The5thHorseman

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. ""

I usually start wetsanding before 600. I start adding water around 280-400. We don't really have Novus here in France so I can't tell you exactly what brand I used. But most of this stuff works the same so you should be fine with Novus. Also, be sure to get some cotton swabs or cotton cloth along with the polishing compounds as you'll need those to apply the polish and gently work the surface. Working with nitrile gloves is also a good idea

Like Glen says, you won't get any shine from using sandpaper alone, even when wet sanding. You need to use polish and scratch remover compounds for that. Here's an example of something I did a little while back. From left to right: - Raw Gloss clearcoat. - Wetsanded down to 2000 grit. - Buffed with polish and scratch remover.

Right, I read his post about him starting to offer F-11Ds on Facebook. As I understood it, his heavy kit will be properly upsized. Can't say much about accuracy, but it didn't look bad on the pictures. Splitting is a bit weird though. As for the solidity of 3D prints, I found out it also depends of the quality of the print itself. If something is printed with poor temperature settings the layers don't fuse well together and make the whole part weaker. Same if the there's issue with the 'infill' hidden on the inside of the part. But anyway, yes, 3D printed object tends to be rather fragile to impact.

Prepare to get massive! The heavy F-11D feels huge when you're used to the standard one.

Not for all the costumes he offers (offered?). He was a reseller for Jimmiroquai's kits in Europe, but he was also offering for sale few costumes he of his making. Such as Imperial Ground Crew, Mudtrooper. Those costumes being among the worse quality products I've ever seen by the way.

Bra Hooks. Always.

I think you should consider upgrading your F-11D with buttstock to a properly sized one. The one you have really throws it off right now. It's supposed to look massive.

Well, before starting to apply any paint on your prop, if you're unsure of what material it's made of, you should definitely do a compatibility test first. Basically spray the paint you're about to use onto a hidden area of the prop and see what gives. If the paint start to react with the material, you know you'll have to use a different one. Before starting the paintjob it is also good to wash the parts with warm water and dish soap to get rid of any surface polluant residues left from the casting process. Once again, if you're worry about how the material will interact with water, you should do a test first on an unseen area. Once clean, apply a primer. The parts are already smooth so you don't need a primer filler that would roughen the surfaces. Use a finition primer instead. Three light coats with 5 to 10mn between each are usually enough, but given how strong the orange is you might need to up them to five. Once the primer is dry, as long as the paints you're using on top are compatible with that primer, you shouldn't have any bad reactions, no matter what the orange material is.

Nice one! And like the others suggest, if you end up deciding to go with a chipping effect for the paintjob, you will kind of have to use masking fluid. Because if the paint flaked like it did on the original helmets, it is greatly due to the HDPE surface underneath that doesn't adhere well with paint at all. Very difficult plastic to paint over. You will probably never be able to achieve the same flaking effect with an ABS helmet. But if you don't have any masking fluid at hand I've heard of people using toothpaste or mustard with good results too.

If you hit the whole paint with wirewool 00000 you should be able to dull it and lighten it at the same time very easily. Wirewool is, like its name sugest, wool-like, so it's very convenient for buffing uneven surfaces. You can also just apply one or two layers of a flat clearcoat to change the finish of your paint.

You're right, the MGC Sterling are substantially smaller than a proper L2A3 Sterling. Like you said they can shoot cartridges, but not real bullets

What about those elbow gaps? You guys are ready to fight bit and nails for five small millimeters on brow height but don't give a nickel about 4 inches gap at elbows?! Curious priorities in my opinion. But yeah... body shapes and sizes..... convenient excuse. How about this one then: disqualify "Master Replica" helmets for basic approval? Haha, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

What Mathias is saying is that you guys tend to oppose Stunt as having high or mid-high brows when all Heros have a low brow. That is incorrect as few Hero helmet also had a mid-high brow. So careful not to go and instaure a rule saying that all Hero helmets must have a low brow because that would be a mistake. Highest brow of both is a Hero. Two Hero helmets with different brow height: And even Han's Hero helmet doesn't have a low brow.

