pandatrooper

I don't think it's required. It's the back of a male snap. You can use a Tandy line 24 snap. You can see it when Han is in the TK disguise in the control room "Everything is under control, situation normal" scene.

There's a series of threads about this helmet / armor on FISD and in the Ebay forum with reviews, etc.

Will do. I might give it a shot this weekend (weather permitting).

Post a picture of it, that would make things easier to see and provide feedback.

ATA is a matte finish. So you can sand / polish it if you want to make it shiny, or sand it and paint it if you want it glossy.

Yes. I did mine with inner and outer shims and it's nice and strong.

Looks good to me. Make sure you leave enough room at the back for the cover strip / velcro, and always test fit the shins with boots on.

There's fairly detailed pictures of the bicep being assembled in the thread posted above, along with a few forearm pics. All limbs in my build are essentially constructed the same way (butt join with covers strips and inner shims).

I'm about to attempt this. I have an AP lid and Am kit and i will be trying to paint the lid. AM Abs is a "warm white" but Ap is a cool white. I'm going to try some various shades of white.

Glad you received the EA Sports Active, Tiffanie. Let us know how you like it. I will guarantee you will sweat a lot more than Wii Fit and burn more calories. Keep us posted!

Read through the build threads, just to make sure you have all the info. Contact some people in your area / sign up on local garrison forums and see if someone can help you build it. If not, check for people selling their built / completed armor. I just sold my first build for $500 and it was built at "Expert Infantry badge" level of detail, so deals do pop up from time to time. It's a long term hobby that requires commitment, so understand what you're getting it for and think about what you intend to do with it.

Pat, yes - the maker of FX updated everything and has discontinued the FX kit. The AM is all new sculpts / forming bucks. Thanks Mike, glad you like it. Yes, I too had thought it would be "easy". I think it's easy if you;re a bigger trooper and don't need to do many mods, but to make it fit someone slimmer, or even slightly smaller (I'm 5 foot 8 inches) it was a good amount of work to get it to look the way I wanted.

Eric is correct, 20mm wide. Here's a detailed build thread for thighs I recently made, that might help you. -----

I got my black rubber gloves from a local hardware store. They also has these super thin cotton liners for them, so I got some. They do a great job of absorbing sweat, etc. Just wash them after wearing them. -----

Looking good! I agree with Paul, the bottoms of the thighs could be slimmed down in size. I would open up the back seam of the thighs, close it a hair tighter up top, and close it a lot more at the bottom. Just leave enough room so that you can get a few fingers under the lower edge of each side of the thigh when you're wearing them.

Personally, I cut the cod on my last 3 kits and have it attached with snap plates / elastic. Makes bio breaks much easier and mobility is easier for me (I have a short torso, so I cut the cod and remove an inch of plastic below the cut line). Just personal preference really. I don't find that it affects the look much myself unless you're bending all the time.

Here's how you can bend it if you want even bends across the battery packs http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=8757 http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=10434&st=20&p=137831entry137831 Make sure to use 1/8 inch wide, 1/4 inch long rivets (1/8 inch might be too short, depending on your armor thickness), and a washer inside the back of the rivet to prevent it from pulling out.

One thing that I do before I put that back cover strip on the calf, is make sure that the closure is correct first – before applying the Velcro. The problem is that your outer calf is not laying flat on the inner calf at the back. I fold the outer calf under the inner calf (so that the Velcro “doesn’t work”) and carefully heat up the back of the side and back of the outside calf with a heat gun. By bending and holding the outer calf beyond the shape that you want, after you have heated and cooled it – it will “be” the shape you want, since it always bounces back slightly. Does that make sense?

Mine are glued with E6000. I put the thighs on via garters, then boots, then the shins.

I did this image up. Thought it might be helpful for those that are building screen lineage armor and identifying which parts go where. It took a little digging to find out, but I found some info from old threads and from gathering reference from screenshots (you can clearly see the notch on the right bicep in many scenes, along with the more straight forearm being on the right arm, and the curvy one on the left).

Agreed. You'd fit into it without having to modify much at all.

Very cool idea Mark!

Yes, I did some cutting and reshaping of the shoulder bells along with a return edge. There are also some comparison pics to screen lineage shoulder bells for size reference. They are all on page 2 of the build.

I don't think a heat gun will do the trick, but a heat sealing iron (to press it flat), followed up by some sanding, then polishing would probably do the trick. I know the AM thumbprint is a bit over the top, but it doesn't bother me much. Hardly anyone notices it.

Thanks guys! I hope this inspires people on the forum to be creative with how they approach armor building. The goal was to take fan sculpted armor (with no real screen lineage) and make it look closer to the screen characters. It will never be screen accurate, but it can look like it - on a budget too!