Astyanax

Nicholas, from what I understand here, there are a number of ways to shorten armor to fit you. A half-inch here, a quarter inch there. Some people have tall torsos and short legs, some have vice versa. It seems the key is repeated fitting and only taking off a bit at a time. You'll find the right balance of where to trim as you go. All the pieces can be trimmed, on both ends. I've seen build threads with calves and forearms and thighs and biceps trimmed as needed here and there. Following the CRLs, and more importantly, not inferring a rule where there is none (11 dimples vs. 12 in a forearm, for example) is key to getting approved. I really suggest you start reading build threads while you're waiting for the armor. They are really enlightening. I try to read a full thread every 2-3 days while I wait for mine. It's like taking a free class course in this stuff. FISD should really charge for access to build threads. 501st-ers, please keep me honest here. Have I captured it correctly? Bill

Hey, you RS experts especially, can you tell Jay Jay what to look for so he can zero in on that aspect?

18. HELMET (Step 1) Bucket time! This part turned out to be a much bigger project than I expected. I tried lots of things, ruined a helmet, started over, tried more, and ended up with something pretty nice. I’ll spare you the grief of it all and skip the mistakes. To make this flow better I decided to break this up into three posts. Step 1: Basic helmet structure and rank tips on the ears. Step 2: Adding curvature to the back and smoothing out the details. Step 3: Finishing. Step 2 can be skipped; it all depends on how much work you want to put into it. For me, this was my first experience with Bondo, so nothing in Step 2 should be beyond anyone. I have zero experience in sculpting or bonding with these materials, but you'll get a much better helmet if you consider it. Let’s dive in! As mentioned before, I purchased the following: Stormtrooper 1/2 PVC Mask (Standard) - $10.75 from Amazon Child’s Space Helmet - $6.50 from Amazon The mask is unusually wide, and the helmet is unusually narrow and small. This worked to my advantage, because the hard shape of the helmet forced the mask to narrow a bit, and cutting out the chin section of the helmet (see below) allowed it to relax and widen a little. My son has a large head for his age, so I needed at least a little wiggle room in there. This combination worked perfectly. The brow ridge, teeth, hovi tips, traps, and chin are painted on. The tears and tube stripes are lame stickers. I'm discarding all of that so I can paint the whole thing the same white as the armor. New stickers will be printed on clear address labels in Step 3. Looking inside the half mask, you can see that there’s a black mesh covering the eyes. This will be perfect for the teeth holes! There are also two round holes in the front two teeth, and there is a larger hole above the chin. I removed all the stickers and cleaned up the residue (there wasn't much). I did not save the stickers, as I have a better solution for details later, so throw those things out! I then removed all the internal pieces from the mask and carefully removed the visor from the helmet, resulting in these parts: While I’d like to say the visor material was useful for the eyes, it wasn’t. The green is just too light and pale and thick. Hard to work with. Next, I cut the chin off the helmet using my dremel. You can use an x-acto blade here if you’re careful, but the plastic really wants to crack. I overdid it and had to buy another helmet. Good thing they're cheap! The brow ridge of the mask comes out from the mask, so this provided a good cutting line for taking off the top of the mask. I cut along the line where the ridge rejoins the dome at the top (above the painted strip), using scissors. I also carefully cut out the teeth using a fresh x-acto blade. The technique here was to poke a tooth in its corner, and lightly use a sawing motion in the direction I wanted to go. Don’t go too far! Once I cut one edge of the tooth, I came at it from the other end. Be gentle and saw. Then, I cut an elliptical piece of leftover plastic from the dome of the mask, and super-glued it over the chin hole. I had to hold it firmly on the mask a couple minutes while the superglue cured, because the plastic piece will need to curve a little in order to lay down on the hole evenly. You can see here that the hole is nicely covered: It was time to do some test fitting. I realized that the brow ridge of the mask pretty nicely butts up against the top line of the visor ridge on the helmet, leaving some small gaps. Not too bad. Only problem was that the helmet’s visor opening didn’t go far enough to the left and right, so out came the dremel again. You can see below the section that was trimmed back from the dotted line: It was pretty easy to see where to cut, because the frame of the helmet's visor opening was drooping down, covering the mask's eyes during test fitting. After this, I spent over a week trying to figure out how to attach the mask to the helmet. GLUE DOES NOT WORK! I tried super glue, hot glue, silicone, E6000, none of it worked, because the mask is constantly trying to pull away from the helmet, and you can’t really clamp it well without risking damaging the mask. I finally came to realize I would have to bolt the mask onto the helmet. I did a test fitting with some sharp wood screws. Because the helmet is very hard plastic, a pilot hole was necessary to be drilled first, and then the screw held it nicely. After LOTS of test positioning, I screwed it in on one side, and then pulled it over really firmly to the other side, marking where I would need to put my other pilot hole. It’s not 100% perfectly matched on both sides, but I came pretty close. The helmet is not perfectly symmetrical, but it does the job. (How about that! Asymmetry!) I want to stress