James

Yeah the parade was during the day, but the amateurs we're out in force for the festival. Most of the crowd was great, lots of parents and kids. That made me even more disgusted and/or angry at the behavior of the troop tramp and the drunken pumpkin tosser.

Here's a non-TK horror story that turns the tables ... Boo in the Zoo last year. A girl about 9 or 10 years old wasn't exactly in the spirit of the day and just kept repeating, "You're not real! You're not real! You're not real!" I tried a couple of gestures like arms akimbo or drying my eyes like I was crying but she kept at it. Sooooo I stuck my finger up my nose, rooted around for a minute and then "wiped" it on her arm. As I snitched away I heard her mortified squeal- "THAT! IS! DISGUSTING!!" Moral of the story, if you grow up too fast you get snitch boogers on you. Thus endeth the lesson.

We also had one kid at a hockey game that was out of control. Maybe 8 or 10 yrs old. Wailing on troopers with a light saber and trying to grab their guns. Mom and Dad were pathetic. "No, don't, stop .. stop son .. now stop that .. son .. stop that." Finally one TK in our group took off her bucket and went from costumed character to wrath of mother nature + grandma rules + mom at breaking point + fed up teacher in about .00002 seconds. I think the parents were more scared and ashamed than the kid.

No particular order - Last "general request" b-day party I ever did we walked into the living room and about 20 kids hopped up on cake and candy started to wail on me and another TK with lightsabers. Luckily Chewie was with us an let out a roar that stopped it before the parents decided to react. Never forget, never again. - Halloween parade in a place called Little 5 Points here in Atlanta. A pretty raucous place. Two stories from that one. 1st there was some woman from the crowd who was completely blitzed out of her mind sloppy, drunk and disgusting. She kept getting in front of the troopers and trying to *gag* grind on them. It was a sickening display. I was able to sidestep her so I didn't need to burn my armor later. Second incident, after the parade I was walking back to my car, stupidly alone. Heard some drunken frat boys bloviating abut something like, "Hey man arrreeee youuu duh Death Star, something, something ..." I just kept walking then saw a pumpkin fly about 3 feet from my head, arch over the parking lot and hit a parked BMW putting a sizeable dent in it. I spun around towards them just in time to see an Atlanta cop give that dipshucks a full body flying tackle for his trouble. Lesson learned, if you're ever in costume around drunks be sure and buddy up and if possible have a non-costumed handler at all times present. - Atlanta Braves game. Done this a number of times and costuming around folks drinking rules apply as above. One troop, later in the event I went with another TK into the tunnel to take photos with folks. A completely soused couple walk up, mom starts grinding on us, dad making a display of himself swearing and egging her on as he takes pics. Whole time they have a little girl, 10 or so trailing behind them who looked mortified. I can't recall what it was exactly, but the Dad said something totally inappropriate and me and the other TK called him on it and made his look even more like a jerk. He deserved it but I hated that it happened in front of the little girl. I walked right back to the changing room and left for the night. What I've learned is that many kids can't hold their cake and many adults can't hold their booze and they act about the same when they cross that threshold.

I'm very encouraged by what I've seen and my current kit is starting to worry about why I'm browsing the MEPD forums.

Ecxelsoir!

It's always dictated by personal preference and there's always a balance between what the camera filmed and what I (we) saw on screen. Without getting into semantics too much, "Screen Accurate" to me is what I first saw saw on the screen in '77 and after even on VHS (long before Blue Ray). For example I never saw white duct tape, but it's there and I see no mad rush to add white tape to our armor. Case in point - I made a Jawa for my daughter and used black gaffers tape on the mask as was used on set. It looked awful IRL. I swapped it for a fabric wrap and then I saw what I saw on screen. I have a Franken-kit, mostly FX, MTK lid, RT Mod thighs chest and backplate. I'm in this pic below on the right. I also ordered an Anovos kit and I'm excited to see the final product. My personal verdict is still out for me though as the lines do look very clean and sharp. More than I am used to so I'll just have to get it into my hands and in front of my eyes to see what's what.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darning Darning is probably the trick. It take some patience and time, but it's not rocket science. The velcro in the back will make it harder though. YMMV.

