Darth Hilarious

There is. Go ESB and you get to wear silk. Flight gloves aren't 'fairly' accurate. The best compromise between accuracy and comfort is liners in your rubber gloves (or the Bespin Solution).

Danny, congratulations on NOT buying a Treckfreek kit. You've done well.

Personally, I'd try sanding/cutting more out from the inside, to make the curve smoother. There's a fair bit of flashing still there, so you shouldn't have to stress about cutting too much.

If you want to get 501st approval, go canvas. The CRL says: "Belt proper is made of canvas, canvas covered material, leather, or vinyl, 3†to 3.5†wide. The color is be white to off-white." While there are a lot of plastic belts still getting around, I don't think they pass muster anymore. Gah! Mark beat me to it... :ninja:

Is it two lefts, or is the right one on the wrong way? Also, where's his belly-buttons?? And what is that weird black stripe/shadow near the top right corner of the ab plate? Was it a strap, a crack, or what?

AM would take a bit of modding to fit you really nicely- it's totally doable (I'm the same height, and about 10kg lighter, and I made an FX fit me), but ATA (or others) would fit much better out of the box.

I said all the cool kids are using them!

--------- Now, don't get daunted! As a few people have said, you are in the best area of the world to get assistance. If you get a kit, invite your local troops for an 'armour party', and from what I know of your Garrison, you'll be wearing it in no time. There are LOTS of tutorials here at the FISD on strapping (and again, your local Troops can help). AM and ATA both offer ABS plastic kits, which don't need painting (sure, you might have to paint the chin black, or the belly buttons blue and grey, but the plastic is white). AM is quite durable (as is ATA's ABS, as far as I know) and will stand up to heavy trooping (even abuse). Put together nicely, you'll get years and years out of it. Locitus is right, ATA is more accurate (and in the same price range). What body type are you? If you're a BIG guy, AM would be a better choice. If you're smaller (or even normal-sized), ATA would be my recommendation, too.

For a really good metallic-looking paintjob, check out---------- Sweet hammered metal finish.

I used an exacto knife and some sandpaper to do mine. Just score into the line you're cutting a few times, get it nice and deep, and then give it a little bend- the plastic should snap off beautifully. I think all the cool kids are using dremels these days...

The middle guy (you know, the much better looking one)- he's an FX, not a Rubies. And you can get AM (the newer better version of FX) for cheaper than Rubies. Which people have already said. Also, skip to 0:40 in that YouTube clip. The guy has his chest plate tucked under his ab plate. As Locitus said, it all depends where you draw the line for 'looks alright'. Honestly, does it really look alright when they're not even wearing it properly? You could always get yourself one of these and a helmet. That would rock at costume parties, and you'd be the most comfortable trooper ever.

I'd think you might be assuming correctly when you say it's a no-go for the same reasons as FX. But it isn't on the CRL's "not allowed" list... Good question there.

TrooperBay's handguards should pass muster for Centurion (pretty much every TK component TrooperBay sells is EIB/Cent-ready if I'm not mistaken). For advice on attaching them, I'd recommend talking to Karin (Sonnenschein). She is the Queen of Handguards, after all.

The other big benefit of building your own armour is that during the build process, you learn just about everything you need to know to properly maintain and modify your kit.

+1! I didn't consider Paul's thoughts regarding ANH helmets a derailment at all, but a valuable addition to the thread. It was an important insight into the differences/similarities between Ep IV and V lids. Honestly, I'd think the discerning factors of each type of lid should be an important consideration for the Centurion program.

Now now, if you want to get picky, an HWT is a Sandie without dirt. These guys are Sandies without dirt and without backpacks.... He could always loose the ammo pouches and be TK WITH A PAULDRON! (he's popular)

Definitely. I wouldn't say that everyone should do it to their ANH lids, but it's certainly an option. I think I overstated my point. That said, just about every ANH TK I know personally has very sleepy eyes...

Actually, the HWT canister isn't an RotJ, it just has four raised bumps on it, and (as Vern pointed out) is only half-round. Like so: They're all over the place for details. Helmet is ANH, handguards are ESB/RotJ, boots (sorry they're cut off in the pic) are RotJ, ab buttons are... hurting my brain.

Agreed totally. I tried looking for any reference from John Mollo about trimming the eyes, and I can't find any. I'm sure you've probably already been down that road anyways. I realise you mean the trooper on our right. What features are you discerning from? I've tried comparing the ears, but can't find good angles to compare from. And yes, I looked at that picture of outside AA's workshop earlier today. There are far more wide-eyed faces than sleepy ones. @ Rich: Your summary is precisely what we've just said in a nutshell. So... Looks like a lot of ANH TKs out there need to trim their eyes a bit. What does this mean for ESB troops though? @ Paul: So aside from opening my eyes on ANH helmets (pun totally intended), did you have any personal thoughts on whether this should be an EI thang? Seems like everyone should be doing it, not just ESBs...