here that if you're following along, you will need to pull that mask ridiculously tight along the brow before screwing in the other side. If you do not, some gaps may form along the top of the brow because helmet is so narrow. I encountered this and had to correct it later with glue (see below), but if you get this pulled tight now, it makes life easier later. Here’s a closeup of one of the sides. Notice that I cut a notch out of the brow ridge. This was to fit the plastic circles that will comprise the ears. Don’t follow my picture exactly, as every ear circle will be different, and I did not cut this notch until my ear circles were ready. It even turned out to be necessary to notch my brow ridges a little differently on each side. Notice also that I smashed the mask’s circle edges down and tightly as I could. I plan to cover these circles with circles of my own, and need as much clearance as possible. For the ear circles, I went shopping at my local dollar store for cheap storage bowls, and settled on these: It’s a good thing I had extra, because this plastic wants to crack. First thing I did was to sand off the lettering and logos on the bottom. Then I cut the bottoms off, about 3/16â€, giving me this: How deep to cut the bowl depends on its size. I cut very shallow, did a test fit, then cut deeper, test fit, and so on. Every situation will be different. I chose my bowl size by making sure to get one large enough to cover the helmet's old rivets. A couple pro tips on the process for this. Before cutting, I marked a line all the way around. I was able to draw this evenly by holding a Sharpie marker in one position, propped up on something just a bit, and holding the bowl up against it, rotating the bowl slowly, letting the bowl do the marking, and not moving the Sharpie at all. Secondly, for cutting, these bowls are brittle and want to split down the middle. So I used scissors and made a spiral cut from the outside, working my way closer and close in a circular cut, till coming into contact with my line at a VERY shallow angle. I lost two bowls before I got a clue! Dremel is no good here; the cheap plastic melts too easily. At least for my bowls. It was time to bolt on the mask. I picked up the following screws, washers, nuts, and lock (split) washers from Home Depot: These are #8-32 threads, and the screws are 3/8" in length. I really wanted shorter screws, but it’s a good thing I couldn’t find any. I needed that full 3/8†length just to get it on the helmet! Going with 1/2" would have been too long, as my son would have felt the screws, so I would have needed to cut the tips of the screws off. Not easy inside a helmet. Nope, 3/8" was perfect. After drilling small holes through the ear circles, I removed one screw only from the helmet, drilled a larger bolt hole where the screw hole was, and put it all on in this order from the inside: 1. screw 2. lock washer 3. helmet 4. mask 5. ear circle 6. flat washer 7. nut The nut was the last thing on the outside. Believe it or not, it was very difficult to get all this on such a short screw, so take your time. This is what resulted: See why that notch in the brow ridge is so necessary? Be sure to cut off too little at a time with the x-acto knife. I cut a little too much my first time, and ended up having more to fill with Bondo later. I repeated for the other side. At this point, I realized that attaching the mask in this way caused a left and right gap 2" long along the top of the brow ridge where the mask comes into contact with the helmet. I was able to correct this using E6000 glue (silicone works as well). I glued one side at a time, using two small spring clamps THROUGH THE EYE of the mask, one from the inside of the helmet and one from the outside. The nature of this kind of glue allowed me to make corrections and adjustments (and to wipe up excess). I applied the glue from inside the helmet, attaching one clamp closer to the outside of the eye first. Then, I repeated the process toward the middle of the mask. I'm so sorry I do not have a picture of this part, but here's a poor Photoshop attempt to illustrate: I don't remember which clamp was on the inside and which on the outside, so if you need to close up these gaps, do what works best for you. This has to dry overnight. Even after gluing, the gap won't be 100% closed, but it will definitely be close enough, and you can choose to fill more with Bondo or caulk later if you want. This gap can be minimized significantly if you pulled the mask back far enough on the sides along the brow when you originally bolted it on. My bolting locations are not necessarily ideal; maybe I should have tried a couple bolt holes farther back on the helmet. For the rank bumps on the ears, I cut two rectangles from thin foam at 5/8†x 1â€, and two of the same size from thick foam. The little strips are about 1/2†x 1/8â€. In the center of each piece of the thick foam I punched a hole about 1/4†or so in diameter. This is to fit over the nut on the outside. I recommend going a little too large for the hole, so it will lay down on the ear better. I white glued them together, layering the thin foam onto the thick foam, and then the strips. The easy way to apply the strips is to cover the thin foam layer completely with a thin layer of white glue, then put the strips on. Then I moved them around until they looked right. Okay, that’s it for Step 1. If you’re following along and want to keep things simple, you can silicone or E6000 the ear blocks onto the circles now, and skip ahead to Step 3. You’ll have a perfectly serviceable helmet. If you’re as nuts as I am and want to push the envelope a little and/or fill some gaps, keep the ear blocks off and move on to the next step. As you’ll see, it makes for a much better bucket. I’ll post it tomorrow or Sunday. Thanks for reading, and thanks again everyone for the kind words and cheerleading. Bill

