DarkFather

My measurements... I am 192cm (6'3.5" ?). 287 pounds (basically all in the gut) @ 138cm (54.3") waist, 131cm (51.5") Chest. 61.5cm (24.2" ?) head (measured around forehead). *Standing Outer leg/thigh - Hip to Knee = 51cm (20"). *Standing Inner leg/thigh - Crotch to Knee = 30cm (12"). *Thigh circumference @ largest point = 62cm (24.4"). *Knee to Ankle = 45cm (17.7"). *Calf circumference = 49.5cm (19.5"). * Upper arm Shoulder to Elbow = 33cm (13"). *Elbow to Wrist = 31cm (12"). * All measurements done on left side of body. Which suit should I look at, RT MOD or AM? Help please?

Well, Arienh and I are home from Brisbane (5hr+ drive). My eyes are basically falling out of my head, and Arienh is in no better state, but we have sorted through photo's picked out the best ones and emailed them off. Now we wait for the outcome.... Here are the pics we posted for Arienh. Bucket Off: Bucket On: Facing Right: Facing Left: Rear: Action Shot 01: Action Shot 02: Fingers crossed all goes well.

Hey everyone; Just a quick post this time. DLT-19 just completed. The paint is extremely soft atm. Hopefully the time before we leave tomorrow for Brissy + the drive down and the time between tomorrow and Saturday, will give the paint and clear coats a chance to cure. Not a great overall job. But I thinks it's good enough to troop with: That's it. 170 pics later, it's done (for now). Approval pics this Saturday, and upload them Sunday night then send through the email. Then wait nervously for however long, hoping and praying that Arienh gets approved in time for OzComicCon. Oh, also me in my new TR (If my possessed bucket will give poor Cyclops a break for once). I'll post the approval pics in this thread once they have been sent off to those who count.

Ha... You all thought this thread was done and would disappear into the Redbacks ether... Well, not yet. Sorry. Managed to get some work done on Arienh's DLT-19 today. Have done some minor trimming and cleaning up (still lots to do), but went ahead and decided to try and not stuff up the drilling of the barrel holes on the muzzle flash and stock. Also drilled out the bolt area to hold it all together and purchased (and cut to size) a Nut'n'bolt. Still a little sticky to the touch, but nothing compared to the other day. Pardon the mess on the table, we had just brought everything inside and lost the days light when these pics were taken: Cut away the resin nut head and bolt and drilled it out and put in a real one to hold the gun together: Look! I got all my drilling 'straight', and the gun lines up and actually looks straight from end to the other. I'm quite happy with myself at this point (not to mention incredibly surprised): Next step... drill, drill, drill... any and all places there are holes.

I wasn't able to get to the DLT today as a certain TD costume and costumer took up all my time. But... I believe (minus voice and weapon) that the build is... *drumroll*... COMPLETE!!!! Here are some pics we quickly snapped late this afternoon. No they aren't meant to be all artsy... we just lucked out and captured a few pics in the last rays of the daylight (nice orangey hew to some pics). So, are we? Are completed? (fingers crossed) . One happy little costumer: Sandy test pics: Showing movement position of the sniper plate (kinda): The boots may look 'funny', but this pic shows the boot creased, which shows the weathering is in fact in the deep parts of the creases: The following are meant to be head shots... The Sandtrooper's Thousand Parsec Stare (LOL): Why so sad?: Not sure if happy or angry: So there we go. Everything done and sealed. Ready for approval pics. I just want to get this DLT done in time now. Depending on feedback, Approval pics will be getting organised on the 5th and/or 6th of Sept.

