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themaninthesuitcase

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Everything posted by themaninthesuitcase

  1. You don't have to be trooping Florida in peak humidity to fall foul of dehydration. I've seen more than one trooper over do it in conventions halls in London and need to helped out of armour.
  2. This looks like great work (without cracking out the reference anyway). Blender has always been a black art to me, I've had a couple of goes but it just doesn't compute. To think you got here from nothing in around a month is awesome. I've made a few bits over the years, but always using CAD (fusion mainly). I've released those for free mostly as it's small bits and bobs. People will generally pay a fair fee, some sets have seemed "optimistically" priced but what do I know, people clearly pay for them. I have a couple of other bits I am sat on as I want to make sure I am happy with them on a completed costume first. Paid, free, other, there's a gap atm. Non-Saga armour just isn't really available. Stuff is slowly starting to appear, but rogue one came out 10 years ago now! It's now abundantly clear that this is the styling for anything made that needs to feature stormtroopers going forward. Heck they even used them in TROS https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/508/lot/197721
  3. Thank you to all of you who have donated, for those of you confirmed on our tracking spreadsheet I have now updated your forum profile with the 2026 supporter badge. Some of you have been more than generous, but all of you have our thanks. All donations matter no matter how big or small. It's your generosity that keeps the lights on and the droids working.
  4. From the ground up? You'd want a vacuum former, and the bucks. Both of which are a bit above most peoples experience on here. There's more art than science to it and it takes a significant amount of time effort and money which is why most buy a kit rather than build from nothing. That said if no one did try, then we'd not have a kit to build in the 1st place. Good Luke with your project!
  5. Screws came for the forearm inserts. This is a test pair which isn't the best printed or sanded, will also need to be painted.
  6. For basic I would agree with Glen. The CRL doesn't make any mention of the colour of the straps only For Level 2/3 we have generally standardised on the brown suede side visible but at the same time CRL doesn't actually say it has to be black. So more of a DO discretion there, but the image is brown and the Images are to be taken into account.
  7. Still need to do the final trim and sanding but the extensions for the forearms are almost there. This light is brutally unforgiving to the sanding I need to do, I tend to work on this in the evening so light isn't great. I might need to do a very thin coat of the ABS paste just to cover the last few flaws. See how another round of sanding goes. You can also see 2 issues that I am not sure I can do much about unless I resign to painting which I think won't be necessary once polished: There is a very faint grey line where the plastic joins. I have no idea why though. The ABS paste the same plastic there as it is on other areas you can see, and that's fine. Hoping after polish and final trim this will be not very noticeable. A small warp on the right most part. This pull was very thin and the ABS paste seems to have weakened it a bit as it was being worked. The warp lies below the reinforcement piece in place. Hoping once I sand back the reinforcement a bit and then glue and clamp onto the inner section this won't be too noticeable. This was the result of about 3-4 passes of ABS paste and filling. I ended up making some small sanding tools with my 3D printer, basically a stick with a wedged end, and using tick on sand paper to get good access. I am still bad at sanding but these tools helped alot by keeping things flat and so taking off high spots vs blending them in. Also glued in some clips, trying to emulate the strapping in the TLJ in the gallery : I have a temporary belt made up as well with the webbing to drop down. All a bit basic at the moment but it works and will allow me to do a test fit once I either get out my TK undersuit or get to the shop and buy a new one. When I do that I'll be able to size the thigh and then glue the inner seam into place.
  8. I have a big Stanley box, and it's a really good option but the size has down sides. It takes up a lot of room at home, in the car, at a troop. That said it's also been a chair, a table and a step due to its strength. They aren't terribly heavy either despite their size so lifting them is more awkward than a strain. Though last year I swapped to a large suitcase I picked up in Wallmart on holiday. It's smaller and lighter. I do have to break the amour down more to fit inside but that's not a huge issue. The other advantage is a suitcase draws less attention if you have to walk, or use public transport. For my helmet I've always used a motorcycle helmet bag. These are tough, padded and also have a soft liner so the helmet is well looked after. My blaster used to just get wrapped in a towel and put into the Stanley box. With the suitcase it's a bit more snug, so I now have a Photography lighting bag I got on AliExpress which is about the perfect size. According to my order history I got the 55cm size. It's also discreet when transporting and doesn't draw attention.
  9. Welcome to the FISD Grant!
  10. See I am looking and basically see the same thing. NS TK, bit of dirt, pouldron, crystal backpack. Why have 2 CRLs that covers that exact same thing? Okay we could ague the toss on what "bit of dirt" means but it's not factory fresh, most NS suits I can remember have a lived in feel.
  11. I'm of the opinion they are ALL Stormtroopers, but that argument sailed many years before I was here. The rough issue, for me anyway, is it's silly to have a duplicate CRL. The troopers in Solo, to me, appear to be identical to the ones in Rogue One. That CRL was created as the Jedha Sandtrooper - Rogue One CRL If you look at the above TOPPS reference, and the CRL they aren't sandy. Just lightly dirty but Jeddah has brown dirt. So it boils down to how to square that: The Jeddah is the one we go with as it already exists, maybe rename it as it appears to be the same troopers in Solo. We add optional parts to the Non-Saga CRL, for the pack and saying if you have the pack you need a pauldron. Doesn't cover the dirt though, most NS have mild dirt though to be fair. Whole new CRL but that feels way too far. Personally, not overly sure why this is even a thing: there is a CRL build it and go have fun. But if you can sell me (and Kris as LMO need to buy in too) on why FISD needs this then I am happy to listen.