It's not very rigid, but holds its shape pretty well. Somewhat flexible, but not as flexible as the foam was. It is subject to cracking if you're too hard on it, like trying to squash an armor piece. It also has kind of a hard surface now, so it looks very plastic. Also, try to spray in humidity that is below 50%. That seemed to make a big difference in how shiny the final glaze sheen came out. You'll get better rigidity and protection from the fiberglass, but on the other hand, probably sacrifice flexibility. This thing does not cause armor bite. My son has worn it for 20+ minutes on three occasions now, and as long as he walks slowly and doesn't try to play hard in it, he's fine. But it will not be nearly as durable as fiberglass. You might consider a test piece? A bicep is quick and easy to do. Hope that helps! Bill

17. BELT Click here for the belt pattern (1.09 MB JPG) Click here for the holster pattern (1.35 MB JPG) This is a long one. The belt was a welcome change of pace from all the armor, and it can obviously be done at any stage in this project. I found myself working on armor pieces, belt, and helmet all at the same time, because there is lots of waiting for white glue to dry. I need to point out here that I made a huge mistake in this process that did not come to light until after my son was wearing the armor for awhile: the straps that hold the drop boxes and holster onto the belt will tear very easily. The solution to this is to coat the straps with white glue and paint them BEFORE gluing them to the belt! The pictures show those straps on too early, so for anyone who's following along, please read carefully! Or, you can use cloth straps instead. Hot glue sticks really well to all these materials. So as you can see from the pattern, the belt plate is in two pieces, so I printed, cut, and taped them together to form a longer strip. The ammo boxes are two layers each of thick foam, and I used the same process as the back plate to produce some nice thick cubes. The rest of the parts are made out of the thin foam. Here's everything cut out and laid out for gluing. The layers are glued together using white glue. I cut extra rectangles for the ammo boxes, so I could pick the ones that layer together most cleanly. Just like for the back plate, I cut strips for the sides of the ammo boxes out of card stock. Each ammo box is 1" wide by 2-1/2" high, so that means each ammo box needed two 12mm x 2-1/2" strips and two 12mm x 1" strips. Here's a bunch of them cut out: I white glued them to the sides of each ammo box cube. (I should point out here that if you find a nylon/poly belt material that is anything other than 2" in width, you will need to adjust this whole pattern! My belt plate is a half inch wider than the belt itself, by design.) Again, like the back plate, I wrapped white electrical tape around the cubes about two times. Because I went with two layers of thick foam and not three, I had a bunch of excess tape around all the sides. I made sure that the edge of the tape lines up nicely with the topside of each ammo box, and that the excess was at the underside. Then, on the underside, I pushed it down and pinched the corners. I cut off the excess on the corners using a brand new x-acto blade. It slices through just like butter! I then hot glued the completed ammo boxes onto the belt strip, using my printout as a guide. On to the drop boxes. I am not providing a pattern here for them, because it's not necessary. I just cut two layers of thick foam for each drop box, at 4" x 2-1/4" in size. I white glued the two layers together and used the very same card stock strips and electrical tape method as for the ammo boxes. There are no differences at all. The card stock strips are 4" x 12mm for each long side, and 2-1/4" x 12mm for each short side. In the case of the drop boxes, it was also necessary to cover the undersides, since they kind of hang freely, so I used three overlapped strips of white electrical tape to cover them. I used the x-acto knife to trim the excess. All straps for this belt are 3" long by 1/2" wide. You can see here that I went ahead and hot glued them on. That was a mistake. I should have coated them with white glue and painted them BEFORE attaching them to the drop boxes. Or fashioned cloth straps. A piece of sew-on white loop velcro, hot glued on, probably would have been better. But anyway, you can see here how it looks: After white gluing together the belt buttons and attaching them to the belt plate, this is what I had so far: For the belt itself, I found some nice polypro belting material at Jo-Ann at 2" thick. I bought about six feet so I had extra to play with. I think it was about $4-$5 per yard. After measuring my son, I cut the poly to about 29". I gave myself 2-3 extra inches from my initial measurement, because this belt will be adjustable via velcro. I used a lighter to quickly cauterize the frayed edges where I cut. Works like a charm! Next, I cut two strips of 4" white sew-on loop velcro and two 2" strips of white sew-on hook velcro, and hot glued them on. Sorry for the blurry pic. Here's a close-up: The hot glue holds like a champ. The idea here is that the belt is adjustable by overlapping the hook side wherever I need to, over the loop side. Remember to flip the belt when doing the opposite side! For the holster, I went with black thin foam. I printed the holster pattern full-size and removed the part with an "X" on it. It's okay if the printer cuts off a little bit, just go off the edge when cutting it out. The holster was designed to fit an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper perfectly. I traced this out onto the black foam and cut it out. Then, I wrapped the left side over to the right side in the direction of the arrow in the pattern and hot glued the seam on the right, lining the edges up carefully. (Please note, this holster is too small to hold pretty much anything. It's proportionally kid-sized and is just for looks.) Once again, I made the mistake of attaching the two 1/2" x 3" straps before they were coated and painted. Don't make that mistake! Consider the leftover black elastic from the shoulder bells or hot glue some black loop velcro! The long strip down the middle is 1/2" x 10" long. I used scissors freehand to give it the pointed tip, and used hot glue by eye to attach it to the holster. This is what it looked like: Finishing time! For the belt, I did the usual finishing of white glue, white gloss enamel, and clear glaze. For the holster, I purchased black Flexi-Dip and black satin enamel. Once everything was dry, I attached it all to the poly belt using hot glue. Here's a semi-closeup: Note that the belt plate is a little wider than the belt. This is intentional. As it turns out, the holster did wrap around to the back a little, but it's not as far back as you might think, as you'll see in finished pictures later. I know I've said it four times, but if you're following me, be sure to treat the drop box and holster straps like individual entities, and don't hot glue them on their parent parts until they are reinforced or finished! I'll start posting the helmet build hopefully tomorrow. It's the biggie. Enjoy! (I have updated the materials list to include the black stuff and electrical tape.) Bill

Hey, you guys who have worked with different armor materials, does the switch to high-grade PVC affect how you cut the armor when you're trimming? Does the score-and-snap method work with this material? Thanks! Bill

I'm afraid that's just a Photoshopped pic of the white one...

Can someone help me understand the excitement around the shadow trooper? I have a hard-time shelling out a bunch of money for something that is non-canon, unless I have 2-3 other costumes under my belt first. An Anovos TK will be my first.

Agreed Tomas. The tenor of GotMaul's communications on the RPF seem to come across as more of a "don't ask, don't tell" nature. There doesn't seem to be a desire to actively go after anyone, and I'd bet money that the independent armorers will still be able to function for a long while. Rubie's was licensed, and they didn't incite Lucasfilm to go after anyone. I get the impression GotMaul knows how this all happened, and he knows that this is all meant for the betterment of everyone. As soon as we squash those pesky Rebels, that is. Bill

Jinx!