Firstly, Thank you for all the kind words and help/feedback. So much more has been done on this armour since my last post (stupid internet hosting problems)... I'll try to get everything posted up... The last 'visual' part for Arienh's TD arrived today. More work for me, to try and have it ready by 'approval pic day'... But I'll see how I go. I've never worked with Resin before, so any help at all will be immensely appreciated. Another item, another new set of skills I'm going to have to learn: I might start doing some cleaning up of the parts later tonight, snipping here, slicing there, but nothing too major. I'll post pics of the contents a little later this evening. I got me some armour painting to do first. We are having a great time doing this TD. We just hope we are doing good enough is all. With that being said, I got the rest of the armour parts weathered tonight. As long as Arienh is happy with them, then all she will need to do is her Bucket (I'm ot doing that... way too important). With the Bucket done, her TD will be COMPLETED!! (Apart from sound, and gun). I'll find out if I'm her hero or villain at 11pm tonight. Right through this weathering we have tried to go with the idea of grading the dirt level. Dirtiest at ground level up to cleanest at bucket, but trying to keep certain areas dirty in a realistic way (around Abs details and especially inside the O I I section of the backplate). Hopefully these look 'right'. Backplate with other rear armour pieces: Chest and Abs sections: Contents of the White Box. 1x DLT-19 Kit: This scares the Bantha out of me... I have no idea what I'm doing with this big chunk of resin. Of course, FISD and MEPD are both down atm, sigh. Meh... how hard can it be? I have begun work on the DLT. **** that thing is/was sticky. 3 baths later and most of it is gone. I've been assured that after sanding etc and handling 99.9% of the stickyness will go. Here's hoping. Todays jobs consist of sanding back where the barrel meets the stock, and then lots of drilling. I'm extremely worried about this as I can't drill straight to save myself, and I don't have 'tools' to help with such (Drill press). Also, all the sanding is going to have to be hand sanding, I don't have access to a belt sander (which would help immensely with sanding down the stock.barrel joining area). Ah well,,, many hours of sanding ahead, and scary drilling I guess. LOL Away from the gun, and the reason for this post. After some expert help a few things have been redone slightly. The Thighs and shins were looking 'linear' as far as the weathering was concerned, so I have added some more weathering (hopefully in a natural looking way) to try and break up the 'up and down' look of the leg sections. Thighs and Shins Redo: And, Arienh finished the weathering on the bucket today, so the outfit is effectively COMPLETE!!!! We have 2 or 3 minor things to do and later today I'll get some pics of her armoured up and we'll see how it all looks. Bucket from TK to TD: So, things left to do... Seal everything with 'weather proof' (yeah right) hairspray. Remove paper from over eyes. Add mesh and mics to bucket. A couple of 'behind the scene' fixes (Shins and boot tongues, a little padding here and there, that sorta stuff). Continue work on DLT. **take some suited up pics (not approval pics) to see how it all looks together.**

I asked Arienh before I dropped her at work, if she would mind if I attempted to weather part of the remaining armour pieces without her watching over me (her armour, her final detailing - read above statement). She 'gave me permission' to paint the Butt and Kidney plates. She probably figured I couldn't possibly stuff them up. LOL. And anyway, the canvas belt would wear off anything I did to the Kidney plate. I just hope she's happy with what I ended up with:

