The5thHorseman

Ha ha, I don't give much at all about Anovos being recast. Given how they recast RS for their Stormtrooper OT armor, I don't think they deserve any kind of protection or support from our community. They have lawyers for that.

Yeah, Anovos is clearly bending things the way it suits them best. At this point I'm almost just hoping for someone committed and reliable to get an Anovos kit and recast it...

Again Anovos most likely based their cut off of Finn's specific armour. But they stopped halfway and omitted to also cut that raised, outer part of the forearm. This would be an easy way to fix the Anovos forearms by the way.

By the way, is it me or does it look like the abdomen piece has been massively shortened at the front? It seems to be ending right near the lower edge of the chest plate instead of protruding upward like the TFA armors did.

Sorry to keep coming back to this topic but, I wanted to check and the executioners definitely do have the mobility cut to their forearms too. In fact if pay attention to all the troopers in the background it quite obvious that this cut has become standard for TLJ, and then TROS. But what's nice , is that once you know it's there you can even guess the expanding stripe along the back seam: So here's an interesting piece of trivia if you're doing an executioner and care about deepest accuracy: mobility cut at the front, and expanding stripe at the back. Also here's some more troopers with the mobility cut. I don't know if it is already, but I think this might be something worth mentioning in the TLJ/TROS CRLs. Or at least for the higher levels of accuracy.

Don't be mistaken, these forearms aren't cut. They've been expanded by adding a vertical stripe along the seam where the outer and inner halves of the forearm meet. As for the TROS blasters, I don't see what you guys are liking in them. They all look like junk to me, with all these oversized barrels.

It's a different mobility cut. The Anovos cut, is extreme and based on a Finn's armor. The mobility cut for the ROS stormtroopers (and TLJ troopers too as I realized afterwards) is not as important but still differs to the original TFA troopers.

The elbow mobility cut may have become standard from what I see.

Just a quick note: the Heavy version of the F-11D (with the tactical stock) isn't supposed to be mountable to the thigh rig. In fact the originals don't even have the bracket for that purpose. Nonetheless, I can't deny how cool the two pictures you posted are!

Hard to tell, but I believe this is light reflection:

Quite the missed opportunity in the end. If it wasn't for this excess of details on the snout area of the helmet, I think it would be quite good. Removing the two curved tubes would probably be enough to simplify this area and drastically improve the look of the helmet. Personally I find them extremely disgracious, especially since they have quite a negative impact on the silhouette of the helmet.

I already had this effect happening to something I was painting, but with a regular spray can of white paint. Basically it's a reaction that happens when you don't lay your paint properly. For me it was because I laid a top layer of paint that was far too thick and before that the previous underneath layer had had enough time to settle. The parkerizing effect is interesting nonetheless. It reminded me of the paint some used for their e-11 blasters. But the pattern you get is quite big, and I'm not sure you can reproduce it reliably every time.

Not sure what you're meaning here. Both the TFA and TLJ SE-44C are based on the Glock 17 (Gen 3 if I remember right). Actually the TLJ blasters use practical airsoft reproductions of the Glock 17 instead of a custom made Glock like the TFA. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Sithtrooper's blaster were using an airsoft Glock too.

Like Chris says, the cost in material isn't that much. It's the molds that are extremely pricey. But we're talking about injection molds, so most likely two part molds that are CNC cut from aluminum. I also guess that all the stuff and equipment required to inject the resin is costing a lot too, so unless you're doing that as a bussiness and already have the tools, the set up cost for a propmaker would be far too much. However a regular mold would probably work fine too, you would only lose the inside details. But the issue with resin is that the more flexible it gets, the thicker (gooey) it gets too and the faster it kicks (start to harden) which makes it more difficult to work with. Because of that short lifespan it's more difficult to cast large parts, but also to obtain something that has a somewhat even thickness, and free of air bubbles. In this case the best way for us (one that doesn't involve a crazy amount of money) is to project it with a spraygun. But if you look at what MIMIC has done with his armors this is pretty much it (I'm not here to debate his reliability or else, I know he can't be trusted anymore). Flexible gelcoat on the outside for the shine and smoothness, and fiberglass to back it (done with a flexible resin of course) and you get something that is extremely close. Even what Jimmiroquai is doing is not bad. I only wish he'd spend the time perfecting his surfaces before molding.

The stuff is already outthere you know. There are countless of different kinds of resin available to buy, even if you're a particular. Some are rigid, but others are flexible (it's called shore index). In the end it comes down to the makers to research and use a correct PU resin. The only difference with screen-used parts is that they're injected instead of rotocast, or poured like most of our stuff is made. It allows details to be added to the inside of the parts and also insures an even thickness everywhere. But that's pretty much all. And in the end you can also replicate an injected part by making a two parts mold (one that captures both the outside and inside of your piece). However it costs twice the price of a regular mold, and it gets more challenging to assure that your resin is going to fill every part of your mold because as you're not pushing the resin (injecting) you can mostly only rely on gravity.

Undoubtedly a Rogue One armor with a paintjob.

And guess what? It'd be even better in white!

