tkrestonva

Once your profile at Legion is up, be sure to request full FISD forum access here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=16 See you at C6 next month, trooper.

You might get some GML pushback on the fact that your eyes are visible through the helmet lenses, but other than that I don't see anything that would preclude 501st acceptance.

Glad to see you're done. A few suggestions: 1. Raise the belt. I suggest that you wear it such that the top of the belt sits just below or touches (or even slightly overlaps) the ab button box. You will probably need to add some snaps to the belt and matching snaps to the ab plate to get it to stay in place. 2. Bring in your shoulder bells - you can do this by shortening the straps that connect your shoulder bells to the rest of the armor. 3. Upgrade your blaster.

Vern is correct, in that you want to be careful not to overtrim the belt corners. You can eyeball the correct dimensions by looking at the archive photos as well as screen caps. My personal rule of thumb is not to cut so much that your plastic belt becomes narrower than your cloth belt, they should be roughly the same width. But again, the best thing to do is to look at the screen caps and archive photos.

After it dries, you can simply rub off the excess with your thumb.

Great job in scaling down the FX kit to fit her. Also, nice man-cave you have there. I take it she will also be getting a backpack?

You need to ensure you can perform some basic movements as well. When I fit new troopers' forearm and bicep arm armor, I run them through a handful of functional check scenarios to check for comfort and mobility. - Put on your helmet - Take off your helmet - Hold your blaster (in various poses) - Drink a beer - Eat a sandwich Etc, etc, etc.

You can keep all, some, or none of the return and still be accurate. The return edges on the screen used suits were generally all over the place, with the notable exceptions of the ankles and wrists. So trim to suit your comfort, mobility, and personal aesthetic.

Paul, what is the circumference of your thighs at the top and bottom, and the shins at the widest point?

Better to trim them, using screen captures, behind the scenes photos, and archive photos as a reference.

RT-MOD Version 5 (Bought June 2010) Limb Lengths: - Length of Thighs: hip bone to knee = 13†- Length of Calves: outer side of the knee to below the ankle= 14†Note: thigh and calf pieces should not meet as this would interfere with leg motion http://www.whitearmo...opic=12693&st=0

The spare ABS strips are definitely a different shade. However, it's generally not noticeable during trooping. It's really only noticeable in photographs taken under certain indoor lighting conditions, in particular fluorescent lighting.

Actually, I can see that costume going over quite well after-hours at DragonCon.

As has already been said, great progress so far. What immediately stands out to me is the amount of black at the shoulders. Can you pull your shoulder bells up and in some? Basically make the strap connecting the shoulder bells and bridges shorter. Also, the shoulder straps should connect under the bridges a bit forward of center. While it's intuitive to mount them centered, it actually works better to mount them slightly forward of center. I'd also lower the biceps a bit, so as to reduce the amount of undersuit showing at the elbows. As for the thighs, IMO the first photo where you push them down looks the best. To my eye, it looks like it'll make for the optimum balance between coverage (less undersuit showing) and mobility (more undersuit showing). Also, as long as you used E6000 or some other removable adhesive you can easily pull the thighs apart and resize them via a shim and cover strip if you end up bulking up your legs later.

RT MOD.

The side & crotch fasteners are a Centurion requirement. They are not required for EI, but lately most applications I've seen put them in anyway. The idea being it's easier to do the initial build to the higher standard than having to go back and retrofit it later.

What I'm saying is the attachment points should be in the upper corners of the knee ammo belt. It appears you have them in the lower corners. It won't affect basic 501st and it will likely not affect EIB approval, but I guarantee you Mathias will note it and recommend you fix it should you decide to submit for Expert Infantry. Note that with the AM kit and the way it's designed, in order to attach the knee bandolier in an accurate manner, you will end up having to angle up the bandolier to avoid a gap between it and the bottom of the thigh, but that is acceptable. There may be better photos out there, but these are from the LFL archive photos we have on file here - you can barely see one of the attachment fasteners in the upper right corner of the second photo.

At the time, I was the only stormtrooper here in Reston, VA. Total lack of imagination, but it works.

It looks like you attached the knee ammo belt at the bottom (rounded) corners of the belt - it needs to be attached at the top (squared-off) corners. It also means you'll have to tilt the knee bandolier up in order not to show a gap between the bandolier and the bottom of the thigh piece, but that's just the nature of the AM kit. That's exactly what I was thinking!

It's a long story and one that can be difficult to understand especially for newer folks, but Mathias pretty much summed it up. If you are interested in getting an MTK helmet (and despite the questionable lineage I have not seen a bad report from an MTK owner), contact someone here who owns one via PM and ask them how to get in touch with the seller.

It does indeed look like you have the kidney plate flipped, and yes, the top edges of the ab and kidney plates should be aligned. Also, at some point you're going to want to trim up the extended crotch (I saw it called a 'hyman' in one of the AM build threads here ) and completely cut off the wedgie tab on the butt plate. Walk around for a few minutes in your kit as it currently is, and you'll soon find out why. By buttons on the abs plate, I assume you mean the 9 buttons in front. 7/16" comes to mind, but I'd have to confirm it. The AM kit comes with the correct-sized buttons - did you misplace one or more of yours? As for the color, per the CRL either light or dark blue is acceptable, but light blue is considered accurate: http://www.whitearmo...?showtopic=8117

I've seen a JediRobe kit up close, and it really is as bad as everyone says. Can it be made 501st-acceptable? Yes, but only after spending more time and money on it than you would have if you bought a kit from one of the armorers here, and even then I doubt it would survive more than a handful of troops before falling apart. It's basically recast FX armor paired with a recast SDS helmet and a weird-looking blaster, and very poor quality at that. The armor is made of a thin styrene-type material (the good stuff is typically made of ABS), and the kit I saw had waves in some very prominent places - all evidence of a vac-former that either doesn't know or doesn't care about what he's doing. The fact that on top of that they charge so much for it adds insult to injury. Furthermore, at your size I can't imagine getting one of these kits to fit you without a ton of shimming, and that's on top of the work you'd already have to put in to bring it up to par. As far as a recommended kit, the two kits that normally come pretrimmed are RT-Mod and AM. The other armorers will trim and even build your kit for you - as long as you are willing to pay extra for that service. Between the two, I'd go with AM. It's less accurate than RT Mod, but better suited towards muscular guys who lean more towards "big" versus "tall". If you were taller (around 6'3" or so) and relatively thin-limbed, I'd recommend RT Mod. As Mark said, if you do go with an AM kit get the helmetless (AM Lite) kit. In addition to the threads that have already been mentioned, have a look at these: http://www.whitearmo...showtopic=12693 http://www.whitearmo...showtopic=18965 Finally, it would be good of you to post a short introduction here: http://www.whitearmo...php?showforum=5

You did an excellent job on the assembly of your kit.

Maybe, but it looks like the calves are sitting about where they should be. It's definitely the thighs that aren't long enough.

Adding on to what has already been said ... To answer your question about shimming the sides, it is both doable and recommended. You can buy an inexpensive white "For Sale" sign and cut it up into shimming material. About the only thing you can do regarding the length of the leg pieces is try to balance the amount of black showing at the hips versus the knees, and it looks like you've got it as good as it's going to get.