HockeyTrooper

Congrats! Now you can get out and troop! Though you might have to drive a bit since most of our events seem to be up here in KC or down in Springfield or STL. Look forward to meeting you!

Looking good, Nathan. Looking forward to getting a chance to meet you and take a look at your armor work. I'll have my stuff as well if there is anything you want to look at.

Looks like that was a lot of fun! Love Gordon's E-3PO/TC-14 (looking forward to him going gold though!)

Looks like it was a great event!

As they have said before me, ATA is a good kit for a nice price and will work very nicely for you. To give you an idea price-wise (without telling you ATA's armor pricing or any of the other supplier's prices) I spent about $1100 total on my costume. This included my gun, the mods to it, my boots, my canvas belt, my holster, my thermal detonator, neck seal, paint/decals, snaps/straps, mic/amp. I splurged on a few of my items that I could have gotten elsewhere. I believe it would be within reason to build a kit completely for under $1000 if you wanted to.

It sounds like you are looking for a place to store things while trooping. Some people make their thermal detonator canister so that it opens on one end and can be used to store keys and things. I'd imagine you could have a pouch you could put on your belt for keeping things, but not necessarily at canon events. It might be something you'd want to make sure is removable I like the idea of this as somewhere you could put FISD cards or 501st cards to hand out to kids. Or if you go sandtrooper, they get pouches anyways I believe. For a standard TK though you would want to make sure it is removable, not used at canon events and not present in your submission photos. Those are my thoughts on it.

Like Locitus said. You can either use velcro, snaps or snap buckles (http://www.strapworks.com/Plastic_Harware_s/18.htm?gclid=CMHyj8a8_rICFcxcMgodpiQAKg). Snap buckles will hold the best for you, but I think most people use snap/snap plate combos.

They bit me too, literally right when I took them out of the box. First thing I got from them was a good sized blood blister.

I think my wait on ATA was about 11 weeks, which isn't too bad at all. Look at the other end of the spectrum...I will probably get my 3PO "armor" pieces about a year after I was placed on the list, lol. But I know the supplier will deliver, he has a great reputation pretty much everywhere in the Star Wars costuming world.

Yep, they even have a toy line put together already.

Pictures and what type of helmet would help us to be able to direct you to the best source, but as Steve said, Panda's thread is great.

Yeah, I definitely did it the hard way. I dig the nylon snaps using the soddering iron. Eventually I'm going to go back and redo my strap system for my entire torso...maybe after 3PO...and med school

Here is a great How To for 3 different methods: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/20999-howto-make-snap-plates-3-different-ways/ Based on looking at those, I'm pretty sure when I made my snaps plates I used the wrong end of the snap on the plate. Putting the male snap in the plate seems to work much better than having the female snap in the plate (which is the mistake I made).

Hey Tony, My kit currently uses a bit of both. I actually made plastic snap plates, then glued nylon over the back of that, then glued the whole thing to the armor where I needed it. It's a bit messy and doesn't look as good as it could. The reason I had to do this was because the "rounded" end of the snap plate would sit or glue very easily on my armor, so I added the nylon to get better surface contact. One probably I had with strictly Nylon as a plate is getting the snap to come together nicely through the nylon. It is pretty thick stuff and you have to cut the hole, then give it a really good pounding to make it work. What I would recommend though is following one of the recent threads I have seen in the How To. Whoever did it made their plastic snap plates then used a heat gun to carefully press the snaps "back side" so it was flush or close to flush with the plate. If I can locate the thread I'll link it to you. -Bennett

Sounds like you got yourself off to a good start! I am a fan of the dremel as well, but I used it for almost all of my cutting, not just sanding. I could never quite get the score and snap to work for me.

Dude, I love what you're doing with these E-11s. Makes me want to upgrade to a full doopy-doo kit instead of just the hasbro conversion that I currently have! And if you ever do happen to make some extra rail scopes, let me know, I'd buy one and hoard it til I upgrade to the full doopy's kit.

As Locitus said, you're height will make you good for most armors. I'm also about 5'7" and I wear an ATA comfortably. There is also this thread http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18243 which is useful for women and troopers of smaller stature.

I'm going to work on encouraging garrison mates to at least go for EIB. Many of them are close (if they'd change their damn tubestripe color, apparently they were approved in a time where black was ok?). I'm part of the garrison that Tony (Colombiamo) is working on joining, so hopefully his bid at Centurion will also encourage some of the old dogs to get their rears in gear.

This is very true.

Definitely! Having a Centurion in the area may motivate some of our troops to get up and do some upgrading! That's very exciting. I'd jump on board with you, but my Hasbro E-11 conversion doesn't qualify and w/ 3PO project on the table I'd be hard pressed to get my girlfriend to let me spend an extra hundred bucks making a new gun heh.

Looks great Tony! Glad to see you picked a pair of these up. I'm hoping you and a couple of the other guys working on TKs in our area are planning on going EIB ;-) Our garrison currently only has 3!

That looks pretty good to me. You could use a very slightly longer attachment if you don't want the strap to show on your shoulder. As for connecting bicep to shoulder I think most people use a snap and strap. I personally have elastic on mine. If I can find the picture of the thread I based mine off of I will post it later.My shoulder is attached to the bicep and the bicep is additionally attached to the forearm via snaps and elastic straps.

Great work! Good luck w/ EIB!

That can't be comfortable! I don't know how you put the thighs and shins on wrong! and the biceps...well, that's just funny. I'm kind of surprised this guy was able to get his helmet on without hurting himself.

A good way to keep that chest overlapping w/ your ab is to use a strap or snap of some sort. I personally have a couple of snaps and 1 of those clips like you see on a bicycle helmet.Keep up the good work trooper!