GotMaul posted another follow-up to a question, and I particularly noticed this (the emphasis is mine): Better follow that thread if you want any more details on this matter! Bill

I'm inclined to go with this line of thought as well. They have to know this will be under the magnifying glass at SDCC, thus giving the entire community a chance to pull their orders. Can't wait to hear the report back from knowledgeable folks! With the utmost respect to TM, it will be hard to accept opinions on this armor as being completely unbiased (even if they truly are), when they come from actual armor makers. There's a conflict of interest built right in to this situation that can't be overlooked. I hope that we can remember that we're all here to help each other out, to build each other up. Bill

Sorry it took me so long to post this next step, but I wanted to finish the armor before the Vincent's birthday so he could "troop" at his party, and I was able to do it! Over the next few days I'll be posting the rest of the steps I went through to finish this up. The verdict? People were really impressed and I'm very happy with the result, but Vincent's range of motion was a bit limited. Like a real trooper. It's all about the lower legs. But he was happy and it was a success. Let's move on. 16. LOWER LEGS Click here for the left inner lower leg pattern (1.27 MB JPG) Click here for the left outer lower leg pattern (1.43 MB JPG) Click here for the right outer lower leg pattern (1.27 MB JPG) Click here for the right inner lower leg pattern (1.44 MB JPG) Click here for the lower leg "knee plate" pattern (809 KB JPG) Click here for the lower leg "cover strips" patterns (1.52 MB JPG) (these are model's left/right) The lower legs had a surprisingly large number of pieces, and they turned out to be probably THE most important piece of armor in terms of sizing. If the lower legs are too long, walking becomes very difficult. Better to go too short! Similar to how the thighs were constructed, I taped the inner and outer printouts together and traced and cut them out of the thin foam. I used the strips pattern to cut and trace the strips. I then white glued it all together. Here is the right lower leg as properly laid out: The lower leg armor is the only extremity armor that does not slip onto the child. It closes using velcro in the back. Do note that the upper cover strip comes short on one side, so as to allow for the overlap when you close the armor around the leg. For the right leg, I did the same with the main armor piece, but I did NOT glue on the cover strips just yet. The knee plate needed to be done first. Next, I traced and cut out the knee plate parts. Notice that it's done as separate "wings" around the center plate. I did this for two reasons: so that it would roll more easily, and so that there would be a clearly defined seam, giving it that "diamond" shape. This is all done in thin foam. I glued these parts together as three completed pieces: When the knee plate parts had dried (not before), I assembled and white glued all the strips and knee plate parts onto the lower leg armor, like this: Here is a behind view of this part, so you can see how the knee plate overlap looked from inside the armor: Next, I heat-formed the armor pieces around a rolling pin to make them easier to work with. When this happened, the corners of the knee plate "wings" came loose, so I used hot glue to secure them. This resulted in a far more pronounced seam between those three parts! Then, I attached white stick-on velcro to the non-cover-stripped back seam, using three pieces of 2" velcro, cut down the middle to make them thinner. Notice that I left the backing on until I was ready to fully seal the piece. It helped them stay lined up. Now you can see my seam problem. It's not much of a problem unless you're picky, but I had that new paintable caulk handy (see caulking edits in posts #2 and #13 above), and sealed the seams. Before... After... It's not the best caulking job, but the paint was very forgiving later. Next, I applied the usual finishes (stood them up, closed, on wine bottles!), and it was done! Tomorrow or the next day I will try to post the belt. Bill

15. THIGHS Click here for the left inner thigh pattern (1.65 MB JPG) Click here for the left outer thigh pattern (1.59 MB JPG) Click here for the right outer thigh pattern (1.57 MB JPG) Click here for the right inner thigh pattern (1.51 MB JPG) Click here for the thigh "parts" pattern (1.93 MB JPG) (these are model's left/right) Making the thighs was very similar to making the bicep and forearms, so for the most part, I will let the pictures do the talking. The biggest difference here is that each thigh is different from the other, and the "cover strips" need to be considered accordingly. This is why I made sure there are cover strips available on their own pattern page for laying out properly. Also, I decided not to worry about leg contours (calf shape, etc.), as it will be barely noticeable and not worth the extra effort. If you're mean with a heat gun, good luck! I'm not. So, to make a thigh, I printed, cut out, and taped together the "inner" and "outer" parts of each thigh, and then traced them onto the foam for layout. Here's an example: As you can see above, I also show how the cover strip for the bottom of the thigh lays on the main pattern (the longest cover strip is for the right thigh). You don't want the bottom cover strip getting in the way of the dotted line area, because that's where the overlap happens when the thigh is closed. Also, there is no closure mechanism necessary here, because the thighs slide up my son's leg no problem. Completely sealed is fine. This picture shows the vertical cover strips added on the left thigh only. Again, notice how the bottom cover strip does not go all the way to the left side. This is for the overlap. Then, similar to biceps and forearms, I used white glue, with large popsicle sticks and spring clamps to hold it in place while it dried. For the right thigh, I glued on all the cover strips BEFORE working on the strap with ammo boxes. I kept it flat while I glued on the strap. As shown before, cutting the paper version of the pattern to help align the ammo boxes makes a huge difference while positioning. The ammo boxes themselves were cut out of the thick foam. This is the only use of thick foam on these parts. Once the ammo box strap had dried, I glued it to the bottom of the right thigh, attaching directly to the already-completed bottom cover strip. And, after using the same clamp and popsicle stick technique, I had two thighs ready for finishing. These were finished using the same technique as for all parts, so I won't go into detail here. After the thighs are dry and the clamps removed, a quick pass with the heat gun doesn't hurt at all, but is not necessary. For strapping, I used the very same technique as the rest of the parts: one inch pieces of black stick-on hook velcro, positioned at the same points as the vertical cover strips (front only), with 3"-4" pieces of black sew-on loop velcro to serve as the actual straps. EDIT: DO NOT USE STRAPS FOR THE BACKS OF THE THIGHS! Disregard that part of my pictures. The leg stretches too much and there is a ripping sound with every step. Front straps were quite sufficient. Before using a one-inch piece of black stick-on hook velcro to attach to the cod plate and posterior plates, I test fit everything on my son and only removed the sticky backing of those past pieces as I was ready to attach them to the cod plate and posterior plate. It helped to make sure that the front vertical cover strips were not directly to the front, but that the thighs were rotated a little so that the front cover strips were pointed outward a little. Even then, there is a little overlap with the cod plate, but perfectly acceptable. (I still think I maybe should have taken another inch off the kidney plate, but I think I'll let it slide for growing into. ) EDIT: After watching Vincent try to walk around in this, I decided to extend the rear thigh straps to about 6"-7" remove the rear thigh straps completely. It works perfectly well only attached in front to the cod plate. I might even remove them entirely, as they restrict movement a bit. Hope that all made sense! Lower legs next! Bill