Cheers for that Barcode. I don't think Arienh had given any thought to that as yet. **Deep breath** OK, this will probably become a few posts in a row (due to all the pics). I do apologise, but at the same time, they have to be posted, this is a build thread after all. A quick rewind before I get into the crux of the next few posts... Once the painting on the bucket had been done, the last thing to do was the outlining. Well that is now done as well... With that done, Arienh now has a quite nice looking Stunt TK bucket. Pity that isn't what it will end up staying as. Friday just passed saw a major step in the TD build process (major for us anyway). This is the beginning of the build end. We can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay!! The Weathering has begun. We have researched this and read a lot and watched many videos. In the end we decided to use Pandatroopers technique (as we did on our Gonk). Watching the video's and 'watching' the videos are two different things, especially when it comes to me, apparently. Anyway... The video lists Burnt Umber, an earth tone (We went with Burnt Sienna) and a light gray (which in the video looks very yellow), so we went with yellow Oxide. Well... Guess what... The Burnt Umber we used was.... A LOT darker than the Umber in the video... This was realised soon after we started... but we stuck with it and hoped it would make a good shading colour to the 2nd weathering coat. Here is what happened with the Burnt Umber... Weathering Begins!! The Burnt Umber looked very dark, but on the video it was stated that it would lighten as it dried: We weren't too sure, but hey we're n00bs, who are we to argue with someone who paints armours on commision?: We kept going with the Burnt Umber as our first Weathering coat. The darkenss was a little disturbing... but it became more disturbing as it dried, I swear it turned BLACK!! BURNT UMBER COAT: Arms: Abs: Chest, Abs and Cod: Back armour parts: Thighs: Bucket: Bucket after excess was removed: Boots, Pauldron, etc: At this point we figured we had gone beyond saving anything... but we figured we would stick with it and see how we go. See if we can salvage anything from this... **Fingers crossed** This is what we were planning our salvage attempts on. 1 part Burnt Sienna to 2 parts Yellow Oxide mix (Read 1 tube of Sienna to 2 tubes of Oxide): Let the salvage operation begin!: Straight away, our heart rates lowered and we both had smiles on our faces. I think we will be fine (at least I hope so) . Second Coat of Weathering... Boots: Hand Guards: Belt Ammo Pouches: Belt Pouch: Pauldron (which has since been re-touched): Canvas belt (was wet at time of pic - looks much better dry): Shins. Arienh and I noticed 2 areas we weren't happy with. There's 5 pics all up. Problem areas are fixed in the 5th pic: Problem areas fixed: Thighs. Apologies for the shakiness of the last pic: At this point, I asked Baytrooper for his thoughts, and he noticed something and pointed it out to us. thanks to him, there is no longer a very pronounced straight line of weathering on the back of this thigh: At this point, our son surprised us with dinner. Mmmm Prawn Marsala. Better not get these mixed up, could end up being more than a little interesting. LOL: After dinner, we got the arms started: Unfortunately, we got no progress shots of the arm sections as they went by rather quickly and easily. By this time, Arienh was tired and had real life things to do, so we stopped for the night. After cleanup, I took a couple of quick pics of the days work... So... we have the body armour sections and bucket left to do. Arienh goes back to work tomorrow, so the plan is to try and get a single piece of armour done each day before her shifts, and then hit what's left on her next days off. We'll see how that goes however. Please, please... Let us know your thoughts, tear strips of us if something is wrong, throw ideas at us... whatever. It all helps.

For Arienh and I (being n00bs) it most definitely is. Final update (for tonight). Arienh had finished painting the bucket, basically. Earlier this afternoon - Bucket painted pre-cleanup: Pics taken just moments ago... Bucket Painted Post-Cleanup but Pre-Outlining - Front: Bucket Painted Post-Cleanup but Pre-Outlining - Right: Bucket Painted Post-Cleanup but Pre-Outlining - Left: Bucket Painted Post-Cleanup but Pre-Outlining - Rear: Tomorrow morning will see the outlining. Then we will take a break for the rest of the weekend. Weathering will start sometime after Monday.

We have played around with padding inside the thighs and that seems to have helped immensely with the final placement/sitting of the armour parts. Arienh is aiming only for basic 501st approval as the armour is only a B-grade pull of a not very well known (older) armour. The physical abs/mold itself would not lend itself to anything more than basic approval anyway. If nothing else, this has been a great way for us to get introduced to 'armouring' for the 501st, as we can afford to make a few slight mistakes and get away with it with this poor quality pull. A somewhat scattered (more than usual) post this afternoon... Arienh is currently painting away on the bucket like a mad-person. It's fantastic to see. Slight rewind: Ab/Chest and Thigh problems all seem to be solved. Terrible pic to follow, but it shows all the buttons visible on the Ab plate, the gap between Cod and Thighs reduced, and the 'knock knees' look fixed as much as possible (surgery to fix Arienh's legs is out of the question) : Last nights efforts: Bucket had frown penciled in, which showed that a little more cleanup was needed on the teeth, but after expert feedback, we are happy with the pencil'ing in of the frown area: With the frown penciled in, masking was the order of the hour. Arienh got the bucket all masked up and then announced that since the bucket was important - she'd be painting it... (*sadface* - Put in my place...). Let the painting begin!!!! Tube Stripes first to be done: With the stripes done, the masking was removed. A bit of bleeding from what we used as a stencil, but we're hopeful it should clean up ok: This morning I awoke and was told the stripes had been cleaned up. I eagerly rushed to my office to have a look at the bucket before I headed off to get the required brush needed for all the grey areas. I took a Left and Right and Front pic to show the stripes (11 per side BTW): As it is at the time of posting this update - Arienh is currently painting all the grey areas. Then the Vocoder in black and the ear/rank marks in black. Once that is all done, there will (of course) be more pics. Then.... WEATHERING TIME!!!!