The issue with this kind of program is: how far should it be taken? Because if you want to achieve true screen-accuracy the list of things to take in consideration is huge. From a starter, armors eligible to that award would have to be restricted to a narrow few (RS, TM, and Anovos only). And even there, none of them can yeld absolute true lineage to a screen-used armor. Glue would have to be stelmax 1985. Boots must be genuine Stuart's 1095. All snaps must be vintage Newey. Calf hooks must genuine Newey size 4. All elastic straps must have correct width and frayed ends, etc... Not to mention the blaster which would have to follow the same rules. Difficult award to establish, difficult to follow for builders, difficult to review for the guy granting the ward. And if you start removing items from the list to make it easier, then your "screen-accurate" award doesn't represent much anymore.

Dude, did you just photoshop this screencap?! Here's the unaltered still from ANH. No gaps at all, except for the v-shaped cuts to the top of the forearm's inner half so that the arm can be bent. And once again that argument of the different morphologies allowing you to have a gap or not is entirely false. As long as you position the articulation between the biceps and forearm at the same level where your elbow is, no matter how long or short your arm is, you will be able to bend it. The only thing that will change is how much your biceps is inside the shoulder bell. And for people with very long arm, how much of a gap between the bottom of the forearm and the handplate there is.

For EIB (and therefore Centurion): - Forbid elbow gaps between the bottom of the biceps and the top of the forearm. - Forbid elbow gaps. - Forbid some more the elbow gaps. - Forbid any kind of elbow gaps once and for all. From what I remember EIB is all about the overall appearance of the armor seen from a distance (as opposed to Centurion more focused on details). Elbow gaps are just that. Something that is visually striking and that has a huge impact on the look of an armor. I challenge anyone to find just one stormtrooper, whether it's from A new Hope, The Empire Strikes Back or The Return of the Jedi with a gap between his biceps and forearm. Spoiler alert, you won't... Hence I can't understand why they have been tolerated for so much time now. On top of that, it's change that doesn't cost anything to the builder, it's only a matter of correct strapping. So please. For real... I think its about time we adress this matter and get rid of it... It's been way too long. Edit: Here's even a possible wording of the thing '- There must be no gap between the bottom of the biceps armour and the top of the forearm armour, except for the cut allowing to bend the elbow. If you have trouble bending the elbow, it means your biceps armour needs to be lowered down from inside the shoulder bell. Note: if you have long arms it is possible for the biceps armours not to be fitted inside the shoulder bell. It's fine.'

Thanks guys! As I said to Andrew it's a great honor for me of being awarded this very first 3D contributor badge. Especially directly the golden one. It's very generous and I'm much grateful

Beautiful finishing job and excellent paintjob! The black is perfect. Far too often I see people using glossy black paints that look just bad.

Just for clarification what you see on these pictures is NOT a vacuum-formed set of armor. It is their 3D model printed (rapid prototyping) at a 1:1 scale to check for fitting issues on an actual human body, etc... in order for them to refine their 3D model if needed, and only then use these updated models to cut (CNC) forming bucks out of aluminum. So what you see in those picture doesn't represent what you'll get in terms of parts. Almost everything such as limbs, detonator, ..., will be break down into several parts.

The reason why I recommand to print the textured pads standing is because the top surface isn't actually flat but very slightly curved instead. And the best way to really capture that shallow curve is to print the part upward, otherwise the print resolution (even at 0.1mm) will mess up with it. And yeah, why that Imperial cog instead of the First Order crest? I don't know, but it's there, no doubt about it. Probably an easter egg from the propmakers ;). Thanks for the feedback about the threading issue. I must say I'm kind of bummed that it's too tight. I have used a 0.5mm clearance for that threading which is kind of large but apparently that's still not enough. Like you said, you can perfectly get away with it by deepening the thread on the objective ends with sandpaper. I managed to make functional a threading with a tighter clearance this way too, it just takes a bit of patience. And if really you can't get it to work, I'll update the parts with a larger clearance between the threads. Also if I had to guess, I would say that the small gap between the black and white eyepieces is probably caused by the support filament. But from a design point of view the two should mate perfectly Anyway, great work so far! And I'm glad to read that the rangefinder works good. It took me some time to find a working solution I was happy with, and as I didn't test it either I could only hope it would work. Especially since they didn't bother to make it functional on the original prop.

Have you tried the threading between the front objectives and the binoculars body? Because getting the right clearance for it to work with FDM printing can be troublesome and as I was out of filament I never tried it myself to see if it works. One word of advice though, when you try it, if the pieces start to get stuck do not force or they'll get dead jammed together.

Ugly scratched look FTW!

You know you're only halfway through right?! https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/34530-free-tfa-tlj-se-44c-3d-printable-files/

Topic is now live!