DroidHunter

Forgot to paint the ear screws!

Simply the best reading I have done in ages! This stuff is pure gold. Thanks for keeping this stuff available for the nubes.

Have a safe and a very Happy New Year!

Helps a lot! Thank you my friends.

When using velcro on a TK -- e.g. putting velcro pads in the helmet or for the backs of the shins -- which is the better option: using the industrial stuff that already has an adhesive, or using the sew-in kind of velcro with an alternative adhesive such as E6000? I remember once wearing a helmet with velcro inside, and my head got so hot that the adhesive turned gummy and came loose. I don't want that kind of a mess in my bucket. Any good advice? Second question, is there a consensus as far as gluing the mesh under the frown versus simply using white tape?

I was an Eastbay fan, but I'm dismayed now that they changed the look and used non-black stitching. So, I went to target and picked up some Champion compression gear. Not the light stuff that has the checkered pattern, but the next level up -- warm. It's a little higher quality than the last Eastbay set I had and is pure black with just a small C logo on the chest and leg. I recommend. 16.99 for the shirt and 22.99 for the tights/pants.

Well, my bucket is finally done! More or less anyway. I still have to attach the mesh and add some padding inside. I'm not happy with the ear gaps, but I know they are better than some of the ANH movie buckets so they will suffice for now. But otherwise its finished. Most guys get their entire suits done in the time it took my, but I do what I can. Now on to the armor!

Thanks guys! Your comments are greatly appreciated. Keith, I'll be hitting you up soon after the holidays to get started on the armor!

I understood what you meant. It just didn't occur to me at the time that the anchor screws would get in the way. So once I'm done painting, I am going to use pop rivets to lock the cap and face together, then go back and mount the lens on the ear screws.

Life gets crazy this time of year so I haven't had much to post recently. I did start to work on the lenses as a singe piece, but ran into a prblem due to the location of the screw holding the cap and faceplate together. So I decided to hold off until all of the painting is done so that I can rivet the two parts together. That should help. So in the meantime, I started painting. All I have left are the grill marks on the cheeks and rear traps. All hand painted so far. Sorry about the blurry cell pics.

Ok, nothing fancy here. I started off by doing a simple search for Stormtrooper helmets and used one of the images to print and cut out a basic shape for the traps. It took a little time playing with the dimensions of the jpeg after pasting it into a Word document, but it didn't need to be perfect. After that I printed the page, cut out the traps and tacked them on my helmet with a piece of tape. I used a pencil to outline the shape. My traps were a little short, so I traces the bottom line, then moved the cutout higher and traced the rest. Then it was a matter of marking off with blue painters tape and painting the black. Once you have the black are painted, remove the tape right away or else it really started to get gummy. For the next step, I simply overlapped blue tape over the edges of the black. If you use a nice bright light (I have one of those silly lights that fit over you head so it is hands free) you can see through the blue tape. This lets you decide how thin or thick to make the black layer.paint the grey the same as the black, always starting on the tape and brushing inward. To get the soft curve along the top, just make a gentle swoosh with the brush in the corner. Once done, again remove the tape right away. I also find you can use a tooth pick to scratch away major imperfections within about 10 to 15 minutes. No paint thinner needed. And done! Hope that makes sense. I'll add to this when I do the cheeks and grill lines.

Will do. I have a little Christmas gathering tonight and a birthday party tomorrow but then I'll write it up.

Last night I was watching ANH on blu-ray (again). But this time I really used it to get some good screen shots on the large screen. At the start of Chapter 5, a group of TK's are escorting the good princess to Vader. There are two troops in front of her as they walk. The Trooper on her right (left side of the TV screen as they walk towards the camera), appears to be wearing a Hero helmet. The frown is definitely of the Hero variety. They eyes are smaller and cleaner. And it looks as if the ears only have 3 bumps. Am I correct in this? Sorry if it is old news here. I had never heard any comments about this before. Was this done accidentally or on purpose? Just curious.

I am in the process of working on my ATA build, and I am of course chronicling it in the appropriate location. But I have a question about the traps and thought I would post here. I wanted to have a fully painted helmet as opposed to using decals. For the tube stripes I grabbed a set of Trooperbay's hand-painted templates. However, the rest is being done by free-hand with a little help from my trusty roll of making tape. How do these look so Far? I have two questions: (1) Is the black outer line too thick? They seemed a little heavy to me, but no more so than some of the decals/pinstripes I have seen floating around. Probably too thick for some, but my question is whether they are sufficient for ANH stunt approval. (2) The trap on the back of the helmet has what appears to be a slight clockwise tilt. But it really does not. I followed the line on the back of the cap, which as you can see has a curve to it on the ATA helmet. Any problems with this? My eye thought following the helmet detail was better than following a non-existent straight line.

I lost my Mom to cancer on Thanksgiving Day 15 years ago. I was only 29 at the time and she was 55 years young. She battled for about a year and a half, but in the end, there was nothing else that could be done. It took me a long time to get passed that. It took a long time to learn to enjoy the holiday again. She never met my wife or my wonderful children. But time does have a way of taking away some of the pain. It happens a little at a time, but it does happen. As noted above, going through the grieving process is an important part of the healing. Friends and family will help, At the end of the day, you will get through the dark times in the same manner in which you have made it through difficult times in the past. I wish I had some magic advice for you, but I don't. You will get through it. And the pain does subside in time. It's just something you will carry with you, and in some ways it will make you that much stronger. Hang in there Vern. I'll keep a good thought for you and yours.

I can't find the link now, but I believe the recommendation is for a satin or semi-gloss black. The mix ratio suggested was something along the lines of 2/3 gloss to 1/3 flat. I did a 50/50 mix. But I agree with Jason that you will see all manner of variation regarding the gloss level of the vocorder and mic-tips. Here is what the 50/50 looks like:

After watching the Trooperbay video one more time, maybe I will give that a shot. I'll post up any progress pics.

First off, I really appreciate your feedback as you are always here to help out on my thread. I have looked through Panda and Trooperbay's posts/videos on putting in the lens. I am wondering whether that will work for me as I aligned my ear screws a little off in order to get them to sit right. I plan on using 1 lens, but I have considered putting a few (i.e. 3 or 4) wooden posts along the eye line and screwing the lens into them for mounting. Similar to what Alexey did in this post, but as a single lens. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/24950-ales-anh-stunt-ata-helmet-assembly/page-2

I didn't think the full kit had the counter and the power cells. The pics didn't used to show those pieces.

I plan on disassembling the whole thing in order to mount the lenses. After that, I'll paint the screws.

While the idea scared me half to death, I decided to not only paint my tube stripes, but to do them in the hand-painted style. Naturally I used Trooperbay's template! Let me know if these will pass muster. A few of them are a little rough along the edges, and a few corners rounded off a little. The glare makes it look like there are white spots, but there are none, The stripes are solid. Just a few glitches in the edges. What do you guys think? I will start shrinking my pics before posting after this.

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First paint!

I appreciate all of the advice. I testing things out by painting the hovi-mics. They are small and mostly recessed, so minor errors won't show! I waited about 2 to 2 1/2 hours before the recoat and all went well. Good practice before starting the teeth and tube stripes. And I used a mixture of Testors gloss black and flat black on them.

Painting has never been my thing, but I want to hand paint my helmet anyway. I know Testors recommends repainting either within 1st 3 hours or after 48. What amount of time do you guys generally allow between 1st and 2nd coats?