OK... Big post... with just a couple of quick questions at the end... Firstly, some pics I didn't post of our Strapping attempts... Happy to have armour on and fitted, finally!: And the obligatory other angle shot: Once the body armour parts were strapped and we were happy with them, we moved onto the arms. I have to use this chance to say thank you to BIDS. Anyone building anything with white armour really should follow his build thread, it is a phenomenal source of information. Arms and gloves with plates done: And now onto today... We have finished the strapping on all the armour today (well we though we had - see questions after pics). So we thought it a great time to take a couple of quick pics with Arienh wearing EVERYTHING she currently has. Yes, bucket still needs painting (this weeks job) and then the whole lot needs weathering. Oh and if anyone has a DLT-19 laying around that they would be interested in selling, please... let me know. cheers. Please... tear these pics apart. If something looks wrong, let us know (after checking questions at end of post). Usual front on pic with Bucket on, arms at side. If the thighs look low, it is because of 2 reasons. 1) They are up as high as they will physically go before they become a little 'too friendly' with Arienh. 2) The belt they are suspended from sagged (See questions): Arms up Pic: Side on pic: Arms up, side on: Back pic: Action-esque pose (Really need to get her a gun): **THESE ARE NOT APPROVAL PICS** Rather just pics to show our progress so far on Arienh's TD build. Questions/Advice: 1) Thighs. Arienh has deceptively short thighs. We have (since the pics) adjusted the belt that the thighs hang from. Should we add a 2nd thigh strap at the sides to help position the thighs better on her legs (or maybe even a rear/3rd strap)? 2) Thighs. The Thighs seem to angle 'in' at her knees (as if she were bow-legged). Would placement of sticky-backed foam in places aid with this problem, by forcing the armour to sit in the correct position? 3) Right thigh. Ammo pouches. Are they sitting too 'high' at the front of the thigh armour (see side on pics)? 4) Left Shin. Sniper Plate. Have we connected it too low? It seems to like popping under the bottom of the thigh armour. 5) We have padded the Bucket. But Arienh cannot look down once it is on. The bucket hits the chest armour. Is this just a case of 'too bad you have a small head and short neck"? 6) Chest armour. Arienh has 'parts'... that force the chest armour to not sit flat on the Ab section. If I push lightly right in the middle of the bottom of the chest armour, it all sits flat even horizontally. Would it be wrong to place a small bit of velcro between the chest and abs where they overlap to assist in having it all look 'right'? 7) Shins. They both twist on her legs. Even just 1 step causes it to happen which in turns causes problems with the sniper plate, etc. How best to fix this? Snaps on the boot 'tongue' area and inside the shin, or less evasive - Velcro on the front and rear of the boot and inside the shin at the same locations? We're considering doing the Velcro. I think that is all the questions I had about the above pics. I do have 1 question concerning the Bucket and painting. I have looked around and found (on FISD) a pic showing the Humbrol paints that I need for the bucket. The pic was posted back in 2012, and I just want to make sure I am getting the correct, up to date colours (in case anything has changed). The colours are... Humbrol #5 (Admirals Grey), #14 (French Blue), and #21 (Black). All are gloss. Is this correct? Sorry for the stupidly long post everyone, and the plethora of questions. We know this armour won't ever be SWAT/Centurion level... but it doesn't mean we don't want to do a good job with it. So all your help and answers will be greatly appreciated.

