TK3202
-
Posts
147 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Articles
Media Demo
Posts posted by TK3202
-
-
has anything been determined yet on the force unleashed stormtrooper commander? i would like to submit it but i was waiting for some sort of go ahead
thanks guys
Btw, if it means anything, I think your trooper was done beautifully, and if it's not accepted it's a real shame. I for one am one of the "tks should be left crisp, white and clean" but I also don't see the point in saying other people can't do what they want. If there are many shots of all the sides of the trooper, and he's in multiple sources.. it should be able to be done.
Even if it will never be 501st approves.. always remember it's YOUR suit. Any good garrison leader will tell you that, and if YOU are proud of it.. since it's your property and your love and joy.. that's all that matters my friend
.Darryl-
-
Hard hat liners work wonders as well for an MRCE. Check out my thread for pics of how to set that up. It stays with your head, which was my biggest complaint with the cheap foam padding in the MRCE bucket.
-
Helmet looks great. Where was something like this months ago before I hit my MRCE with drills, dremels, and sand paper.
Oh well, I need the practice.
Did you say you were going to change out the tube stripes? If you are, it's really easy with a Magic Eraser, hot water and 5 minutes of light scrubbing.
Awesome, now I can have a total redo of the bucket without painting it white again
. It won't hurt the white finish will it? (IE: smear the blue all over the white) This thread is turning out to be pretty useful! haha Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to upgrade them and post when I do.Darryl
-
Ok very small hole in one ear..but I can fix it no prob. Everything else went smooth. Next I have to get the glossy caulk and fill the holes and my chin seam.
Great job
. And you have to paint the screws... they come standard silver . -
Finished pictures!
-
Here is my process of the last part of my MRCE no paint mod!
First draw a line with pencil where you want to cut. Take a thin piece of cardboard and put it between the dome and the face plate so that when you cut off the plastic, it will hit the cardboard.. not the face plate. Cut out a curve so that it fits the ear cap:
Take a hacksaw and very slowly start to make a groove towards the middle of the bucket. Be sure to work towards the ear but not get too close as if you hit the plastic you may make an unwanted groove or something with the metal saw. We'll take care of the last part of the dome later:
Once it's cut.. snap it off at either end by pulling.. you should have this:
Take some wire cutters and cut the rest of the curve:
Now, put the rubber strip on the bucket and glue it to the side of the bucket on the ends, and other various spots.. not the whole length:
Oh NO! What's this?!?!?! It's a little dimple mark from the mold that was hidden by the brow! Oh well.. you know the drill. Caulk it! Put some caulk on some thin cardboard you used for the protective piece and use it as a straight edge to smear it on flat. Wipe clean with paper towel. Paint after 2 hours of drying with Testers #1145:
-
Ok...back to the tube stripes. You said you kept the ones it came with? I thought those weren't 501st approved.
Also, are you raising the brow for the "move along" TD style and do you just pull it off or is there more to it?
It's 501st approved because I've seen countless MRCE and other buckets for that matter with tube stripes the same color. I'll do them one day, but honestly, I don't like the toy blue as much. And hey, they approved me! So I guess it's all gravy.
While I'm by no means trying to recreate the move along trooper, it will be raised similarly to his yes. No don't just pull it off bud
. There's super glue every once in a while. SLOWLY pull off the black brow from one corner to the other, and use a hobby knife anywhere where it seems to snag from the glue. There was only one spot on the right center that I had problems with.. but it still came off with some love.Just be sure to go slow. Pictures tonight!
-
Great Job! I'm going to do this to mine, one thing though - isn't the liner in back to front, the sweatband should be at the front.
Yep it fits your head great that way and is very comfortable
. It you do it the other way than you can't see as it blocks you lenses . Try it out! Works like a charm. -
What brand hard hat liner did you get and where did you get it? Also, what number testors white did you use? Thanks man.
Hey, no problem.
I got the white hard hat from here and just ripped the part that I showed you from it. I had the hard hat with the bill dremeled off in my AT-AT Driver bucket before I put padding inside it.
http://www.aosafety.com/diy/head_main.cfm
The Testors is #1145
Good luck! Can't wait for the brow to be done
-
Raising the brow....
Check in tomorrow night
-
I did see that actually, though I'm a bit confused on his process. Do I just put a shirt between the iron and the chest piece? Also, I'd be afraid I wouldn't know exactly where to cut the chest piece.. I don't want it looking off, ya know? But thanks bud, you've been helping me a lot lately
. I used your advice about the bucket btw, it's in the helmet section.Hey D-Mac, could you PM me his contact info/screen name? I know ive contacted him once before, but I don't seem to have the email I sent to him...it was way back when I was still thinking about doing the suit lol.
Thanks guys,
Darryl
-
I cant honestly tell where the silicone starts on my helmet its that good match. How it would react to dirt I cant say though.
