Elumusic

And here is a detail of what I did for the 5 button strip.

Edging and a clear coat of paint to start off with.

A mostly completed Game Version of the Thermal Detonator.

Thighs to ab garter system. Lots of guys make a garter belt that goes around the waist and snaps the thigh armor. I wanted less strapping, so I opted for adding two sets of snaps in the ab plate to connect the thighs. snap position in thigh armor.

Shoulder bells connected. Upper bicep armor strapped to shoulder. Forearms connected to biceps.

Chest and back straps. Snaps on chest plate. I added elastic straps connected to the suspender system to snap the chest plate down. Here is the chest plate snapped to the suspenders. Back plate similar. Also snapped to the suspender system. Shoulders that connect the chest to the back are simple straps. I added a center snap in the opposite direction to connect the shoulder bells. So shoulders are now snapped. The shoulder straps are glued in the front and velcroed down in the back.

Strapping images. This on is the back plate. The sides are strapped to the ab plate with snaps. The bottom straps are elastic so I can pull it up like underwear and the top straps are standard strapping. You can also see two snaps in the center at the top of the back plate. These are for the suspender straps that go over my shoulders. The sides on the Commander armor are supposed to have rivets. So I riveted the snaps to the armor for the side straps. Chest plate also has snaps for suspender system. So with the suspenders snapped in it looks like this.

So strapping was fairly simple. I'll take a few pictures and post them in the morning. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Progress on the suit as a whole. It's starting to look pretty sweet. Now to tackle the ab buttons. The commander needs 5 buttons on the right and an inverted center panel. I wish I had gotten a picture of the 5 button strip mod I did. But I guess I forgot that one. I glued two pieces of plastic together to get the correct thickness and then used a dremel tool to mold it to match the 4 button strip receiver and glued it on top. I'll get a photo to show this mod. It worked out very well. I also need to get the strapping system photographed. But here is my test fit.

More chest modifications. I used AM armor for my visual reference on the new chest piece, however it's still to boxy. So I am cutting it down a little more.

More shots of the calves. I added the sniper plate. And finished. There are also some blemishes on the calves mostly from the glue's chemical reaction and warping the plastic a little. Again, Commander armor should be battle worn and I will take this as battle wear and make the best out of it. Ammo belt connected to thigh. And my finished thighs. I will sand the blemishes down a little so that they aren't so noticeable and then as I mentioned, blaster marks to make it work.

Lots of progress this weekend and the few weeks prior. So backing up a little here is the progress on the thigh armor. I had to cut down the AM armor thighs more than once. Looking at Panda's build he cut an inch off but I think I needed at least 2 inches. The AM armor is really tall in the thighs. So here I am using the overlap method even though the AM armor isn't correct. I will have to use a coverstrip on the back. And below is the ugliness that the heat gun caused as I bent the armor to take stress off of the return edge at the bottom toward the knee. That being so...I will make lemonade out of this and use the armor regardless and put a blast mark on on since I am doing Commander armor. And finally some new return edges at the top of the thighs. I will need to do some more smoothing. But looks pretty good.

Next up is the thigh armor. Let's see how many issues I have with the AM thighs and the overlap method.

So here is the front of the shin using the overlap method. And here is the back being fitted with a new overlap strip. You can see the molded overlap on the other side. It is so small now because of the large scale of the AM armor. I had to cut most of it off to fit my calves properly. Here is the finished strip on the right leg.

More work here. Calves. The AM armor is problematic for the overlap method because the back of the calf molded part faces the wrong direction. I went round and round with this in my head before asking Mark at CFO to send me a picture of the back of his calves armor. Here is a picture of the ROTJ calves from CFO. The overlap is supposed to face inward so that the velcro or hook closures do not show. And as you can see, the ROTJ armor is molded with the overlap facing the correct direction. And below are the AM armor calves. This photo needs some explanation for those who are as confused as I was. First it's hard to find images of the back of calves for ROTJ armor. And it took me a while scouring the forums here at whitearmor to find how the AM calves were molded. And it turns out I am not crazy, the AM armor calves are molded the wrong way as far as the closures go. The molded closures face outward not inward. The image below is taped with the overlap facing inward, the correct way, but you can see that there is no molded bump out. The bump out is underneath so if I used it as it is, then it would be backwards. In addition, the AM armor is for bigger people. My calves are about normal for the movie actors. So cutting these down to fit would remove most of the overlap at the closure regardless. So unfortunately the only option is to make my own cover strip and hope that the 501st guys accept the modification and still make Centurion.

And as far as changes, it depends if you want ESB or higher. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mark would be the best choice in my opinion. But the helmet needs to be an ANH version. You might be able to use Mark's if the dimensions are correct. Check with him. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here is a helmet I did that sold recently. This is the BX helmet first edition. (My own custom molds) I am on edition 3 based on centurion feedback. Basically the changes to the new model are the tear shape, mouth width, tube width. All geared toward getting Centurion Status and matching screen lineage much closer. However, weathering, paint color will be similar to this. I am thinking that I will round out the point at the vocoder, more like the screen capture above.

Making a few more adjustments for the shoulder bells before I cut them. I am going to match the inside curve of the arm cut outs for the chest and back plates. This will make things match up a little better and give it a more sleek, less blocky look. More like screen captures from the game. See the image below. Contours are similar for arm cuts and bell curves.

Shoulder Bells....need to trim them up to look like the video game a little more. The shape in my opinion is not as square as the ROTJ armor. So I am going to contour them as the pencil lines show.

On to forearms. Everything has been trimmed down to 15mm and the overlap method used to connect the two sides. The wrist return edges have been trimmed off completely per the Centurion specs. I need to do some more sanding for the side joint to get it a little flatter. I had to do some mods with a flat iron. The back side of the bicep is only trimmed on the inside of the arm.

Having to back up. The bicep armor according to the 501'st description must be an overlap constructed piece. You won't find the requirement under biceps however, it is actually under the shoulder armor heading. UGH!!!! hey 501st...you have an error on your site. I did let them know. It's still not fixed. So I will go back and pull new biceps eventually. For now I am going with it on a non-centurion build....this being the only hiccup keeping me from centurion.

I know this is a fairly old post...but one question I had is the thermal detonator sides. The insides of the cups also look grey. Any takers on this point? And it also looks to me like the bicep armor has more of a butt joint look than an overlap.

Ok...Here is version 3.0. I have gotten verification that the helmet will meet EIB all day long....but after getting input from Steve I have made additional modifications so that the helmet can be considered for Centurion Status. Steve said changes look good, but of course until someone actually takes the plung there is no guarantee. I will try this with my own build which is in progress and let everyone know. So changes so far include: changed the tear shape, widened the mouth area, changed the height of the earbud stripe bar and made the face mold deeper to lengthen the distance of the earbud to the tear.

Ugh....kids can be so mean. Who doesn't like Star Wars? You guys are awesome.