted to use Swpropmans trigger group and pistol grip. This is a two piece item where the pistol grip is screwed in place like the original. I hollowed out the grip frame to fit a two AAA battery holder. Fits perfectly. I then used a forstner bit to drill out a flat bottom hole for the 3 position rotary switch from Tino's kit. To connect the grip frame to the aluminum tube I used M3 blind rivets. You could use M3/M4 standoffs with counter sunk flat head screws... just difficult to mount. This will allow you to screw the grip frame on from the outside.Having the ability to remove the grip frame is the "just in case" something happens to the electronic/wiring. The bolt slides easily over the rivet heads. A pic inside the tube to see the low profile of the M3 blind rivets

I borrowed a finished E-11 from my garrison member. Weigh comparison below: a ) completed E-11 with scope rail, muzzle and grip screw mod : 1168 g (2.57 lbs) b ) unfinished E-11 raw condition: 974 g (2.14 lbs)

Incredible paint job, man! It's laser precise. I can't wait to see the rest of the build!

photobucket just rasomwared all your photos.

3 coat's later... well chuffed Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Time for the blue stripes... decided on using laser cut stencils which worked a treat Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

My pleasure, Zac. This is the route I would recommend going: 1. Apply for basic TK clearance with your local Garrison to get your official 501st I.D. (TK #). 2. Submit for your HWT with your local Garrison. 3. Submit for your EIB with the FISD. 4. Submit for your EIB HWT with the FISD. 5. Submit for your Centurion with the FISD. 6. Submit for your Centurion HWT with the FISD. I'll make you a deal... If you get approved as a Heavy Weapons Trooper at EIB level, I will send you a free HWT patch!

The areas I reinforced were the ones around the neck on the back plate, and the ones highlighted in the photo below. You will have tons of scrap ABS after trimming out the pieces, which is what I used to accomplish this. I cut the reinforcing strips to shape and about 5/16th wide, then used E-6000 and rare earth magnets to attach them to the inside, (but not visible from the outside). A few tips, though.. Anovos does not come with interior cover strips as most other kits do. There is enough material to make your own, and I highly suggest doing that, especially on the inside front of the calves as these get a lot of wear and tear from constant opening and closing. They don't have to be pretty, just functional, and will add a lot of strength to the joins. Also, before gluing on any cover strips, be SURE to peel off the protective clear film and sand down the surface to be glued. This may seem like a no brainer, but I know of many people who forgot to peel it off and the join failed to adhere correctly. -----------

Decided not to redo the left ear going to leave it as it is ( well maybe just a little bit more trimming ) Moved onto cutting out the right ear and that took about the same time. No photos of the finished ears on the helmet, still not sure if I am done trimming. One of the rewarding things about doing a project like this is discovering the nuances like how different the left and right ears are or the unsymmetrical face plate, you don’t pick that up watching the movie. As a break from the ears fitted the split rivets in the kidney and ab plate. The rivets got a coat of primer and white from a spray can. The Hovi mix tips appear to be resin casted so gave them a quick clean with isopropyl alcohol before paint. Costume reference library states “black or painted black” and after looking at some reference photos decided to leave the very front and inside the original cast colour so masked off the mesh and front with some masking tape. Couple of coats of rustoleum satin black and the tips are done. On to the helmet accent painting. Originally was going to use decals and even purchased a set but decided to paint it by hand. The worst that can happen is I stuff it up in which case can put the decal over the top. Before painting marked up some reference lines with a pencil, this is the Vocoder but did the same with the Traps, ears and frown. Humbrol Black (No. 21) the vocoder, trap borders and ears. Humbrol Grey (No. 5) on the frown and traps, no reference line for the grey on the trap instead just tried to keep the black line about 1.5mm thick. Photo of the frown half done. Second coat of Grey done. Still to do are the Blue tube strips, vertical Black lines on the traps and rank stripe on the ears.

And here we have my hovi mix tips Image resized to 65% of its original size [768 x 1024] Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk Steftroop Stefan polowyj Joined: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 4:55 pm Top Re: Let the build begin stormtrooper RS ANH WIPby Steftroop » Tue, 20 Jun 2017 4:35 pm No not for removing teeth plaque but a handy tool to have especially if u push the wire mesh in too far like I didImage resized to 65% of its original size [768 x 1024]

Steftroop wrote:Well it's been a while hope u haven't missed me that much lol. Ok so am gonna leave the blue tube stripes for now and make a start on the hovi mix tips... I decided to used a 16mm hole punch for the wire mesh. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk Image resized to 65% of its original size [768 x 1024] Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk Steftroop Stefan polowyj Joined: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 4:55 pm Top Re: Let the build begin stormtrooper RS ANH WIPby Steftroop » Tue, 20 Jun 2017 4:17 pm After a few big hits with the hammer..Hey presto!Image resized to 65% of its original size [768 x 1024]

Paintwork today..feel like Leonardo devinci lol. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Oooh, ...Gentex X Liner!! Soooo Cool.<br> what are you using to attached that cool helmet pad?... velcro right?

@ Steve (gazmosis), Kyle (Zarlon), Andrew (Sly11) and Carl (Dougal): thank you for your comments. Very glad to see you guys like this mod . Update #22 - power cylinders finally got completed: Alright, this result is of course not perfect. But I think it is okay for a DoopyDoo's resin version. Please feel free to leave any comments or critics.