14. COD PLATE & POSTERIOR PLATE Click here for the right cod plate pattern (1.13 MB JPG) Click here for the left cod plate pattern (1.13 MB JPG) Click here for the posterior plate pattern (1.45 MB JPG) (these are model's left/right) For these two parts, there's really nothing new going on, so I will blow through this pretty fast. One item of note is that these pieces do not connect to anything on the sides; they are anchored solely to their upper plates (the ab plate and kidney) and optionally attached to each other at the crotch. One other thing to remind you is that it is very likely you will need to adjust the height of these (probably the posterior plate for sure) to match your child. For the cod plate, I taped the two patterns together, traced and cut like normal. The center strip and cod cover piece are done with the thinner foam. For the posterior plate, once again I traced and cut like normal. The overlay plate is done with the thicker (6mm) foam, so as to match the center piece on the kidney plate. Next, I did a little heat forming, just to get some curvature around the sides and center. I just ran the heat over the side, set the gun down, and held it in a curved position while blowing on it to cool it quickly. Again, this helps keep the glue finish from cracking, and really makes a difference when putting it on. After this, it was the usual finish: 3 coats of white glue 2-3 hours apart, followed by 3 coats each of Plastidip, gloss white, and clear glaze, each 10 minutes apart. For attaching to the upper plates, I used 1" pieces of black stick on hook velcro attached to three points at the top of each piece and at their corresponding points on the upper plates, and a half-inch piece of the same stuff at the bottom attachment points. To connect it all, I used 1"-2" pieces of black sew-on (non-sticky) loop velcro. Notice that the plate edges butt up against each other all the way; there is no gap. For the crotch, I used a 4" piece of the sew-on loop velcro, leaving about a 3" gap there. Done with the body armor! Next post will be thighs. Enjoy! Bill

Thanks guys so much for the words of encouragement. Next post coming in a few minutes! Bill

As a buyer of this kit, I just received the following email. I would be interested to hear any feedback the rest of you can provide on this. With a follow-up like this, it seems that Anovos is quite interested (dare I say desperate) to make sure that all their buyers (who are probably 95% 501st prospects) are happy with their progress. I may be naive, but I'm pretty encouraged by an update like this. Enjoy! Bill

Probably not going to be an issue for general admission to 501st, but for anything more, ANH must be ANH.

From everything I have researched and come to understand over the last couple months, TK boots is worth waiting for...