Those Snowy-looking dudes are approved. Check out the Clones Detachment.

I should have made my suggestion a little clearer- if you make the ab from ABS, you could make it larger and flatter than it needs to be, and mold it to fit the wearer. ABS bends very easily with heat. I'm only 130lbs, and I made an FX kit fit me like a glove (I actually have slightly girly hips, and it annoys me that my waist is noticible in my armour- I have oce been mistaken for a girl in a TK). The same plate could easily be made to fit anywhere from a 40" hip size downward. So long as the lady it's being fitted to has a waist smaller than her hips (most girls are shaped that way), it should be easy to achieve the effect. Hell, whoever does this could make 2 or 3 versions, slightly different sizes. One for hips 36" and smaller, one for larger. As for the actual body type needed for a Jes Gistang, it isn't exactly Slave Leia. So long as her hips are bigger than her waist. Doesn't even need to be a classic 'hourglass' figure. Not to be too rude here, but any girl who isn't pear-shaped should be able to do it. After all, we don't pick on our male troopers about body shape... There is another thing to note about Jes' armour- it's not as waisted as it appears... 1) Look at the size of the return edge on her chestplate, it's MASSIVE! Also note the chest and back meet flush under the arms (unlike a regular TK). All this makes her upper body look much bulkier than it really is, making her waist look WAY slimmer. 2) Check out the lines on her ab plate- they all slope diagonally inwards from the bottom of her chestplate, then straight down at the waist. These SLIMMING LINES make it look WAY more waisted than it really is. 3) Now for the fun bit! Let's see just how skinny this lady is (with pictures): --------- A foot wide- my waist is 32", and my ab plate is less than a foot wide. BUT: The thing to keep in mind is that that the cartoons and statue are stylised, and not made to exact human proportions (protip: although the statue has a realistic waist size, her butt is 18" across- that's some severe booty!) If you're worried about real women being able to look just like the statue, you're already going to be looking at a very small percentage. Using the same scaling, her helmet is the size it should be- about 9" from ear to ear, but she seems to be well over 7 feet tall. In short, the statue is unrealistic- she's not too skinny, she's far too tall. Here's a quick test: Put your helmet next to your greaves. Now look at the statue and think about how long her legs must be... We need to adapt the designs we see onto realistic proprotions. The other problem I see with latex is that it's flexible. TK armour doesn't bend with the wearer (unless you're playing Battlefront).

While I'd agree that the extra cutout around the eyes definitely appears in ANH, it obviously wasn't on every helmet in ANH. The BrianR and the DaveM helmets (which seem to be the most popular references for ANH styling) both have 'sleepy' eyes. As Dashrazor pointed out, there isn't a single reference anywhere of an ESB TK with 'sleepy' eyes. They all have the extra cutout. Whether this was done specifically in preperation for ESB or whether all the helmets used in ESB were already cut like this isn't what I'm concerned with here. I would actually agree that more ANH troops could have less sleepy eyes, but that's an entirely seperate matter (and it would be an option for them anyway, as there were eyes of both types in ANH). My point was that we shouldn't really be seeing any sleepy-eyed ESB TKs. No more, no less. Regarding the trooper outside the Millenium Falcon later becoming the 'badge' helmet, I'd tend to disagree upon closer inspection. Here's the badge helmet: Note the brow trim- it is quite close to the eyes at both outside edges, but curves up a little from above the right eye to the middle, like he's slightly raising an eyebrow. The eye trim sits about 1/8" above the corner of the right eye, and sits almost flush with the corner of the left eye. Here he is on-screen: You can really see how much it curves up from the corner to the middle in that shot. Now, your trooper: Doesn't have anywhere near that much curve on his brow trim. It sits higher above the corner of the right eye (if you actually count the pixels and do the scaling, it's 1/4"), and the brow trim is nowhere near the corner of this guy's left eye. If that was the same lid, the brow trim must have been almost falling off in ESB (and all those years since since). I'm curious- what is it that leads you to believe that this is the same helmet?

Just looking through the EIB/Centurion requirements- no mention of the ESB eye cut anywhere? I would have thought that it was an important distinguishing feature. Has this been suggested as an EI requirement in the past and rejected, or just overlooked?

Personally, I'd think latex is a bad idea. You wouldn't use latex on a TK for anything but the handguards, and Legacy armour should be no different. Besides, isn't the whole idea of making Jes Gistang armour so we can have a Femtrooper that can be taken seriously? Latex pieces sound like they should be part of the non-canon, booby-trooper armour. My $0.02. As an alternative- why not just make it from ABS like the rest of the kit and mod each one for a tailored fit (it's pretty much what you do if your TK doesn't fit perfectly out of the box).

Polishing can help a bit- get some of the white T-cut (not the standard clear stuff). Once you've gone over the whole kit about 100 times, you'll notice it's all starting to look the same colour. Made my helmet look more like the rest of my kit. It's still not perfect, but it gets it a few shades closer. As sais above, the real stuff was all mismatched anyways.