IT'S A STRAP!!! Last day of Arienh's holiday today, so our building time will be drastically shortened heading in towards our self imposed End of August timeline. So I cracked the whip one more time and we got stuck into making Snap Plates and doing some strapping. Chained to the sewing machine. Knocking out snap plate after snap plate: We managed to get to this milestone, so I took 2 pics. Rear Armour Sections strapped! Internals: Rear Armour Sections strapped! Externals: After these pics were taken, we soldiered on and all we need to 'strap' and snap plate now is 1x Shoulder strap and the crotch/cod sections. Then I will need to go buy more snaps. Apparently 50 just wasn't enough. :banghead: That will then lead into doing the garter belt for the thighs (and required strapping and snaps) and then the arms strapping setup. Once that is all done, it's all about the bucket. THEN!?!?!?! Weathering.

ARGH!! MY EYES!!!! WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN!!! A CLEAN SANDY!!! Seriously though. Arienh and I have (we think) finished the trimming and building stages of all the armour pieces. With new (correct headed) bolts in the ears and the visor in place (thank you again to Cyclops for the material), Arienh couldn't help herself. She just had to play dress up. **Warning - no strapping has been done. Everything kind of held in place with hidden painters tape. But the individual parts are BUILT!** Things to do: Pad helmet. Attach vocoders (?) to helmet. Paint Helmet. Glue 'buttons' to front of canvas belt Ammo Packs. Strap and snap everything. Garter belt for thighs. 'stirrups' for Shins (to stop them from constantly turning and raising) Weathering!!!! Please, take a good look at the pics, in all seriousness, and if there is anything wrong (not strapping/fitting wise), please let us know. Thanks in advance

Been a while since this was updated... Wow... What a day. Must've been the weather. It was like Arienh and I had a fire lit under us today. We got (we feel) quite a bit done today. Let's see. Firstly we got ALL cover strips on every piece of arm and leg armour (except the Right Thigh). Cover Strips EVERYWHERE!!!!: Following that all those armour parts had final trimming and sanding done to them, then thoroughly washed with Mineral Turpentine, then washed again with Sugar Soap to remove any possible residue of any sort. See, Arienh does do the work on her armour. Actually (as she should) she does most of it: The bane of the next photo... The Right Thigh. Waiting until tomorrow for yet another layer of filler to dry. Sanding tomorrow, and hopefully some paint, both outer cover strips, and the ammo pouches: We also worked on the bucket as well. Trimmed a little that needed trimming, gap filled where the back and the cap meet (3 part bucket), sanded and cleaned up the eyes and teeth. We also test fitted, and drilled out screw holes for the visor material that was so kindly donated by Cyclops. The look on Arienh's face when she got to test out the bucket with eyes. She was seeing green, and I was envious. I need to trim some more from the visor material tomorrow afternoon (when I get myself some snips) and buy some correct screws/bolts for the ears. Fit them, then trim them down and rebuild the bucket for the final time. After all our work today and tonight we laid the TD 'ghost' out on the table for a photo: Things still to do: Bucket: Paint, fit Visor and Teeth Mesh, fit 2x Fans. Right Thigh: Sand Filler, paint Shim, Outer Cover Strips, Ammo Pouches. Body Armour parts: Pretty much everything. Add buttons to Ab plate, Sand and clean edges on all parts, and add rivets and snaps. Canvas Belt: Add Ammo Pouches, snaps, rivets, cover said snaps. Basically the total kit: Strapping, then finally... Weather it all. We have basically given ourselves until the end of August to get it all done and approval pics posted in. We're hoping to both be trooping in our new costumes @ OzComicCon Sept 19. That's the plan anyways. So 4 more weeks (kinda) of build time.

mispost