pandatrooper

Looking good so far! There's an article on the Academy site that shows how the back can be attached to the kidney section. http://www.whitearmor.net/home/tutorials/armor-tutorials/ab-and-back.html

Those look fantastic! Do you know how the paint will hold up? I assume even if it cracks and chips in some areas, it will still be authentic to the film look! I've never heard of Loakes, were they one of the original suppliers?

Glad you find this helpful. The AM kit is great for trooping, I love it! You can taper the thighs no problem. I made a thigh assembly tutorial here. http://whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=11563 he key is to make sure you size it properly. With the front of the thigh assembled, wrap the thigh armor around your thigh, and snug up the back at the to and bottom, and make a mark where they overlap. You might find that you need to "squeeze" the bottom of the thigh area more than the top, if you want to taper it more.

Good luck with your build!

The eggsperts do it again! Thanks Bill, very useful guide.

To be honest, it's not that hard. You can assemble a kit like AM in a weekend if you're using ABS adhesive, clamps and velcro to hook it all together. The AM kit even comes with printed step by step instructions! There's also many great build threads of a variety of armor types on this forum. Truth be told: Yes - there are many many many small steps that need to be taken when building armor. But really, the process is: - measure - size it up to your body - measure again to be sure! - trim - sand - glue - clamp - repeat! - string it all together with elastic of some kind. If you really can't assemble it, consider commissioning someone to build it for you. If you're a fairly standard size / weight, and can supply your measurements, kits can be built for you but at a price of course. Building armor properly takes time and practice, and the price of assembly should reflect that.

The current AM helmet is as you described. It's the FX helmet with a new dome. The original FX dome had a very "flat top" and a sharper transition from the sides to the top. The newer one is "rounder". Personally, I wouldn't get that helmet as the face plate is still quite big and there's so many other helmet choices. Armor wise, I love my AM kit. I would say if you want more accuracy in terms of shape, go ATA. It a styrene kit and needs to either be painted or polished since it's a matte finish HIPS styrene plastic. If you want an affordable and shiny idealized TK made of ABS, go AM with a different helmet (people have been using AP, ATA, TE2, MRCE or other helmets to go with them).

Couldn't agree more. He's pretty much "ideal" TK size. I also say go with one of the kits suggested above. I have an ATA, and I love it!

Happy belated birthday Terrell!

To mount the hand plates, you could mount them a few different ways. Here's some (but not all) 1. Velcro them on to your gloves. Sew or glue the velcro to your gloves, stick the opposite velcro on the underside of the handplate = done 2. glue 2 elastic straps to your handplates. One loop around your wrist, one loop around all 4 fingers. The way you have it right now looks painful. 3. The authentic way was to use black rubber dishwashing gloves, and glue on latex hand plates. I came up with another way here. Kind of a variation on number 2 above. http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=8685 In regards to your blaster, just remove the front one if you want to go ANH style.

Looks fantastic! I love the frayed elastic

Make reservations at the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant at the Paris hotel on the strip. Make it a later dinner (so it's dark outside). Ask to reserve a table outside on the patio with a view of the Bellagio fountain. Your fiance will love it! The lights, the music, the fountain. Very romantic. PS: don't bust out the TK helmet on the street, you'll get swamped by tourists asking for photos.

I used 18.5" per the instructions here from Blaster Builders club. They have the templates too for drilling the holes, etc. http://www.imperial-fleet.com/BBC/community Hope that helps!

I used 400 grit to take the lettering off, and a Scothc brite pad to scuff the plastic for better paint adhesion. Some people like to cover the screw holes used to assemble the blaster (they are mostly on the right side of the blaster). Use car bondo to fill the holes.

TKdueno is correct. I believe Paul / Troopermaster painstakingly measured the parts in photoshop based on stills from the films. These measurements are pretty much the accepted sizes.

Good progress so far! For the forearms, my "top half" and "bottom half" line up at the wrist, but not at the elbow as you can see here. I simply used the cover strip to hid the unevenness / transition between the 2 parts If you look at some of the film images, the tops didn't always line up depending on who assembled them / how careful they were. They simply extended the cover strip beyond the upper edges a bit to hide the transitions. Also, please make sure that your thighs aren't fitting too big. I found a lot of troopers had made their older FX style kits with oversized thighs. Here's a tutorial I wrote a while back for thigh assembly. http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=11563 Also, I know the AM kit is designed the way it is, but I never liked the way the ribbed shoulder straps sit. They always look a bit too high / far back for me. I cut off most of the shoulder on the chest plate and mounted the ribbed straps much lower to make it look at least a little closer to the film images. Just some feedback on the cover strips you're using. They look a little jagged. Are they just placeholder? You should use a metal ruler and an exacto blade to "score and snap" to make the cover strips have straight lines. Just looks a lot cleaner that way. It also helps if you round the corners of the cover strips slightly. If you can, make the cover strips 15mm for the arms and 20 for the legs, and 25 for the shin backs.