Cheers
It looks great for a while. Problem is there's no way of cleaning it and for some reason dust and dirt are almost attracted to it. After a while a suble color change is evident. Painting over it with latex not only looks better and stays that way, but it also acts as a way to make it more glossy to better match your abs bucket. Trust me, it works
-
So the caulk will look better painted than say just white silicon?
Yes it's much brighter painted and is more glossy. Basically I helps it make it look like the mrce's abs plastic.
-
This was the way to mod the MRCE I was hoping someone would post. So caulk, then gloss white paint on the ears and the frown seam?I'm afraid to cut the ears too. Any tips?
Follow this guy's tutorial first:
Now, what he doesnt show is where to tape off other than the top of the ear. My mistake was that I took that much off the whole circle part of the ear AND part of the straight stem below it. Problem is is that once you get to the stem, you will have a gap there if you trim that too much. That happened on my first ear, the one on the right. Thing is though, it looks better than the second ear i did (on the left) because it made the ear thinner. If you don't trim that part off, it will look nicer, but won't be as slender.
Either way, it doesnt matter... you WILL have gaps no matter how much you cut off the ear. Screw the ears on the bucket first. DO NOT USE A DRILL TO DO THIS. Use a screwdriver. Your ears while tightening them may buckel a bit from the pressure. This means they are too tight, loosen up a bit. In order to get rid of the slightly uneven cut marks and the cap which allowed you to see behind the ear I used white glossy caulk to fill it in. THEN take a wet paper towel immediately and run it over the groove with your finger so that you pick up all the caulk except for the cualk that is between the ear cap and the bucket. Already you should be able to look at it at this step and say "wow" because it looks SO much better filled in. This is when i took a tooth pick and lightly put some caulk on the end of it and filled in any holes that were caused by bubbles or uneven application. Now that the caulk is filled on both ear caps (front and back), let it dry for about 2 solid hours. You can do it earlier, but hey.. better safe than sorry. Take Testers brand model paint.. the glossy white kind, and with a small brush paint over the caulk that's between the ears. DO NOT paint the abs plastic or you will see a difference in gloss rather easily after it dries! ONLY paint the caulk itself. It's not dire than you do this, but lemme tell you.. after a couple troops, somehow all sorts of dirt, most likely simply oils from your hands, gets on the caulk and makes it look dirty. By painting the caulk you will now be able to perminately be able to have a shiny white bucket.
The same process basically for the seam in the frown. Fill in the whole seam...doesn't matter how much you use really, just make sure it gets in the groove. Take wet paper towel, and clean off all access then after it dries, paint it.
ABS polish will get rid of any accidently dried caulk that may get on you bucket! This is great if you happen to accidently let some dry over a decal or something like I did.. comes right off
.So there you have it. A friend in my local garrison might be doing these mods soon. If so, ill take pics as i help him out so people can see the entire process. I didnt want to paint the whole bucket either, and this options lets you do that and get the similar results you would have if you had used bondo
. And since I didn't have to rebuy decals or buy white paint for repainting it.. I not only saved time, but quite a bit of money. Some tips on cutting.. the electrical tape is best as it not only provides good contrast to the white ear, but is tough enough so that if your knife slips it may stop an unwanted cut. REMEMBER to go slow! Once you press hard enough, the knife will cut through the abs like butter and could cut your hand! I'm a graphic designer, so I'm used to using these, but I've seen countles people chop off parts of their fingers because they got to comfortable using these knives! Do what I DIDNT do, in that you should cut and check constantly to make sure you don't cut too much of the ear. If you do however, don't worry.. my right ear had a large gap and the caulk filled it in perfectly. It sounds more intimidating than it is. EVERY mistake I made was because I got too confident in what I was doing (drilling through my ear cap for instance...).
It's going to take you a few hours. It took me a whole afternoon and night to complete this.
Materials you'll need:
Hard hat liner
Sticky velcro
Smitty lenses
drill and drill bits
x acto knife (hobby knife)
electric tape
caulk white glossy
caulk gun
Six 4 mm countersunk screws (though it's not what i used as the countersunk screws at Lowes arent long enough. I used machine screws with the same flat, bolt-like end).
6 washers
6 nuts
Testers 1138 grey paint
Testers White paint
Testers small model paint brush
Small files (Lowe's sells a set for 16 bucks that's perfect. Has 6 files of all different types of shapes)
One toothpick for fixing caulk small holes.
-
Well guys, I've recently started to see what the rest of you see when you see fx armor with an MRCE bucket... the problems.
After ordering a new neckseal and new ab buttons (and considering a new chest piece), I've gone to town on the bucket. The mods in total took about 8 hours in total to do for me at least. I put new lenses in first. The old ones had window tint on them which was coming off making it impossible to see. I put a hard hat liner in while keeping the existing padding where I could. The hard hat liner makes it so I don't need that pesky foam on the eyes.
