Kredal

Quick list off the top of my head: Front traps are too small, tear and trap "vent" lines are all perfectly straight, not matching the shapes of the areas, tube stripes are wrong color blue, too low on the tubes, and perfectly parallel, mic tips look way too long, grey mouth is either weirdly painted or wrong color (depending on what movie you're trying to emulate), front mask is a really soft pull, vocoder paint doesn't match the curves of the vocoder itself (just a trapezoid painted on), there's no black trim at the bottom edge, S-shaped or otherwise... I'm sure other people could see more. I'm new at this too.

Awesome armor, and great build! One comment I have is that the cod looks sort of untrimmed, with the outward facing return edge around the leg openings. Other than that itty bitty detail, this is a costume to emulate! (In my non-501st, still building opinion.) Oh, one other thing that might get dinged, the right calf armor (without the sniper plate) looks like the rear cover strip is attached to the inside piece. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, but it might be. Wait until someone with some flair speaks up before changing it.

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/10747-howto-post-images-on-forums-tutorial/

I'll be putting my ammo pack on level to the ground (or so) and a small square of velcro behind it to keep it from spinning wildly.

Really quick update: I was a genius and labeled my shin armor as you look at it, not as you wear it. Soooo, all the closures were on the wrong side, and the sniper knee was on the wrong leg. See, genius? Luckily, I'm using E6000 everywhere. Ripped the sniper knee, the back cover strips, and the velcro off the "completed" leg, and I'm in the process of rebuilding them on the proper legs. Sigh. Helmet face is done except for the left tear, I might finish that tonight, then put the front and back together and start on the ears. The ATA plastic is slightly differently shaded, but it should pass the 5-foot test, at least. Worst case, I get a full ATA hero helmet and do it all again! (waaaaay down the line, hopefully.)

Alright, brought the templates forward a little bit until the bottom corners were actually curved up on the ledge, sealed it down as much as possible, added nail polish, and painted. The right side will need a lot of clean up this time, once the paint is cured, but it should at least be in the right place. (: Also repainted that tear grey, and I'll go over it with black tomorrow. Finished up the rear traps, no pictures of those though. They look like hand-painted traps. Not much to say. (: Got the cover strip gluing on the right calf. And got Velcro on the opening of the left calf. I had an inner strip on the back, but ripped it off. It's really not needed, and makes the opening smaller than it should be, and makes it much harder to appear closed properly.

OK, before I do anything crazy like applying paint, how does this look? Do I have the go-ahead to apply nail polish and then paint?

I really like your dropbox pouches. I may steal that idea. (:

Tube stripes? What tube stripes? Also tear that was horrible. this is proof that almost anything is fixable. (: Everyone who offered advice is awesome. (:

Alright, I'll give that a shot tonight... And then I might just put on the stickers that came with the kit for the tube stripes... since they don't need to be painted for centurion!

I took off the blue from one tube this morning, and the fingernail polish is still there. I'm not sure anything short of acetone will get rid of it... so I put in a request for a new faceplate from TrooperGear. >< If I get a new one, I can use this one to practice shaping and pushing the outside teeth back to flat for more Hero-lookingness. Oi.

Well, that's why you get two sets of templates, eh? I didn't like these stripes anyway. Especially not that left side one!

Hrmm. I made sure it was close enough to the front, but I guess I didn't check its vertical position. Message sent to Gazmosis to check it out. I'll report back when I hear back from him!

OK, sniper plate is attached! I wasn't expecting there to be a gap in the middle underneath, but there is, and I guess that's ok? The cover strip has only been curing for about 12 hours, so keeping the rest of the magnets on until tomorrow morning (or later) My snap plate experiment was kind of a letdown. Here it is all nicely attached: And the back... Look at all that warping from the E-6000! It's such a huge mess! Oh, wait. Nothing happened. (I really didn't expect any reaction. I got exactly what I expected... a snap plate that I wouldn't trust for actual armor, glued to a random piece of ABS) Then I came inside and tested three different top coat fingernail polishes my wife had lying around: I was looking for thickness of coat and fast drying... The first one, the OPI RapiDry Topcoat won both of those... very thin layer, and dried within 5 minutes or so. I did the first tube stripe, didn't use enough of the nail polish, and had a few major gaps in the template... which led to this mess. Lots to clean up once it's dry. Then I did the other side... made sure I used fairly thick coats of nail polish, and that the template was down better... and got this result: WAY better! So this is the good side of the helmet! The tear is good, the stripes are good... the other side, which was the first side for each element, looks like a 3 year old fingerpainted it. Lots to fix.