You might want to search for "Maker of things" feedback in this forum (Ebay armor). It's been discussed many times at length. http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=9409&st=0&p=119083&hl=maker%20of%20things&fromsearch=1entry119083 In a nutshell, stay away from that stuff.

Hi Alexandra. Yes, you cut the orange tip off. The mod kit comes with a new muzzle. For the holes, you can use car bondo (not spot putty). Just make sure to sand the holes / area before covering them so that the bondo sticks. You can buy T-rack from a few sellers here, but I just make it myself. I cut some narrow strips of 2mm styrene and glue them into a T shape using Plastic Weld adhesive. A few ingenious people have also used screen sliding door tracks, and outdoor rakes. Those are good options too. BTW: here's my Hasbro mod thread if you want to see how I modded mine. ---------

I've been "slashed" a few times by kids with lightsabers. I actually don't care about scuffs on the armor, but kids need to understand that we are volunteers and it's very disrespectful to "bash away" at bad guy Stormtroopers! Handlers will give them warnings if they're too aggressive, and explain that it's dangerous - and communicate back to the kids parents that it's not a good thing to do. Our handlers and spotters also do a great job of helping to hand out PR flyers, because doing it with gloves on while holding blasters is sometimes difficult.

I think it will work fine for you, you won't need to trim as much as me. Even though it's a fan sculpt and does not have any "screen lineage", i think it's a great kit for trooping since it's very durable, very shiny and an "idealized" TK look. I have an ATA kit that I'm building up for a more screen accurate TD look. Plus you can assemble the AM kit as easy or as complex as you want. I think this build was more complex, but I could have also easily just trimmed it to size and trooped in it. You don't have to do all the fancy return edges or butt join / cover strips if you don't want to. It was designed with overlap assembly in mind, this build sort of took it a few steps further. IMO, kits like AP and the thigh and shin alignment issues are harder to fix (correctly) than assembling an AM kit.

My friend in the garrison is assembling a TX for his wife . I don't really follow the EU stuff much, but they have asked me for some help so am happy to oblige. Are the construction methods / details pretty much the same as a TK stunt, other than "pretty much use black for everything"? I've taken a look at the CRL and nothing jumps out at me as being overly different. Thanks T.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. You can read up on it in my build thread. The AM kit shins were made with the molded edges on the wrong side. The "ridges" should have been molded on the outer shin, but they were instead molded on the inner shin. I'm not sure why they approached it that way. Regardless, on my build - my shins were slim enough to not need the ridge at all. I cut it off so that that both sides of the shin backs have no ridges. I trimmed them to size, and glued half the cover strip on the outer shin piece. Added some velcro, and that was it. If you can't do this, don't assemble the shin armor "inside out" just to get the ridges on the outside. It's important that you retain the shape and have the proper orientation for the pieces. Keep the ridge on the inside, and glue the cover strip on the outer shin. No one will know.

No problem. There's several good threads on painting techniques. one thing that's been brought up is making sure that you're painting in good weather conditions when using Rustoleum. Temperature and humidity play a big part in how the final finish looks.

You should sand it if you want paint to stick. Some troopers that build TD’s don’t sand and only paint one coat, so that it chips and looks weathered. I would: - Sand the surface (you don’t even need sandpaper, a proper grit Scotchbrite pad will work) - Wash with detergent / rinse / dry - Primer - Top coat white (several light coats) - Wet sand / polish if you want it glossy.

My closure in the back of the shins is pretty common. The back is a butt seam (not joined) with the cover strip glued to the outer shin. It just closes over my shin and is secured with velcro. Some people leave them without velcro to just clamshell shut. Others use elastic and hooks, etc. Here's a couple useful threads for you: The Academy page tutorials for leg assembly http://www.whitearmor.net/home/tutorials/armor-tutorials/thighsshins.html Thread on shin closures http://whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=9909