I'm all but certain you can just pop the top rivets and snaps and move on. It's not likely to leave a gaping maw and after a couple of troops your belt will have plenty of other .. "character."

soaking it in

We have quite a few folks in the Athens area who have frequent armor parties. Sign up here and say hello! https://ga501st.com/forums/

We have quite a few folks in the Athens area who have frequent armor parties. Sign up here and say hello! https://ga501st.com/forums/

So much of this is subjective you just have to sort it out to your own tastes and preferences at some point. For my part I started with snaps and have had a few fail. I make more and more use of velcro as I maintain/repair my kit. I've never, ever heard the velcro make a peep while trooping and I have it holding my legs up and together as well as on my elbows. I also use it to hold chest and back plate over my shoulders and my sides at the kidney and ab plates. Snaps remain connecting cod to ab (mine is cut), butt plate to kidney (also cut) as well as backplate to kidney though on that I reinforced the snaps with velcro to keep them from popping. I also used both inner and outer strips on legs and arms and will do it again when the Anovos shows up. I'm sure you can get by without them, but they do make it easier when assembling and I like to think I have less chance of a catastrophic malfunction mid-troop by having and inner and outer strip.

Is anyone else seeing double posts in here?

"bootleg" is PR talk and I think the suits are going to be awesome. I am happy I'm getting a kit and not the finished version with a "liner." That sounds like a stinky nightmare for real trooping.

Quite a switch in that it was ABS before.

I got in on May 3rd and now playing the waiting game. If all is well this will be my clean TK and my current kit will go sandy.

Thanks man! Here's the board I used. http://www.501st.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=82537&sid=2dc5871b7d49bf88e75432332e2d04a6 I threw away the speaker and used an Aker instead. Also extended the triggers so they fit in my gloves. Tonight I actually swapped them out for some smaller switches so they would fit better in my gloves.

Still awaiting approval, but here's a guy I've been working on for a bit. Video with sound -

One other anecdote. My first troop, we went to the local zoo for Boo in the Zoo near Halloween. Great time, but at one point 4 teen couples walked up with the girls trailing behind and started talking to us. Then the snarky comments started from the guys. "Closest you've been to a girl in a while huh .. hur, hur, hur etc" For a moment I was a bit bummed. Then in a chorus of squeals the girls came running up, drowning out the guys commentary and pushing past them yelling "OMG CAN WE TAKE OUR PICTURES WITH YOU GUYS!!??" We took a bunch of pics and while they were all tasteful and above board I'm pretty sure WE we're closer to their girlfriends in the pics than those guys ever were lol. After everyone started to walk away one kid came up and meekly asked, hey those are really cool, how can I get one? The other three just trudged away, wind totally knocked out of their sails.

If anyone thinks what I do is worthy of ridicule they've never spoken up. I'm an IT Project Manager at an Urban Research University in Atlanta. The place is pretty progressive so just about everyone I work with has some oddities and one or more off the wall hobbies or interests. Family has long known I'm an oddball so they take nearly anything I do in stride and with a smile. I've also been careful all my life to be only me (weird warts and all) so I've rarely found myself in a situation since HS where I had to deal with any Nelson Muntz types for any length of time. All that said, I agree with the posters above, cut the negativve Nancies out of your life. Family or otherwise, they are a drag and are best left to find others like themselves without bringing you down if you can't get a grip. Alternately, once you troop and start posting pics of the good work you'll get to do I'm pretty sure they'll have a cup of shut the f**k up.

Leo try some bondo and a stapler. Other than that i got nuthin'

Looks great, good luck Leo!

Roger, Roger

Thanks for the info. One more question. Does the new "no AM/FX chest and back" also mean that upgrades to those following Pandatrooper's build are out as well for Cent? Some pics of my kit after the Pandartrooper updates to chest and back. I took about 1.5" off the bottom of each, created new return edges and heated and bent both to have a better curvature around my chest / back. Also trimmed loads off the sides of the back plate, with new return edges of course. (I've since upgraded the belt, belt-box backs, thermal det clips.) http://s1225.photobucket.com/user/ArcadeJames/library/TK%20Updates