My wife has plenty of clear nail polish, so I'll do that this evening. Thanks for the tip! I'm sure that'll look nicer. (: In other news, I made a chart. Never make a chart. It will make it look even more daunting than a pile of plastic is to start.

Traditionally, arms are all 15mm, legs are 20 in the front, 25 in the back. I made my leg strips 5mm wider just because my legs are wider than average.

What you have done so far looks really good. I'm about to put the sniper knee on, and noticed a big gap under the middle of it. I guess that gap is OK? I always thought it was flat to the armor on all three sides. You rounded off the snap plates a lot more than I did! I just trimmed off the corners with my curved lexan scissors, but left the rest of the edges straight. Almost done with my right calf, then it'll be time for thighs. I guess I'll be working on those while wearing my compression pants. That'll be fun. (: And then the whole torso, which I haven't even touched yet. Oi.

I'm going for canon innards just because I think they way it all hangs will work better, and keep the chest overlapping the ab plate even with my.. er.. ab bowl underneath. I am also using canon split rivets (or as close as possible, 38 years later) to hold the clamshell together. I'm planning on going rivet head-armor-elastic-ABS strip-rivet notch to make an elastic sandwich. I'm not sure what you mean by the proper snaps. I'm using the kind you can get from Joanns and use 50-60% off coupons for. Gotta save money SOMEHOW in the build!

Painting is my own personal heck. I should just pay someone to do this for me, but no, I'm a masochist. I painted the grey tear two days ago, did the black outline yesterday, so today was time to paint the lines. I bought the template from Trooperbay, and did this wonderful masterpiece: The line connecting all of the vents is evocative of the pain that all Stormtroopers must face when they realize that the droids they were looking for just passed by in an out-of-date speeder driven by an old guy in a dress. When I did the other side, I got smart. I painted over the template with grey, and then WALKED AWAY for a half hour. Did dishes, browsed imgur for a while. After a half hour, I came back and painted black over the whole thing, then WALKED AWAY for another half hour. Read all of Facebook, a little bit of Reddit, and then came back again and peeled off the template to reveal... A tear that's not full of tears! Yay! So, tomorrow I'll go over the other side with grey again, the next day I'll put on the template again and do the same thing I did on this one. Lesson learned: Take your time, and go over templates first with the base color. I need to pick up some white enamel paint to do this with the tube stripes. In other news, I made 20-ish more snap plates. A few more than I need, I think... (4 in shoulder bells, 4 in biceps, 2 in forearms, 2 in thighs, 2 in chest shoulders, 2 in back shoulders 1 inside right ab plate. Am I missing any? The body plates are all going to use the original loop and brace method.

The magnet sachets are probably my favorite thing I learned before starting my kit. They have been SOOOO useful, you don't even know. I've got 20 sets, and could probably use more, so don't skimp on them. Also, use 1/8 inch thick magnets if you can. They have way more pull than the 1/16th ones.

Very small update: Left shin front is together and gluing. Still no cover strip on it, that'll be tomorrow. This is just the inside strip holding the halves together. Also bought supplies to make snap plates! Using the rivet technique, 1/8 inch rivet inside the Dritz 5/8 inch snap. I've heard so many things about the E6000 reacting to metal and melting plastic, that I had to try this myself! I took my very first snap plate made with a split washer (don't do this, use M3 solid washers... the split washer split more.) and glued it to a scrap piece of ABS with glue all over the back, including right on the rivet. Clamped it down, and we'll see how it looks tomorrow. Getting my helmet painted up more... nobody will EVER be able to say they don't look hand-painted. Pictures will be up once I have all the lines and things done in the traps and tears. Next couple days.

I think they finally figured out that as long as they keep making them, we'll keep buying them. This should be their core business! Forget all the Care Bares and stuff!

Alright, I made my order, now I have a discount code up for grabs! First one to send me a private message gets it. (: 10% off, good until July 13 Code sent to ukswrath!

I got my DD kit today, and already had T-Jays finishing kit and Gazmosis(?)'s replacement magazine. I'm planning on copying this build as close as my meager skills will allow. I'll start a build thread on it when I start! (I'm concentrating on getting my armor made first, so I can at least get into the 501st at the basic level!)

You rock!!!