Dark CMF

Braff, Without the interior strapping, your armor is very, very difficult to wear. So to answer your question, it is very important. Joseph fully covered the answer that I would give with regards to the appearance of the strapping. So kudos to him for the answer, kudos to you for asking a smart question in a timely manner, and major kudos to you for working towards higher approvals now. That is awesome to see, and your build looks like it is well on its way, based on what we can see in the pictures here in this thread. See if you can't get the bottom of the shins to sit more smoothly over the tops of the boots though. Keep at it!! See you at Centurion!

I'd have to say no on those boots, because the strip runs from toe to tongue. That strip clearly stops short of the base of the boot, but that is very possibly going to be the next GML issue: "Define Toe."

This exists? Have we crossed a dimensional plane somewhere along the way?

I believe the general idea is that we cannot forcibly do so. Like Stormtroopers would do. If they ask to be posed as such... Public service? I'm not sure which person was in that pose in the NL though. Obviously, I missed it. Which picture is in question?

Brent, It is because the merchandise is in the Legion Member Only section of the forums. You need to have approved Legion member access in order to purchase any official Legion/Detachment merchandise.

Just as Rebecca said, there are any number of options that provide plain black undersuits which will be fine for wear under the armor. I actually have a number of pieces of black compression gear from a number of manufacturers to include Eastbay, that I wear. Black without visible logos while wearing the armor is the key.

They are certainly an adjustment, but that is all that there is to wearing them. Mine are from RT-Mod, and yes... There was an adjustment period. To this day anyone watching will see me make a "clearing sweep" before I begin moving if I have been stationary for a little while, and at this point in time, I simply know where the "sweet spots" and the "bad spots" are in my Hero bucket field of vision. I can read stuff while wearing the bucket, so they cannot be impossible to adapt to, but the Stunt bucket is definitely more "normal" in terms of vision.

Thank you. Just doing my part to share the love. Yours is shaping up nicely thus far! Keep up the good work!

Awesome to see you getting back at this John! Never enough RT-Mod Troopers!!!

There have been a couple of instances in this thread where it has been mentioned that I may be confusing two vendors. For the record. I am not confusing them. As I had mentioned, the names of people, and the servers used to host the websites for both of them all seem to intertwine somewhere if you go digging around the internet. It is not that I am saying that they are exactly the same people, as much as I am saying that we can't find clear proof that the people and vendors being brought into the discussion/questions are not the same people or that they are not somehow connected. Simple case of buyer beware when these are the vendors in the picture. That's all.

Casual reminder/disclaimer: The sale thread will ultimately be posted in the Legion-Only section, as the shirt will be official Legion Merchandise and therefore can only be sold to members. This does not preclude anyone from submitting designs for inclusion in the voting, nor does it mean that a winner cannot be gifted an item.

Honestly, that is handled at a larger level than me, and there are several Detachments that share the same hosting plan. Thing is that the cost is broken down percentage-wise, based on bandwidth used. At this point in time, we can either drive on, or reduce our bandwidth usage so that other Detachments wind up using more than we do. I believe that given the two options, we should take option one, and I will ask if there is a way to perhaps secure some more special pricing, or cheaper hosting, but doing so would require all Detachments on the plan to agree, and given the amount that they pay and the work that would be associated for some people with a site move, it isn't likely to happen. BUT.... We are good. You all are awesome, and you are what makes this Detachment run like it does day in and day out, and thanks to your generosity and support, it will continue to run in said manner for another year. On behalf of the Staff, and the community, past and present, thank you to all who donated, and helped us reach our goal. We just came across the line with the last donation! Good job, FISD! NO MORE DONATIONS!!!!!!!! Save it for next time!!

Astute observation Ben, and you're all over it. The costs are that much higher. We actually eclipsed last year's total in a matter of 24 hours, but I want to say that the costs have tripled/nearly tripled, due to the introductory pricing that I mentioned in the OP expiring this year.