Quick preventive note. I noticed this new blaster reuses few parts from the First Order weaponry we already know, some of them I have modeled and shared. So just to be clear I don't want to see any of those parts scavenged on your 3D model. To be more specific, I'm thinking of the Glock frame w/ handgrips, and whole visor section from the SE44C.

Nothing special at all. The original armor were just vacuum-formed in a highly flexible ABS, unlike most of what we can buy today. The only person that I know of who has ever replicated that is Paul aka Troopermaster (who else, anyway). Have a look here:

That's how I did mine and it just doesn't compare with the softness of vac-formed forearms. However, the area that Anovos removed does have the tendency to get in the way when you try to bend the arm. I guess the propmakers didn't think of that when they designed the stormtrooper armor for TFA. Which is probably why they reworked it later on for TLJ, and probably TROS.

They used Finn's forearms as reference which had 'mobility' cuts made to them. But they didn't replicate it quite properly either. Just be glad they didn't replicate the knocked off wrist boxes too.

Yeah, I remember small tabs of velcro being there for the shins. Not for the biceps though. But in my opinion those are most likely add-ups done after the parts were made in order to simplify and make the closure easier (and maybe more effective too). The 'as designed' closure systems were done in a way that wouldn't require any velcro.

None of the armor parts from the Disney-era troopers close at the back with velcro. That includes forearms, biceps, shins, and as you'd expect thighs. However, the system used is difficult for us to recreate as it relies on the use of a flexible material but combined with the benefits of injection molding.

How tall is your son? Or are the low-angle pictures wanted so that for once you don't look a little short for a stormtrooper?!

One very interesting post from Imgill over at the RPF: ANOVOS picks up the high-end Star Wars Costuming License! "" I have been quiet about this for a while, and have read many "arm chair" speculation. But perhaps some first hand info is in order.I'm not sure how many companies "in China" Anovos is using, but the main one I know about does great work and it is not an issue of shipping sub-standard work, it is about not shipping any. This happens when you are owed six figures for work you have already done. The Chinese comapny, who specializes in high end collectibles and also produces props and costumes for film, does amazing work. They have made us a number of things and their work has been very good.We (Global Effects Inc.) started doing work for ANOVOS in the beginning of 2015.First prototyping the classic y-wing helmets to be used in Rouge One. Three unpainted helmets with liners were sent to the Rouge One production company and 2 were painted "as new". Anovos displayed one of these. Eventually our deal was to produce any short run production (less than 100 pieces) items for ANOVOS and rework the First order suits, for eventually making 1000 - 1500 kits. They also had their US production staff headquartered at our North Hollywood facility.We prototyped much of their Star Wars helmet line and many of the armor sets. (The pictures you see on their site) Boba Fett, Kylo Renn, Phasma, First order Tie Pilot, Snow Trooper, Classic Snow Trooper, X-wing Pilot, AT AT Pilot, plus some others.We produced 50 each of Tie pilot, AT AT pilots, Snow Trooper and X-Wing pilot sets, hard goods and some soft goods. These were delayed several times because of ANOVOS management changing priorities and / or not supplying detail parts to us in sufficient quantities or on time. (Some of the small "found" parts were purchased and supplied by outside vendors) All of our completed sets were picked up from us in mid 16 or early 17. We also completely retooled the First Order suits to make then easier to build, visually closer to production used suits (The original suits were cast urethane). We redesigned the gaskets so they actually bent and re engineered the leg suspension so the legs didn't want to rotate or drop when you walked. The helmets were injection molded by the company in China and were fantastic. (Much better than the film used helmets)This prototype was painted gray here so you can see all the surfaces are smooth and the seams (panel gaps) small and parallel. (this prototype is missing mid drift boxes and belt.) In 2016 we built over 100 First Order suits for ANOVOS with this new production tooling. These were to be used at Disney, Disney knew these were mass produced "costume" kits that were being modified for use on figures (Not walk around) and ANOVOS cut them a good deal. But after art director review, Disney decided they wanted higher detailed suits. Which in order to meet their new requirements, would have necessitated molds for fiberglass parts or cast parts, something ANOVOS told us they didn't want to do.In all we did about 31/2 years worth of work for them and in the end we called it quits when payments became chronically late, we were redirected too many times on "in production items", and when ANOVOS cancelled the 1000 First Order Trooper kit order. This last one was quite a surprise, as in addition to having an invoice and down payment on this order, we had spent significant sums of money reworking the tooling for this order and Disney's order. We had greatly improved the kit from ANOVO's first version, lowered production costs substantially, gave them reliable delivery times and made the suit easier for the customer to build and all while being more accurate.Eventually all of my advanced and "trick" vacuum forming tooling methods (all the tooling we made) were taken and handed to the Chinese company. The Chinese company was asked to improve the suits we made for the Disney projects and they told ANOVOS they couldn't make them any better. In looking at the images on the ANOVOS site, the premier kit looks like our suit, either one of our prototypes, or a Chinese made version of our suit.So, for what it's worth, there is some first hand info on why ANOVOS may not be delivering product, at least from one vendors point of view. ""