Sly11

Congratulations Dave.

That does look better. Great work on this build best of luck with your approval.

You have our support.

Hi Mark, Thank you for sharing this here on FISD! Sure looks shiny and white now, and best of luck for your daughter joining us in the 501st. Make sure she joins in on our newly formed womens forum here called Vaders Valkyries, we would love to have her onboard.

I am overjoyed that members are finally getting what they paid for all those years ago. Redemption at last and thank the maker.

I wish more GML's were like you Kyle. Detachments are ultimately here to help members get approved from the ground up, but it makes all the difference when a GML understand that and wants to work with us and their members to get the best result for everyone. Sadly, there are GCO's out there that don't care what the GML or any detachments say about a costume and or CRL they just override the GML ignore the CRL's, and approve anything. Yep, that is happening out there.

You can also use Testors Semi-Gloss primer Spray enamel, I've painted a few TD's using this and it was a very close match to the frown and traps but also similar to some of the decal kits you can buy. Comes in a 3oz spray pack (85grams).

This is awesome Caleb lol.

Lol, or a disco Fett good point.

Welcome aboard Luciano, great to see you are on your way to becoming a TK. Some nice clean trimming there, well done so far.

Slowly working my way to shaping the eyes and teeth. need to trim more away and round the top right corner of the right eye and i have plenty of material there still to remove and accomplish this. Also allowed extra material on the teeth to further refine those. Sunday afternoon sun shines in making the helmet look cream in colour.

I always like to have some reference available when working on a project. As you can see on the monitor, i used our FISD Gallery to peruse several Hero helmets and look for the details I liked the best. Personally I find it a great way to start, specially when looking to mark out pencil trim lines. Here the teeth have had single holes drilled so I can get in there with the tip of the scalpel and trim enough out to then use the files. I do also sand the back of these areas, which on the inside of the face plate are high points. Just enough to make the material thinner and it makes your first cuts easier. This is slow and careful work of course. The other material you see the below image is excess material trimmed off from the sides of the face plate. Helpful hint: Keep your scraps of ABS, it may come in hand to do minor repairs on your armour or helmet build if you intend to troop in them. It can be used as backing reinforcement or trimmed into small scraps to make ABS past to repair potential cracks in thin areas or even the minor mishap during your build. Moving on to the eye sockets, you can drill a series of holes around the inside of the socket, making sure to stay away from your pencil marks. The idea is to use those marks as your safe zone, stay inside of them and that also give you the room to then replicate a specific look if you decide to base your build on a helmet seen on screen that you really like. Take note of the scalpel cuts and how they are purposely angled inwards away from the pencil lines. This prevents you slipping into an area you don't wish to cut/damage so always cut away from those surfaces. You will only cut into the material you are removing and feel much more confident in doing so. Trimmed with plenty of material left for shaping. I used the scalpel to shave away excess, and filed any sharp bits to get to this point. Once i get closer to my pencil lines it will be time to sand with 120 and 200 grit. When close to finishing I'll change to a fine grade paper.

Some of the basic tools I will be using for this build. Now I do have a Dremel which I may use for some of the larger areas and quick sanding, but I like to do most of the work manually and take my time. Things one can't do without. 1. 2B lead pencil, good for marking cut lines, easy to see easy to rub off when done. 2.Various sized drill bits but generally I run with a 2 or 2.5mm bit. I can fit these into the handle of my scalpel and gently drill by hand in areas that are tight, or add it to my Dremel to speed up when needed. 3. A good heavy duty box cutter, sharp blades are a must, this particular one has a lock off knob on the back side so the blades wont slip. 4. My trusty scalpel, would not be without this and spare blades as it is great for close to the line minor trimming work. 5. Lexan scissors, these have a curved blade which I find comes in very handy for curve work. They cut through ABS easily even the thicker 2mm sheets. 6. Mini or needle file kit. Lots of small different shaped files for tight spot detail work, an absolute must. As you can see my pouch is full of ABS dust lol, these get used quite a bit on various projects. 7. Optional but great for large area rough trimming. stay away from your cut lines if you are inexperienced cutting ABS, you don't want to over trim or risk cutting into something you don't want to.

Recently I received a BBB (Big brown Box) from CTPG Chris the Prop guy. This is from Anon molds which for those unaware have have lineage back to original. This is the cleaned up version modified to Hero from the Stunt molds Chris now owns. Obligatory BBB Image. Inside, on inspection all parts accounted for and in perfect shape.

Welcome back Joseph.

Exciting times ahead

Nice clean build Matt, should be an easy pass.

Awesome photos coming in ladies!! thank you for sharing.

Welcome to FISD Vinny, looks like you are in good hands here already.

Our pleasure to assist where we can AB Our pleasure to assist where we can AB. I believe you have every reason to be concerned, R1 team where very proud of how they evolved the new gen style kit specially to meet the needs of high definition filmography. I am reasonably positive we would have found information by now if there were old school TK kits used, as even behind the scenes imagery shows crew in New gen style kit. They have quite distinctive elements that set them apart easily when you can look at them side by side. As Chris mentions, provenance is always a good indicator of legitimate items when it comes to movie props, so if they can supply any, it gives us another step off point to further investigate. I will add that maybe just maybe it could have been someone in the background, or even in a scene that was deleted so ended up on the cutting room floor, but Shepperton Design had nothing to do with the new armour, and AA is a dubious individual as well. Lost a court case on his claims in the US courts, but somehow managed to weasel out of it in the UK. Not a vendor we recommend or promote as his armour isn't as accurate as others available.

Maybe you could have simply edited it rather than point it out and derail the post

Welcome to FISD ED! Rubber gloves are generally only for higher levels of approval, many wear NOMEX gloves for trooping instead which are fine for basic 501st approval. As to sizing, yes you can indeed mod your armour to improve walking. Mobility cuts on the rear similar to what they actually did for the films is definitely permissible, but if parts are too long then you can trim them down. Thighs you would trim from the top, Calves you would trim from the bottom if that makes sense. Perhaps if you can add some photos we can give some better advice as well, but check out this gallery below Bubble lenses are notoriously difficult to see through with little are to focus through, which is par for the course with Hero TK buckets in general. Stunt lenses are easier for sure. you mention keeping the colour the same, but what i can tell you from experience is ABS does change colour from batch to batch even from the same producer, so there is no guarantee the next SDS helmet will be a match unless it is made from the same batch of plastic.

Greetings all We have a competition running to design a new forum banner that sits atop of our forums. Some bragging rights for the lucky winner, but see full details in below link.

Welcome to FISD Thomas, looks like you are on your way to becoming one of us! Look forward to seeing your build thread and eventual approval as a TK.

You are doing an excellent job on this build Daryl, the finish line is drawing closer, so keep up the stellar work