I'd venture to say that the reason that it went silent was more due to the fact that his response came nearly two and a half months after the previous post than to the fact that nobody has anything to say. He admits here to having made mistakes, and that is - as you pointed out - admirable and nobody here has an issue with that. There were/are questions as to the accuracy of the armor which he says that he has made efforts to correct. Typically armor makers here who wish to show their work provide in progress pictures of the molds being sculpted/made/updated along the way. That is clear and normally irrefutable proof that the work is their own and that is something that is taken very seriously here. There are many underlying connections (which he and others have partially addressed here) between his website and others which belong to armor makers that have been proven to be recasters. There are many connections (via the website registries) between his name and others associated with those other websites. These are connections (like the virtual offices) that are known to many of the Legion's Asian Garrisons. When those questions have been asked, there have never been any clear answers that have been given by any of the people associated with them. As Chris mentioned above, if someone buys the armor, the community here will do what we can collectively to help that person build it to a level that will earn 501st membership approval. However, until the armor is out there, and all of the cards have been laid out and played, the questions remain, and the seller will not be placed on the vetted seller's list. That's the extent of it really, from a Detachment perspective. David has never been anything less than cordial or friendly on our forums, and has never (that I am aware of) spoken ill of either the Detachment or the Legion. To the contrary, he has spoken very highly of both in any instance that I am personally aware of. Though he indeed gives the appearance of being a genuinely nice guy, that doesn't buy a pass where the armor procurement/production processes are involved.

The donations are still coming in, and as of today we are 3/4 of the way there! Sitting right at $750 (give or take a few cents, due to exchange rates). Nearly there!

Photographic corrections have been addressed by the Staff in the CRL update thread in the staff section. There will be many photos to replace across our CRLs. ROTJ is in major need of a photographic overhaul.

There are always the Venn Diagrams that show you where fast, cheap, and good cross over each other. There isn't much overlap between the three. In the UK though, you have some GREAT options. RS Propmasters is another stellar supplier in your area, and certainly worthy of you checking them out. Good luck, and welcome aboard!

SPOILER LIKE STUFF MAY FOLLOW!!!! Having only seen it seven times now, I have to say that I love the movie. I don't personally feel it is right to rank it among the Episodic/Numbered movies. Why not? It isn't one of them, and in many ways, I actually feel that it is the best made movie in the Star Wars Universe to this point in time on many, many levels. That doesn't mean that I can say it is better/worse than ESB/ANH/ROTJ/TFA, etc. It is different. Like many here, I would have liked to have seen a better showing by the Imperial Troops, but over repeated viewings they are indeed more effective than they have been in any film not named something like Empire Strikes Back. They kill a lot of people. A lot of them. To include a character with a name - one of my favorites, actually (even if it took a LOT of them to do it, they did). The one thing that I'm kind of on the fence about is the music. While I feel that it works well within the context of the film, I couldn't hum a few bars of any of it right now. It was pointed out to me by a good friend that I said the same thing about the music in TFA, but I remembered that music. I just felt that it needed a more definitive and memorable equivalent to the Imperial March. Rogue One's music just hasn't stuck in my memory the way a piece of music has from every other Star Wars film so far. From the beginning, Gareth Edwards has said that Rogue One was not going to be about Force powers, Lightsabers, and Jedi, that it was going to be a war movie set in the Star Wars universe. I really feel that they completely nailed that. I told my father that when he goes to see it, he should expect something more along the lines of a 60s war movie than a "normal" Star Wars movie, because it really is a war movie. There have been a lot of complaints about character development, and actually several that I have read made statements like "There is no where for these characters to go beyond this film." Hello... Did you WATCH the ending? There isn't anywhere for these characters to go. That's the idea. I felt a good connection to the sacrifice of many of the characters but will admit that the big one could have given us a little more angst to go along with the sunrise on the beach. One of my favorite take-aways from Rogue One though, is that LFL under Disney has set a high bar for the Anthology films. If this is what we can/should expect from the Star Wars Stories, then I am indeed a very, very happy fan and greatly looking forward to the upcoming stand-alone films that will follow.

Mineral Spirits will also remove paint from ABS in harmless and effective fashion. There really are a few options, as you can see. Also, it is great to hear that you're going to be removing the overspray from your ANOVOS bucket. Simple little things like that make a huge difference in the appearance of your armor in the long run. Good stuff!!

