Front-a-Little

On behalf of my buddy, who has been a silent member of this forums for a couple of months, I created this build thread. Armor is a 1.5mm ESB kit by TM. We are halfway through the build, I'd say, so this first post is basically a pic dump to show what we have up to now. Leg parts ready, biceps glued (the kit in the box is mine, for comparison) Forearms coverstrip measuring Sewed parts What's left for assembly

@Punkers: I have a 2 piece (I believe I once read that ESB used 2piece under-armor but accurazi/researcher knowledge is needed to prove this) and the only con I can think of is you have to wear the pants "Urkle style" with your shirt stuffed in and the pants all the way up to your belly button. This is to make sure noone can see the seam of your pants in the space between cod and butt plate and depends on how you wear your armor. For the general discussion: Keep in mind the suit has to be non-see-through. I guess especially cotton underwear looks perfectly solid first and once worn and the fibers have to expand a bit, parts can get see-through. I had this awkward pic wearing one of my old cotton 1piece undersuits and you could see the pattern of my boxers through it. Tiger !

I've seen some screws being ripped out causing damage on the armor. Due to some move you shouldn't have done that created way to much tension on one of the straps etc. On the other hand, if you want to go super accurate and achieve the look from the screen with sometimes bended chest plates and all that, you need brackets. I tried to get that effect using snaps and it simply doesn't work that way. I'm still pro-snaps but faked the authentic look with screws on the correct positions and in the end, it's a question of faith. You'll find legion members telling you brackets are perfectly troopable and you'll find members telling you snaps are better.

A thread I checked a lot, especially for the pics, is this one here by TM building a TM hero suit: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/19340-tms-anh-hero-buildtm/ You can get all the pieces and positions from these pics, what you won't get from this thread is up to you to research. Luckily, you're already at the best place to do this research (I'm talking about the FISD) And one thing I'd like to add to the discussion Superglue vs E6000: What I think is a huge advantage is that E6000 never gets rock-solid. It sticks to the surface like hell, that's true, but even after months of curing you can still pinch it with your fingernail. For constantly moving plastic parts, wether you're walking around or just breathing, it helps distributing the tension and might prevent parts from cracking.

Congrats on completing stage 1 - initial build. And welcome to stage 2 - tweaking for the perfect fit. TK-7980 already mentioned the belt sitting too low. I'd keep the position of the belt and instead try to lower the torso a bit. That little curved rectangle below the belt button is supposed to be covered by the belt front. The belt front almost touches the torso button box on some reference troopers. Also try to bring up the chest and back piece a bit. The shoulder strips don't need to lay on your shoulders and it's not a mistake if your helmet touches the chest plate later on. Have a look at some of the troopers of the tantive boarding party, especially the ones guarding Leia when she's talking to Vader for the first time. The chest bends out because the original strapping won't allow it to overlap the torso plate too much. Your neckseal should prevent the chest from pressing on your throat too much. This should buy you some inches. If all that fails, as TM said before, there's the Luke-style chest. Hope this helps, have fun !

All I have left to do to apply for Centurion is the shoulder strap afixation. I can't use the ANH white elastic to hold them down in the back, I need velcro. And then of course pics for the Centurion request. What keeps me from finishing this small step ? A Phase2 Animated Commander Cody build, probably the first one in the 501st, that I want to finish until Roleplay Convention in June, a RS Props TK bucket I need to build and a friend's TM kit I help trimming and building. Child labour seems to be the only solution

I would have used glue instead of snaps on most elastics but as long as the armor looks good on the outside, that's just personal taste. I really like your pictures. The focus, the lighting, the labels and pointers for certain details, you should definitely round them up in a guide and sticky the guide or put it on the FISD wiki or whatever. This is some high quality reference material for future TKs you created here. Awesome work !

Nice, congrats ! Now that you've joined the ranks of those who wear totally useless armor and never ever hit anything with their blasters: You said you had to trim a good amount of material away on the forearms, right ? Did you also adjust the width of the biceps ? Or do you need them this large for your own biceps to fit in ? It's just the shoulder bell to biceps to forearm ratio that looks kinda off to me. Just a very nitpicking comment, I know

Just read about Oscar #2 for Christoph Waltz. He absolutely deserved it, no question, but I don't like the fact that he got it for a role pretty similar to his first award winning performance in Inglorious Basterds. Yeah, he played that crazy nazi officer in Basterds while in Django, he was the only non-racist white guy, I'm talking about the character, how he talked and acted, all that was pretty much the same for Landa and Schultz. He played a totally different character in Polanski's Carnage and it was brilliant, so he does have the ability to play other roles. I just don't want to see him becoming a one-trick-pony, that'd be a waste of potential and talent. Oh, and I guess I have to see Argo ? I'll never forgive Afflek for DareDevil but looks like this Argo movie is pretty good

Am I reading this correctly, the armor is riveted at the right side and opens on the left ? To be honest, if you want to go for Centurion I'd recommend to get/request/demand a new Torso and Kidney plate. Even if you can remove the rivets from the right side you'll have 3 holes there when you only need one for the top snap. And filling the unneeded holes with putty and painting it is not the kinda quality you want to work with. Also, again talking about Centurion, don't let him use the pop rivets. The thigh ammo belt was afixed with cap rivets, the sides of the torso with split rivets. Call me petty, but I've been where you are now and went to fix my MFX armor to EIB status. It was horrible.

