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Hallo everone! I am Marc from Germany (Cologne area) and just joined the FISD community today. I heard about the 501st the first time some weeks ago when watching the Heroes of the Empire documentary on Netflix. I was totally overwhelmed in so many different ways. As I am 41 years old, Star Wars is a very strong part of my life since my childhood and was always fascinated by the whole universe around it. As I guess eveyone here, I also wanted to get a Stormtrooper costume as they are... well... Stormtroopers. Do I nead to say more?! But I could very early see, that the typical costumes for fun are more or less funny but that's all. Early research showed me, that getting a proper one is way above my budget line. So I had to put it into the "nice to have but no" corner. Even now, I would really find no really good reason to justify the cost - even not for fun because I just like it. But now I come back to the documentary: It now totally makes sense to me. Being organized in a group of great people, gathering together for events and especially charity... I can get both: Fulfill my dream and do something valuable on top with it. And now I am here, really thinking about get this going and start building my costume. Yeah... the costs... and my wife... I think there are some rocks on the road. But I put the dream for so long into the corner, this time it might be the best to get on it again. Don't know where this journey will take me... So what is my plan? I just started reading and watching through everything here and on linked ressources and I think I will choose the TK stunt costume (maybe from RS). But till I really make my decision, much more time on research and getting impressions will be put into this for sure. As the whole thing feels very big for me right now, I was also wondering if I just start with building an E11 blaster just to get in tough with everything, with building, with sharing my progress here in the community. And if I want to throw everything away and hate it forever, at least I did not burn too much money Do you have any suggestions on getting the parts for a blaster? I do not have a 3D printer and I am not planning for now to buy one. I found this thread below and was wondering, if anyone here knows also someone from Germany who sells the needed parts? I already got in touch with @Morgi and @T-Jay. Thank you for your very first support and getting me in the right directions. Looking forward to get in touch with you all! Marc

Welcome Marc and thank you for the great introduction! It gave me all the right kind of feels! When you build a costume yourself - you usually don't need to spend an unrealistic amount of money, and it sounds like you really want to do it! To start with, we can just take a look where we are... The FISD! One of the best places I know of - such a nerdy, helpful, active, engaging and rewarding place to be! Some people drag the build process out over some years and others do it in just a few weeks. There is only one way and that is your own way, and which ever way you choose, we will be here for you! Getting into the whole progress sharing with the community is such a quick flow to get into as you've already started by making this post! And thank you for that! If you would get to the point of starting to build an armor, everything would be asked and answered in a build thread and the ball would be rolling onwards after that! Regarding what armors to get, in the Swedish Garrison at least, it is pretty much split 50/50 between RS and TM (Troopermaster), and we have at least one SDS armor that I know of but we do not recommend those kits, as will the people buying those kits tell you since they have to do much extra work to get approved. Just to get a taste of what you would eventually be getting into: Imagine that you finally get to kick the legs up onto the couch at home after hours upon hours of waving, high fives, fist bumps, dancing, marching, taking images with people, feeling like a celebrity, people giving compliments on your armor thinking you look sooo cool, hearing sad stories and feeling great at heart after you realize you've made their day, collecting money for charity, meeting new friends that are just as passionate and nerdy as you are, sharing tips and helping troopers, put someone's shoulder bell on and be loved forever, getting compliments on your armor by troopers, and in the end knowing you have stood on a row as 1 of 10 TK's that has made a crowd speechless. This is currently what I'm thinking about as I've just arrived back home from a troop! I'm looking forward to follow your thought process and journey! Welcome to the FISD and initiating the first steps of one day hopefully becoming a TK!

Once more, welcome to the FISD, Marc! Glad to have helped you get started and I'm looking forward to your journey

Welcome to FISD, Marc!

Thank you all for this warm welcome! I joined today and already got more positive and really nice conversations I could ever imagine. This makes everything much more easy! I will keep you all updated after more research. Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

Welcome aboard Marc!

Hello and welcome aboard. A great thread full of info Also check out current E-11 suppliers Good luck with the research

Where did you catch that pic? And that TK must be one with larger gaps...

At the end of the day that's what count's Terry. Whether it be building armor or a weapon you have to have some fun! Yeah, sometimes it can get a little frustrating, but you got some great practice in for when your next E-11 project arrives. It turned out pretty darned nice overall.. I'm not sure what the 3D print lines looked like before you started, but nice job on smoothing those out! One small thing that I noticed was that you have the U-tracks upside down. The open part should face up. The devil is in the details, so what I would suggest in the mean time is to check out some of the threads here and be sure to post up lots of photos during your build. This is especially important when you have a question or issue. Looking forward to seeing your next journey!

Thank you! It was long overdue. Thank you! And thanks for all the support Adam, these are genius! Thank you so much! And, yeah: Next up, a Clone! Phase 2 Animated Comet Don't worry, I'll return to my beloved TKs. There's still the HWT and the Hero to complete the set -- oh, and getting my ESB at least to EIB, if not Centurion Thanks! I, too, am very glad. Thanks! So glad I manage to keep all of you laughing. We all need a bit of joy, laughter and happiness in our lives

That's my belt strapping for reference. Even after a year of troops it still sits this way. Those drop boxes won't stretch elastic much themselves. You can see the discoloration on my canvas belt. That's from superglue. My straps CANNOT go anywhere but the correct place. There's no allowance for any slop. However, they're also not too tight. They're just right. When and if you adjust yours, make sure to account for their position when worn. The leg armor makes the boxes move forward a bit. They don't just hang down straight, they hang down and out a bit when worn with the thigh armor. Of course, there's many ways to skin this cat. This is just mine as done by @Scimitar. When I was building the spare belt for my HWT, I marveled at how nicely Eric built this one and really labored to reproduce it.

YES!!! Congrats Luca!!! and of course... one for tomorrow. . . . . . . . . .

After the clear coat dried all we need to do was re-assemble the helmet fully, the easiest part of this build besides disassembly! And it's finally done! Not perfect, I missed some spots, but I'm happy with it and will call this project finished! I hope this thread has been and continues to be a helpful guide to new and incoming troopers! Best of luck to all of you! likely that I won't get around to making the armor for this guy, but it fits great into my helmet collection.