13. THERMAL DETONATOR Click here for the thermal detonator pattern (1.85 MB JPG) I needed a change of pace from armor, so I turned my attention to the thermal detonator. After looking at different plastic containers, I decided that most of them were too big, so I settled on...a toilet paper roll! So the first thing I did here was cut the two long strips on the left of the pattern. These wrap around the ends of the toilet paper roll and can be glued with white glue. I used large popsicle sticks and spring clips to help them hold their shape while the glue dried, similar to what was done with the forearms and biceps. Next, the two circles form the ends of the caps. They can be white glued on with a healthy portion of glue. They'll become more secure when I cover the whole thing with white glue. I then cut the rectangle to form the base for the "control pad". The "top" note in the pattern indicates the top of the thermal detonator, so it is positioned properly. I did try to heat form the rectangle around a spare toilet paper roll to help it hold its shape while the glue dried, but caused the foam strips to expand; it's not worth it. Just hold it for a few moments. As you can see, I also used hair bands to hold the rectangle in place. Don't leave the hair bands on there fore more than 10-20 minutes, because they do leave imprints in the foam! Then, it was time to glue on the control pad buttons and circle. In my pattern, I did not draw the interior circle of the ring, because it can be punched out with a hole punch, if you have a sharp one. Mine wasn't so sharp, and the hole came out a little deformed, but it really didn't matter. This next photo shows how I positioned everything relative to the seams on the back, because we want those hidden. I consulted pictures of thermal detonators to try and locate the rectangle just right, but I don't think it has to be perfect. Time for finishing!. This got the usual: 3 coats of white glue 2-3 hours apart, followed by 3 coats each of Plastidip, gloss white, and clear glaze, each 10 minutes apart. To do each coat in one go, I punched two small holes in the back of the thermal detonator, and used two wooden chopsticks stuck in a styrofoam base to hold it up for painting. I wish I had thought of this before I did the white glue! It got a little messy before I figured this out. For the gray coloring, there was lots of Testor's gray modeling paint left over from the ab buttons, so I very carefully brush painted a single coat on the whole thing. It did not take much paint at all, and I didn't really need to mask off the white parts. The trick is to leave a dab of paint on the cardboard roll near an edge, and then use the paintbrush to "push" the paint right up to the edge. The three-dimensionality of the foam is very forgiving if the lines aren't perfect. After 5-6 hours of dry time, I sprayed on 2 more coats of clear glaze, and this was the result: For clipping to the belt, I picked up a thin metal roasting pan. These are available at the local dollar store, as well as pretty much every grocery store anywhere. They're usually $1-$2 each. I picked up two just in case, and because I wanted to use only the smooth metal surface in the middle of my pans. It can probably be flattened, but at a buck apiece, why bother? Using the pattern, I cut out the two clips, and folded them down the middle to give them extra strength. Be careful, the metal is sharp! A pencil really works well to score the metal for folding, Use a pencil! After this, I carefully cut some rounded corners with scissors, for safety reasons. This metal is sharp! I scored the metal again (using a sharp pencil) for folding the middle, and rounded one side for sticking to the cardboard roll. It doesn't have to be perfect here. And for gluing, I used HOT glue this time. I tried E6000 and a couple other things, but they all failed because of the thick paint layer. Hot glue is your friend here. All done! Notice the positioning of the clips relative to the foam seams on the back. The edges of the metal are not so sharp, thanks to the double layering. Wow, that was a lot of pictures and descriptions! I expected this piece to be more simple than it turned out to be, but talk about your low, low budget! Yes, the finished product is just a bit small, even for a child, but I really like it. If you are concerned about length, you can always go with a longer paper towel roll cut to size, and add a longer control pad with more bumps. Yes, this does also make for a fairly fragile thermal detonator, but we'll see how it goes. I am now moving on to the cod plate and posterior plate. Bill

12. KIDNEY PLATE & MORE TORSO ASSEMBLY Click here for the kidney plate pattern (1.13 MB JPG) PLEASE NOTE: After taking all my pictures and making a couple more test fittings for this piece, I came to the conclusion that my kidney plate was more than an inch too tall. I made a couple adjustments to what I think now is a good pattern. I also cut down my built kidney plate by that much, so future photos should look more proportional. The pattern attached to this post, I feel, is the good one. But every kid is different! When printing out this particular pattern, the ends will be cut off. That's no problem, this pattern is exactly 11" wide, so if you're following my build, just continue your cuts right off the edges of the page. And yes, I notched. The main plate is cut from thin (2mm) foam, and the rectangle in the middle is cut from thick (6mm) foam. I used the edge of the printout to help me align my center piece during white-gluing. After this, I heat formed the sides just a little to give them a curve. Please don't be intimidated by this step; it's quite easy. I just heated the end without getting too close by running the gun up and down the end, then sat the gun down, and held it curved while I blew on it. Took 30 seconds. There's no inner curvature, I just rolled the ends a little. Again, this helps prevent the white glue coating from cracking when you bend the piece after finishing. Next, I did the standard finish of 3 coats glue, Plastidip, gloss white, and clear glaze. The rest of this post is about strapping it all together! First, I took four 3/4" pieces of black sticky-back hook velcro and stuck them at the upper four corners. Next, six pieces of the same velcro along the top and bottom of the plate. After that, three 2" pieces of sew-on (non-sticky-back) black loop velcro were attached to the top of the plate, facing outward. Then, I attached the back plate using three more 3/4" pieces of the sticky-back hook velcro stuck to the back plate. I then attached the front pieces to the back pieces using 2"-3" sew-on loop velcro. I leave NO gap between the ab plate and kidney, but I leave a 1" gap between the chest and back. Your kid may be different. Notice the angled straps. This went away when I cut my kidney plate shorter and lined things up more correctly. But you have that flexibility if you need it! The next three photos are how it looks on Vincent. Sporting the balaclava today! As you can see from the back view, the kidney plate was more than an inch too tall. Again, I cut it for future posts and altered the pattern accordingly. Enjoy! After finishing the kidney plate, I worked on the bucket a little more, deciding to break out some 1-part Bondo for the first time! I've never used the stuff, but it's pretty easy to get used to. I'll keep on it. Also, to break things up a little, I have just finished the thermal detonator, made out of a toilet paper roll and some foam. I'll be posting that tomorrow. Bill