"Also props of Star Wars were based on WWII and other historic costumes and weapons not modern day uniformity. In historic warfare soldiers pretty much used and wore what they could and many variations appeared. There were certainly similarities in their uniforms but not identical by any means." Maybe my definition of examples is different than yours Mark, but this is what I was talking about. We are working on assisting your customers at every opportunity that presents itself to us. In order for that to happen, it must get beyond the GML, to us. We are also working on cleaning up the CRL so that language is more clearly understood and hopefully that will alleviate a lot of the GML issues that your customers are encountering. Even though a proposal has not been done yet, I'd say that the rivets - which should only be an issue here at FISD, because of how the CRLs are written for higher level approvals - are well on their way to being addressed in the CRLs. That has the support of the key players at this point in time, in my opinion. Again, too screen accurate is a problem for 501st Legion membership in some instances. We are working - as I said above, and above that, and above that - to clarify that for the GMLs because that appears to be where the overwhelming bulk of the problem lies for your customers.

We are talking about Star Wars, but we have clearly and repeatedly stated that uniformity of the Stormtroopers across the globe is a strong factor in CRL development. Again, I fall back on my earlier statement that our CRLs cannot by definition be wrong regardless of who disagrees with them, but they can be improved based on community input, using our established processes for making those changes. It is not an excuse. We cannot call up any intergalactic Army and ask them how they do things, so we extrapolate using the examples that we - and the people who will see us in public - have to base their expectations upon and that means modern Earth-bound armies. Several key 501st Legion/FISD people have already said that oddities/one-offs will not become CRL approved Stormtroopers simply because variations appeared on screen so there is no point in mentioning historical armies. You can't use the same examples to support your claims that you're saying that we cannot use. Professional armies have uniforms, and that generally - there are exceptions to everything - means standardized appearances.

Bill, There is a lot of controversy surrounding the armor maker. There are a few different companies that have popped up using the same servers/hosts for their websites, using very similar names (FN Armor, TK Armor) and the same handful of people names are associated with them (David Ashford - Ashcroft?, Peter Quigley, Peter O'Tool to name a few) and they list several countries as part of their production/management facilities (England, Ireland, Singapore to name a few). There have been a lot of allegations, and in some cases absolutely irrefutable proof that some of these entities have recast armor sculpted by other sellers and offered it via the websites, facebook, ebay, etc for sale. There are quite simply, more reputable and clearly honest vendors to do business with and one of the claims to fame is that they supplied the armor to the Dancing Troopers on Britain's Got Talent or whichever show it was, and if you've seen those, then you know that there is no way that they'd be approved for membership in the 501st. If you decide to purchase from them, we will do whatever we can to assist you in earning Legion approval with the armor, because that is what we do here, but we do try to support the armor makers - without preferential treatment to any of them - who have proven time and again, with established track records of being talented, honest, and good business partners with our prospective members over the years. As part of that, we do discourage purchasing from armor makers who cannot without question establish the origin of their molds, or who engage in questionable business practices. I hope this helps you to understand the situation.

When the US Army makes changes to uniforms and equipment, the intent or the end goal is that they are all going to have the same equipment and uniform and will all look the same. Specialized equipment is exactly that, specialized. Sandtroopers are an exception because of how the MEPD founded separately from the FISD. They specifically went with the screen accurate/prop-replication route that depicts a specific "character" among the Stormtroopers in a dirty and gritty field environment where they would have some different equipment being used by different Troopers dependent upon their assigned tasks - ie, a commo specialist would have a radio/backpack, a heavy weapons specialist would have a heavy blaster and any support equipment that goes along with it, a medic would be carrying medical supplies and equipment. A "standard" Stormtrooper - white armor, blaster of some type, holster, TD should look nearly identical to every other one around them.

Yeah, while the words screen accurate are used to describe the 501st by many different agencies/people it doesn't apply to the costumes governed by the FISD. Other costumes can be done to screen accuracy with less consternation because the Stormtroopers, and really, to an extent any Imperial Troop costume (I'd say Sandtroopers are the exception) are a representation of a military uniform and as a result, standardized appearance across the globe is a very seriously desired goal of the Stormtrooper CRLs. A good number of our members have spent time in a branch of the military and can instantly relate to this idea. Many more likely have not and for them it may be a pill described as a little painful to swallow. All of that aside though, as Daetrin mentioned above, screen accurate tends to imply that if it is seen on screen, it is approvable, and that is a slippery slope that instantly degrades uniformity.

Congratulations Doug! Welcome aboard!!