Here's a pic of that... I'd strongly suggest this mod. It's cheap, easy, and makes it so you can move your head quickly without it moving about on you. I didn't think this would fit in an MRCE, but it does just barely:
While I painted my whole MR clone trooper bucket to make it a shocktrooper, I really didn't want to invest that much time into the stormtrooper bucket. I'm sure like many of you, the idea of repainting something that already has a nice finish is a bit daunting. I'm no pro by any means, but I think these came out great! Like other people have already done, I filed out the teeth so the holes are bigger, and repainted the frown. There is the extra tooth drilled out now, and the frown is extended. The ears weren't replaced, but modded instead so I wouldn't have to repaint. The only problem is, unlike other people who posted how to cut off the excess ear part, they didn't really show exactly where and how much. Also, even after cutting off the plastic tunnels that the old screws went in, the ear didn't really want to be pushed down flush with the bucket. I did the best I could, and screwed down the ear with the three screws and bolt set up.
After that I used caulk and filled in the gaps between the bucket and the ears that were left. If you wait two hours, you can paint over this caulk with model paint, which I did with a glossy white, making it look a lot better. I also used this same tester's white to paint over the caulk that covered the seam where the frown is. The caulk unpainted gets dirty very easily, and it starts to show. You can use abs polish to get it off if need be as well.
If any of you, like me, were a bit over confident when drilling out the ears from the inside and drilled straight through the ear cap like I did, using the caulk technique to easily mold it to the shape of where you drilled through is a breeze. Simply paint over it and no one will be able to really tell. The ear that had the hole in it is the second picture.
So there you have it! Below is my modest version of how to mod the bucket without repainting the entire thing. I will be raising the brow a bit here soon, but otherwise she's done. Again, it's no TE or anything, but I'm really proud of what I've made an MRCE look a lot better without having to overhaul it.
-
simply fill it with putty or bondo?
you gonna have to repaint anyways; should look fine
otherwise - good luck in ur search
Nate
ps nice collection of lids man
Thanks about the lids
.I filled it in, but luckily didn't have to paint the rest of the bucket, only that one spot
. I'll have a thread over in the bucket section.So nevermind, thanks!
-
I know you guys who have MRCE ears laying around that you don't need cause you replaced them... well if anyone could please spare one ear cap (part with the bumpy stuff on it) I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm sure I could send over a few bucks for one, name your price.
The first cap drilled out perfectly... the second, well... i drilled straight through the ear cap lol.
Thanks in advance... the sooner the better on this as I have a troop coming up in a few weeks.
Darryl-
-
Wow thanks! I'm assuming the "1138" testers paint is what i'd use on the frown? I can't seem to find the Humbrol brand here at the store.
-
I want to buy the RT-Mod chest plate. I love my FX armor, I really do, but this is the only thing left after my MRCE mods and my ab buttons (which I'll get in the mail soon I hope
) .If you have spare parts laying around please let me know, or at the very least a friendly PM pointing me in the right direction.
Ah... somehow I know that this will lead to a full replacement one day, sigh.
-
I know I've seen the paint colors for the gray frown and the white to put over the screws on the ears, but I can't find it and I'm about to head out to the store since I'll be finishing up my mods today on my MRCE.
Sorry again if this is a bit of a waist of a thread as it's elsewhere, but I simply find the threads that this all was listed before.
Thanks!
-
I'd highly suggest NOT ordering from Richies. The guy's pulls are loose and he's always late on his deadlines by double the time he promises you from the start.
-
Glad you didn't have to give up your suit bud. No kid's drum set is worth that suit
. -
Got mine in the mail today. Took about 15 min to drill them out and replace the old ones. Ended up putting the liner of a hard hat in the bucket so I don't need that cheap styrofoam eye pads anymore
. Works perfectly, and I can finally see now ! Thanks! -
I used the caulk gun technique since I didn't want to repaint mine. It's not as easy as it sounds, and i got a little too much build up in some places. When I wiped it away with the paper towel like people told me to, it smeared along the edge of the groove too... which made the surrounding area non-shiney. Also, as time went by, when the helmet got dirty, the dirt would stick to the caulk that was smeared in the surrounding area making it very noticible (by me, not in pictures).
However, now it looks great.. and it's only because I was using my abs polish to maintain my shiney look on my armor, and I realized that the abs polish took off all the caulk around the groove, and not the stuf in the groove itself. This left it looking neat and clean, and making it seem like I magically only got caulk in the very tiny crack along the frown.
Definately try this technique out! It's cheap, and it makes it look great in pictures
.
Proposed CRL for Felucian Stormtrooper Officer - Obsolete
in Stormtrooper Commander
Posted · Edited by gmrhodes13
link not working removed
I think a question on many people's mind:
What does the back look like?
The only one I can find with a back pic is actually for sale atm on the main boards. However, the ab paint job looks a little innacurate (ugh.. and the fx bucket..):
-------------
Thanks!
Darryl-