Patrick Lasota 7961 EIB Letter

Back in the days when I was a shiny rookie trooper, I had my first kit build by it's manufacturer and he used the overlap method. And hot-glue, but that's another topic. I had to tear apart almost the entire armor, remove the hot glue, cut half the overlapping area, adjust the parts from scratch and glue the cover strips on with E6000. In the end, I got EIB approved with that kit and judging by the overall look of the kit, it was absolutely worth it. And about the structural integrity of cover strips: My 1.5mm TM only has cover strips on the outside, no additional inner strip to back up the cover strip. After 6 or 7 troops, nothing has come apart yet and I don't think that'll change after 60 troops

How epic would that be ? Then we would really live in the future. Imagine everyone having Glass in their helmets, connected to the rest of your current troop's members. You could get HUD information of every members current position, who's the trooper you're looking at right now, record the troop or make pics, check the event's time schedule etc. I envy my future self for having this right now...

Well done ! It's stuff like this that makes me proud to be part of the 501st.

Hey there, still working on making the ESB suit ready for Centurion. For the shoulder strips, as the CRLs say, I can't use the ANH white elastic strip to attach them to the backplate. I guess we still don't know for sure what they have used on the original suits but velcro seams to be the common way. However, I don't like the velcro idea and want to try a solution with rare earth magnets. When I broke one of these magnets by accident I noticed they have some kind of layer on them to make them look shiny. Has anyone successfully glued these on ABS using E6000 or any other glue or do you think they won't stick properly ?

Yep, looking good. Maybe you can make the biceps a little tighter, you can tell from the pics there's much space in them. Won't affect EIB or Centurion but helps achieve that slim "trooper look"

Got mine after nearly 3 months of waiting (China....). Awesome magnets. I mean magnets themselves are pretty awesome but these ? I destroyed the first one straight after unboxing when I tried at what distance the magnets would attract each other and one simply shattered. 3 days ago I got skin from my finger jammed between two of them and now I have some kind of blood bubble on that finger. They arrived way to late to help me build my new armor though, that's what I actually bought them for.

Hey there, the bucket shot where you light up the bucket to show the lenses: Looks like there are no lenses in your helmet at all. Is this because the material is that thin ? If so, make sure your eyes aren't visible. Good luck with Centurion, very nice looking armor !

Hey there, I gave the infamous biceps hook a try on my last troop and I have to say, like all the other "screen accurate" stuff, it works incredibly well. The hook on the right is a little too small and won't catch the elastic correctly, but that's an easy fix. The left hook works well but after some time of moving around, I noticed my biceps starts rotating in my shoulder bell and it starts to feel uncomfortable when I bend my arm. Was there any additional fixation that would prevent this ? Other than the white tape solution

Here's a great reference thread on how TM builds one of his own kits. You can see the spacing of the shoulder straps on page 2: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19340&hl=tm%201.5&st=20 However, the spacing may vary depending on manufacturer and body size

PP sent Cheers!

In addition to Spectre's suggestion: I think cover strips for the calves can be up to 2,5cm width and to be honest, I've seen approved armor with even larger coverstrips. You can just estimate it but you can see the left trooper's right cover strip pretty good in this screen cap and I think this cover strip is around 2,5cm width. This might buy you some additional millimeters to get rid of any gap on your calves.

ESB for the win ! Looking good, sir. Some remarks though: I don't know the ATA kit but your backplate almost looks like ROTJ with this strange return edge or whatever that is. Might want to trim that down a bit more. Maybe it's just bad reflection on the pics. Maybe try to find an undersuit that's more tight so the fabric doesn't overlap your shoulder bells or form these "bags" around the elbow area. Just some hints, your suit still looks good the way it is right now. Good luck with EIB and go for Centurion !

I believe for voice manipulation to sound like a stormtrooper, this would be the most popular gadget: http://tkproductsllc.net/product/icomm-imperial-communication-system/ Comes with static burst effect. Expensive though but hey, who ever told you this hobby was cheap ?

I've just finished my new suit last weekend and am now making the last modifications to request Centurion and after that, I'm gonna start a clone. These rude kids keep calling me "clone" in my TK so I give them clone. Cody Phase2 Animated to be precise. But only as a second costume, I'll always be a TK.