Daetrin

Wow, nice level of detail!

Awesome! Great find

QFT, well said.

Michael & Tim - you guys have the right of it. People are putting the cart before the horse on this, and missing the points of the EI & Centurion programs entirely. We have a long, long way to go before such subtle differences are worth worrying about. Let's establish the CRL with suits that are available. There is no point in paper standards with no ability to achieve them, or that to achieve them costs an unreasonable amount of time and money.

François, good to see you again. It has been a long time. If you ever make sets, I would love a pair for sure, like many others will. I'm guessing for base CRL the found item with mods may be fine, but not for L2/L3. This is a great thread though to see what was really used.

Great thread bump! What is the best way to do this now-adays? I have a helmet with nothing in it. Ideally it should all be wireless.

A big thanks to the white shirts (wranglers) and armored troopers - you know who you are! - for helping get everyone set up. It was quite frankly the best run FISD photo shoot we've ever had. I cannot thank you enough for this.

Anyone see this? http://yakfaceforums.com/main/2015/04/21/how-many-troopers-do-you-see/ He figures there are 4 distinct TKs. Well, 3. We'll see what happens to Captain Phasma. I'm guessing the snowie will go to Blizzard Force, as there is not much overlap between the new TK & TS. Stormtrooper (standard) Stormtrooper Commander (Orange Pauldron) Chrome Stormtrooper (Captain Phasma) Flametrooper Shield Stormtrooper Heavy Stormtrooper (has additional webbing and pouches on chest) How many ways can you spell AWESOME!!! Non TK's Snowtrooper Non Troopers TIE Pilot Navy Troopers/Gunners (Black)

That would be my recommendation. In the end detachments can only ever recommend standards. It's up to the LMO for final call.

Well, we'll see. CABoots were base CRL OK for a long time until the advent of TKboots...

Oh, and as far as strapping goes - all 501st CRL's only ever focus on what is externally visible to the viewer. Thus we don't have any CRL's based on TK strapping for things like how people strap the thighs, or if they are using snaps vs. brackets. This is not just TK specific, this is across all CRLs/dets I've ever worked on in the past what - 8 to 10 years?

I can answer this, as I wrote all the original CRL's for at least the first 7 costumes we covered, and also the IOC CRL's that I helped re-write (which was all of them). Basically we don't take in to regard any one manufacturer. The starting point for the OT CRL's was what was already Legion accepted, which was OOTB (out of the box) FX, so we wrote it that way for BASE acceptance, then took the EI and put that as L2. In the earlier CRL's, we didn't have L1/L2/L3 like we do now. They were written as "must have, should have, can have". Thus the L1 or base standards were written against armor that was widely available and worn by the majority of troopers, even though it was not fully accurate. As makers started to adopt L2/EI standards in to their costumes, we adjust the standards to move what used to be L2/EI and even some L3/Centurion standards down to base. A good example is ab plate buttons. It used to be that you could have big, all black ab plate buttons for a base level acceptance (OOTB FX). As people realized that the right buttons were smaller and different colors, troopers started buying upgrade kits and throwing out the black ones. "Mr. FX" then started offering up correct ab buttons on his own, and within a few years all new kits came with correct ab plate buttons. Once that happened, we altered the base CRL to include only correct ones. Same thing with fabric belts & cut butt plates - both used to be EI only and as more makers adjusted their kits to be L2/EI, then we simply made them base standards. I would say for base standards for TFA, our goal is to take the same path. Base it around what is easy and common to get, and then make harder items L2/L3. For instance base standards can include regular TK boots and maybe make L2/L3 the correct ones. Once there are easy/cheap sources for correct boots, eventually that will become the base standard. Does that make sense?

I'm going to order the new SideShow model, and once I have that I think that it what we will use, as at that point we have a good, licensed product as a reference.

For the build? I think the consensus was the thermal detonator and the gaskets. For mobility, mine was perfectly fine but then again I had the fabric gaskets made by long time member TK4205.

Also, I like your solution to the spats

Wow - nice build! Some really good tips in here and it will be a huge help for anyone following in your foot steps.

The ab/kidney plate is a single piece that is seamless on one side. So, not sure if you want to break out the kidney plate? I presume the belt includes the belt boxes.

Well, nothing prevents you from posting pictures. We'll need the same for each suit.

I literally had to get the helmet out of the box and put it on my noggin'. I think I now know what a meth lab smells like. Certainly people out there should let them out-gas first. Other lesson - this is way harder than any build you have ever done. It will take twice as much money and twice as long to do. Even if you put in some padding in your estimates. I did, and it still cost 2x what I budgeted, and took 2x as long. Plan accordingly peeps.

Looks like a tactical vest over regular armor?

Some people did the automotive, but I think most did rattle can. They provided the correct rustoleum colors, but I think most people agreed that using krylon would be a better choice next time.

In other words, just like a clone.

Yes, the suit was ABS. It needed to be painted because like a clone there were a lot of seamless areas, both on the limbs, TD, belt. All of that had to be epoxied and thus painted over.

I'm 6'0" and about as tall as you can go I think with the current suit. If you look at my photo, ideally there would be an extra 1" on the shin and maybe 0.5" on the thigh. And maybe bigger knees. I wonder if they will make tall legs for this suit like they do others.

The suits are ABS. The helmets are fiberglass. As for 501st approval, I believe we are starting on the CRL now. There is certainly enough photo reference.