11. ABDOMINAL PLATE Click here for the left ab plate pattern (1.74 MB JPG) Click here for the right ab plate pattern (1.76 MB JPG) Click here for the ab plate control panel pattern (369 KB JPG) (these are model's left-right) This one was a lot of fun! As usual, I printed and cut out the left and right ab plate patterns, taped them together, traced them onto the thin foam, and cut the shape out. Then, I cut out the rest of the parts from the ab plate, and traced and cut them out of foam as well. After that, I printed, traced and cut out all of the control panel pieces likewise. There is no thick foam being used in this step; everything was cut out of thin foam. The ab buttons required some very slow cutting to get them to look halfway decent. These are all the pieces I had (minus the ab plate itself): (Yes, I know my ab plate design doesn't go down far enough, but kids have short torsos! The belt will cover it anyway.) For gluing, the trick here is to do a little at a time. I used a fresh printout of the ab plate patterns to help me align the left and right strips and the center strips as well. Then, I glued on the control panel outer rectangle, then the control panel inner rectangle, then the control panel narrow right rectangle. Then I waited about half an hour for the white glue to get a grip. A couple books stacked on top helped a lot. Next, it was time to glue down the control panel details. The trick I used was to paint white glue on the entire top surface of the control panel rectangles, then lay down the buttons and plate details. That way, I had a nice even coating of glue on which to lay them down, and I was able to slide the pieces around until they looked just right. You can see from the picture below the layer of glue on the panel rectangles after it dried: I did let the whole thing dry overnight. For finishing, I did here the exact same thing as I did for the chest plate: I heat formed it around a 5 gallon blucket and then used a couple pieces of double sided tape to hold it there. Then, it was the usual finishing technique: 3 layers of white glue with 2-3 hours wait time between, followed by 3 coats of Plastidip, 3 coats of gloss white, and 3 coats of clear glaze, with a 10 minute wait between coats of all sprays. For painting the ab buttons, I went with simple Testors model paints, plain blue and plain gray. They're a little dark, but I liked the more muted colors for the ab buttons. The trick to painting these carefully is to start at the middle of a button, and slowly push paint out to the edges until it looks right. After 3-4 hours of letting the paint dry, I recoated this area only with 2 coats of clear glaze. As you can see, the painting of the ab buttons isn't perfect, but it looks perfect from a few feet away. For strapping points, I cut three 2" pieces of sticky-back black hook velcro down the middle, so they were extra narrow. I placed them at the tops of the three strips on the ab plate. This is to ensure adjustability and grip when mating the ab plate to the chest plate. On the inside, it's a one inch piece of sticky-back black hook velcro at each of the four corners: Next, I took three 2" pieces of black sticky-back loop velcro, left the backing on, and laid them down on the hook pieces. It looked like this: After this, I DID A TEST FITTING ON MY SON to see how high the chest plate would need to sit on the ab plate. This step was absolutely crucial. After noting that the bottom of the chest plate comes to about an inch from the top of the control panel, I felt comfortable taking it off him, and then removing the sticky backing off the ab plate and carefully laying the chest plate down on top of it on a flat surface. After another test fitting, it turned out I was wrong! The torso was a bit too tall, so I simply separated the two pieces and repositioned them a half inch closer together. The adjustability factor here is great! All in all, a very successful piece for me, so I was ready to move on to kidney plate and fitting it all together! By the way, it's time for me to come to terms with the fact that my kid will not be sitting in this costume! He understands, knows it's for looking cool, not playing in, just like any other trooper. I'll post the kidney plate tomorrow. Bill

10. SHOULDER STRAPS & TORSO ASSEMBLY Click here for the shoulder straps pattern (1.36 MB JPG) For the shoulder straps pattern, I have laid out the first two rows to act as a guideline for cutting the whole strap, and then the second two rows are for making it much easier to cut out the "bumps". So first, I cut out the full length rectangles out of thin foam. I then cut the bumps out of thick foam. I think it looks better this way in the finished product by going with the thicker foam for the bumps. Next, I white glued the bumps onto the straps. Notice in the picture below that I have sliced my paper printout and laid it up to the strap to help act as a guideline for placing the bumps. This is what they now look like after gluing. For heat forming, I took a small one-quart paint can and used that with the heat gun to help the straps get that curve shape. I felt this was necessary in order to prevent cracking once I've covered them with white glue. Then, to get them ready for glue and painting, I taped a layer of parchment paper around the can so the straps wouldn't stick. Finishing was the same as usual. Three coats of white glue 2-3 hours apart, followed by 3 coats each of Plastidip, white gloss, and glaze, each 10 minutes apart. Once dry, it was time to break out the velcro! I have decided to do 100% of my strapping with velcro. This will not only make assembly easier, but it will allow me to make adjustments as my son grows. So from Michaels I picked up one package each of black sticky-back, white sticky-back, black sew-on (non-sticky), and white sew-on. These are 3/4" width, which I think is absolutely perfect for this project. I didn't know how much I will need for this project, so I picked up one package (18" long sticky, 30" long sew-on) of each. I will edit this post when the project is finished if I need more. It also turned out to be important whether I went with hook-side or loop-side in my application here, so I'll try to remember to refer to those below. I prepped my foam shoulder straps by covering the backs for their full length (6") with white sticky-back loop velcro. Then, I took a 2" piece of black sew-on hook velcro and laid it perpendicular to the strap like a "T". This is what they look like from the top (see how they stand up nicely? Heat forming is worth it!). The black hook material is now facing upward. Next, I applied velcro to my chest plate and back plate. First the insides: For the chest plate, it's a 1" piece of black sticky-back hook velcro on the upper waist corners of each side. For the back plate, it's the same thing, but on the lower-most corners. Also, it's hard to see in the picture, but there's a 1" piece of white sticky-back hook velcro on the ends of the strap points at the very top of both pieces. For the outsides of the two plates, it is a 1" piece of white sticky-back hook velcro on the ends of the strap points at about a half-inch or so down from the very tops of both pieces. I've Photoshopped the pictures slightly so you can see the white velcro on these parts. To attach the plates, I used two 6" pieces of white sew-on loop velcro, and two 6" pieces of black sew-on loop velcro. In assembling the plates, I leave a 1" gap of loop velcro between the plates on all sides. Everyone's kids are sized differently, so you may need to make adjustments here; that's why I went with 6" pieces of velcro to attach them. They can always be trimmed later! After fitting the plates to my son, I simply laid the foam shoulder straps down on the plate attachment points, with the black "T" part sticking straight out and the hook velcro facing upward. Then, I took the shoulder bells and applied a 2" piece of black sticky-back loop velcro (you can use white as well) at the tops of the bells, like so: All I had to do after that was have him put his hand through the bell and lay it down on top of the black "T" strap. As you can see from the photos below, the straps all blend in very nicely. Vincent is starting to look like a real stormtrooper now! NOTE: After plate fittings, I noticed that my pattern design for the back plate comes down too far behind the neck. It's just too deep of a scoop. I have modified my templates in the back plate post above to raise the back (and also the OII plate) up an inch or so. Also, as a side note, I think I will need to add a balaclava to the undersuit, because the initial helmet test fittings are showing too much hair in back! Next post will be the ab plate! Bill

