Nagedzi

Thanks Walt! I was having a little trouble with the ears in trying to minimize the size of the bottom part and pull them in a little closer to the helmet. They're looking a little better than when I first cut them out. Maybe a touch more tweaking?

Ready to paint

Sanding the inside of the teeth with a rotary sanding drum: Cutting the teeth out with an exacto. I like the rounded tip blade as it doesn't seem as aggressive as the straight blade: Eyes and teeth roughed out...I still need to clean them up, though. It's strange working in this scale! Brow trim on and inner bolts installed. I decided not to use rivets in case I mess up the placement. It looks pretty narrow without the ears. I'm sure that will change once they're bolted on.

Looking forward to seeing your build thread, too, Francisco. I can't wait to go trooping with my boy....

This is my first build post so it might as well be about my son's kit.... Last October I found a built up Stormtrooper kit on Craigslist. It appears to be a variation of the old FX kit: 3-part lid, sized down pieces etc. With little options available at the time and my son wanting to be like his dad, I picked it up. When I got it, I was a little disappointed. Instead of glued together pieces, ALL of the components were put together with velcro. All the strapping was done with velcro, as well. Ostensibly, this was done so that the previous owner's son could grow with the kit. In reality, though, it made it very difficult to wear as pieces wouldn't stay in place or would simply fall off. It ended up sitting in a closet over the winter. A few weeks ago, I took it out and started to rework all the pieces. I got rid of the scratched up bubble lenses, cut holes in the teeth, reworked the ears, painted all the helmet details, glued the armour together and restrapped with snaps and elastic. My 8-year old son was ecstatic. I knew, however, that I wasn't exactly happy with the look of my little TK. In particular, the helmet was off and the sizing of the armour left a little to be desired: Watching both Walt's and TrooperMaster Paul's kit creation threads made me want to upgrade the helmet at the very least. I got a hold of Walt, showed him this picture of my son in his kit and he definitely agreed that an upgrade was sorely needed. Since his "upper body kit" was ready to ship, we decided that we would start there. This kit includes the helmet (faceplate, cap n' back, ears, s-trim, u-trim, lens, vinyl tube stripes, and custom sized hovi-mix mic tips), chest, back, shoulder bridges, shoulder bells, biceps, forearms and cover strips. Well, today I got a little brown box in the mail: Here it is in standard layout fashion: ...and here it is next to the same components in the old FX-based kids kit: Finally, here are some helmets to compare it too (L-R ATA, Walt's and the old FX-style kids lid). It looks SO much better. I can't wait to get it built up! Now, I have some work to do....

This image may clear up a bit of what I was trying to say. The two middle images in the top row to me look quite different from the ones in the bottom. Did the brow slip? Does the mouth in the top just look narrower due to a lower quality screenshot?

Looking closely at all these screenshots almost has me seeing two different Mr. No Stripes. There's the classic one that we all know and love that stuns Leia and clearly appears in several other shots. It has a standard stunt look with a higher brow stance. In some of the other shots, though, Mr No Stripes looks to have a lower brow that is almost touching the eyes. It even looks vaguely heroish with what appears to be a narrower mouth than usual. In fact, in the screenshot with the side profiles of the group of stormtroopers, the glare off the lens looks kind of bubbled compared to the rest. Now we all know there can be some play in the brow and not all of these shots are really clear, but it's certainly making me think....

I'm thinking something like Recon Mod Live might work. It's small and designed to be viewed in tight areas like goggles. Perfect for the bucket. Any developers out there can even write apps for it. Android only right now. You can connect a camera to it, but I'm not sure if it will stream live feed. Pretty cool. -------------

Here's a link to an original-style strapping kit: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20859&hl=&fromsearch=1

Sweet! Thanks Eric. I figured somebody would have tried that out.

I was watching ANH today and noticed this trooper from the opening sequence had his holster attached rather strangely. It looks like they installed the holster backwards and, realizing this, they simply flipped the belt inside out. Just wondering if this had been discussed before?

10 days for me in Canada. Ordered on the 4th of September and it arrived yesterday....