  12. Hi, Our server was getting slammed by "something" so I've had to enable cloudflare protections. This seems to have the side effect of taking out tapatalk. I did disable it after 12 hours and it lasted about 5 minutes before the sever started to be overwhelmed again. I am out for a lot of this evening but once home I'll turn it back off again and see how we get on.
  13. Started working on adjusting the forearms to TLJ cuts. I started by trying to "iron" them with a very hot spoon but this wasn't going to work on the compound curve. Did help on a thinner bit though. With that knowledge I knew I was going to be splicing in new plastic and learning about ABS slurry, I marked both we some tape to get some nice straight lines to cut out the wavy bit. That cut out I went through my off cuts found a piece the right thickness and big enough. I also cut some joining plates for behind. I started buy attaching the backing plates with some ABS slurry, avoiding glue so there's no glue line. Then I attached the filler peices. I didn't do a great job clamping the far corner which lifted slightly so will need more sanding. I then started to fill the seams with more slurry. I am not overly good at this and have made a small mess. I definitely did a better job on one side to the other. I have sanded this back this morning, found some low spots, so have refilled those again. I also added a little bit of paste to the back to thicken out where I am sanding to try avoid any accidents. ABS filling is definitely an art vs typical fillers as it's drying from the second you remove it from the jar. Manging how liquid, or not, how much you have on the tool (I used a mix of coffee stirrers and a brush) and how big an area to do at once is a tough balancing act. So far going okay so will just iterate on this until I am happy with the flatness. It's easy to add a little more, but adding too much will encourage over sanding. I also have glued up a bunch of stuff: Shins are done, thigh main seam is done, wating for fitting for the inner shoulders, and biceps are all started as well. The shoulder bells where a pain to line up the lips. After trying various ways to measure it I found eye-balling it actually did it very quickly. Once marked I compared both a few different ways until I was happy they lined up. I have also transferred the mark to the under side for when I add the mounting points. Biceps have a small issue: The length of seam at the cut line is a good 4-5mm off. I've aligned "correctly" based on where the clip will go, the top is okay but the bottom is no good. But I've just looked at reference and these are upside down. so the bottom is good, top is the issue. Either way I think my best bet is to blend the cut down about 3-3cm into the larger part to hide the bad alignment. I also have a belt, some webbing and clips so will be looking to start fitting the strapping to the thighs soon.
  14. You can source the bits for do it yourself, I have had these in a watch list for years UK links but I am sure US eBay will have the same stuff once you know what to get neoprene https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373396396391?var=642416596195 wasn't sure what thickness though, 3-5mm, but I'd need to reference hunt. rubber ribbing https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402300779926?var=672255164758 Then you'd need some black 50mm/2" webbing a clip and a couple of Chicago screws iirc.
  15. Helmet looks like my black series to me but as you'll need a TFA that's a nice thing to have for a display at home or a con. They can be updated to clear if you want but it's a lot of work. I think the partial yoke is to help reinforce the join between the various parts.
  16. No we don't, which is why we need to request it. For clarity the text of the CRL is not changing, only the image. Essentially we need 4 images, front rear top and detail to re-make the CRL image (https://crls.501st.com/images/2/5/1/4/2/251424340f3b08127ce5c426526e5ccaa80ed2f0-tfatkbackyoke.png) but with an updated part. This is the sort of front plate I am referring to, but as you can see, I am still building this one. Doesn't have to be the same brand, but just not with the Rams horn style cut we have in the CRL.
  17. We can only use the photos we have, and only fix the errors we know are there. If you feel there is an issue with a CRL let us know. Tell us what is wrong and why you think so and we can look to fix it. Normally updating images is the hardest part as we need someone to build it then send us the image before we can update it.
  18. We had a trooper asking about these recently. IMO they are the same as the Jedha Sandtrooper - Rogue One with a crystal patrol duty pack. Looking at the CRL it's probably weathered close to what this screen cap is showing. So IMO there's not really a need for a 2nd CRL, there already is one. The MEPD DL agreed with me, I think a simple rename to be more generic would do it but @Hask might know better.
  19. Greetings troopers, It's that time of year where we need to pay our bills. Last year we covered 14 months to get us a little way into the term so there was no sudden rush just after the elections. Well that 14 months is almost up so we now need your help to cover the detachments costs. The breakdown of costs are as follows: Hosting in backups - $34.56 monthly after taxes Email - Send Grid - $19.95 monthly after taxes Invision v5 Licence - $199 Members owed from previous term - $75 This brings our fundraising goal to $928.12 for 12 months. We'd like to ask for a $5 donation from members, but any value no matter how small will be appreciated. Please send your donation via PayPal friends and family to [email protected]. Please make sure you mention your forum name so we can update your profile. All members who donate will also have the 2026 supporter banner added to their profile, as with the earlier email costs fundraiser.
  20. It’s the default image format on iOS. It’s a lot smaller for better quality I gather. However even almost 10 years later software support is not great. I’ve also used https://freeimage.host for images and it seems okay so far.
  21. https://www.flickr.com/photos/themaninthesuitcase/28372543485/in/album-72157671098462536/ is this any help in the back plate?
  22. We don’t have enough storage to offer much attachment storage. You’ll need to use something like Imgur. If you just want to delete something looks like from the profile menu pick my attachments, select the image and a pop up to delete should show up.
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