9. BACK PLATE Click here for the left back plate template pattern (1.64 MB JPG) Click here for the right back plate template pattern (1.63 MB JPG) Click here for the "OII" plate template pattern (1.22 MB JPG) (these are model's left-right) EDIT: After some test fitting, I made an alteration to these patterns, raising the neckline in the back another inch. This should hopefully show less black in back. I also raised the "OII" plate to compensate. I'm not changing my built version, but this should help significantly. All pictures below reflect the old pattern, but all the principles are the same. This one was a lot trickier than I expected. I wanted the back plate to have a nice looking "OII" plate on it, and I went through a few versions trying to get it just right. But I'm very happy with the result! The back plate is too large for a printed piece of paper, so I made it in two sections. I cut them out and taped them together. The third pattern is for the OII plate. As usual, I laid the main plate pattern onto the thin craft foam, traced it in pencil and cut it out. I don't have any pictures of the piece at that step, but it's very straightforward. Next, I cut the OII plate pieces using the pattern. It goes as follows: 2 - flat rectangles cut out of thick (6mm) foam 1 - flat rectangle with the inner rectangle cut out of thick foam, making a frame I white glued those three layers together in this order: After that, I worked on the inner design: 1 - "gear" pattern CAREFULLY cut out of thick foam, using a VERY sharp x-acto knife 1 - square pattern that surrounds the two "I" shapes, cut out of thin foam 2 - rectangle "I" shapes cut out of thick foam I then layered them and white glued them into the center "framed" area. So far, so good. I then came to realize that the edges of those three layers of thick foam are going to show in the finished costume. You can see the layering problem here: There's no way I was able to cut out all three perfectly even with each other on all sides. I tried several times...even cutting through all three layers at once doesn't work out, because it's impossible to hold your blade pointing straight down perfectly the whole time. Even trying to sand them evenly didn't seem to help. After some trial and error, I broke out a piece of white card stock and some white electrical tape. I cut two pieces of card stock at 6" x 5/8", and two pieces at 4-1/2" x 5/8", like so: I then white glued them to the sides and let it all dry. This covered up the uneven seams between layers. Next, I took the white electrical tape (which happened to be the perfect width) and carefully taped over the sides, working around the whole OII plate in one continuous piece. I went around the whole thing 2-3 times, trying not to let the tape creep up the sides. If you must, let it creep downward to the base of the OII plate. I was able to keep it pretty even. By pulling the tape tightly as I went around the the OII plate, I also found that it was giving me an unexpected bonus: rounded corners! I terminated the tape at a bottom corner so it wouldn't be noticed, and then white glued the whole thing onto the back plate. This part is very important: The OII plate must be weighted down with a heavy book while the glue dries overnight! The reason for this is that any electrical tape that creeped downward off the edge will prevent the glue from making a tight seal. The book kept it flat. Now, I suppose you could use black electrical tape instead of white and cereal box cardboard instead of card stock, but you'll need to be sure it's really covered by your painting later. I didn't want to deal with that. After this, it was time to break out the heat gun and bend the strapping points. This was very easy and went quickly. Just take it slow, don't use too much heat at a time. I was able to apply the heat, set the gun down, bend it and hold it with my hand, and then blow on it a few times to help it cool quickly. This is what it looked like afterward: I then finished this piece with 3 coats of white glue (avoiding the electrical tape for the most part), waiting 2 hours between coats. Then, 3 light coats of Plastidip, 3 light coats of gloss white, and 3 light coats of clear glaze. I waited only 10 minutes between all coats of spray, not giving the piece time to dry fully between any them, even when switching to a different coating. It came out great! But it needed one finishing touch. As you can see from this picture below, there is a very noticeable seam on the top of the OII plate, between the electrical tape and the sides. This is unavoidable, because I didn't want the tape to creep up the top as I was taping. So I brought out the white silicone caulk to clean it up. I used my finger to smear a little caulk into the seams, and then wiped it off, again using my finger. I also laid a nice thick bead of caulk around the base of the OII plate, smoothing that transition a bit. It came out looking just like I'd hoped. REMINDER: If you're using the Dynaflex 230 caulk, do this step BEFORE finishing and painting! Done with the back plate! Next post, I will be going over the strapping of the two plates together. I decided on velcro for the whole thing, but of course I have to add detailed foam straps for the shoulders! That one should be fun. (By the way, I have been working on the bucket concurrently, as it has been a bigger project than I anticipated. I hope to post it in a week or so.) Bill

Heat? What kind of heat? If you're talking about the weather, I suppose it could be a concern if the blaster sits in the sun for a few hours, yes. Like in the trunk of my car. But honestly, I'm not sure. Most of my online research suggests the opposite could happen, that the sculpey clay would harden and try to bake in intense heat. But I don't really know for sure. It might actually be worth an experiment. :-) Guess I'd better seal up every seam as tightly as possible! Oh crap, the barrel will be open. Bill