Ruthar

Took that pile of stuff above and started making some things with it. I was awed by this thread over on MEPD, so I figured I would give it a try myself. First, I sanded down the plastic container so it has a nice rough surface to paint. Then, I installed the flashlight pieces on the end and the screws/straps assembly. Once all that was connected, I sealed up the container with E6000 along the edges of the lid which I then locked down. After that, super glue and balsa wood to give the electrobinocular ridged texture as seen in the movies. Then I trimmed down the PVC detail piece on top and set it within the balsa tracks and surrounded it with some sanded balsa pieces. Once all that was done, I used air drying clay to mold some thickness around pieces such as the flashlight tips. I've never worked with this stuff before, so I'm interested to see how (or if) it will work at all. It's all about experimenting after all I suppose! Anyhow, this is where we got after all that. Tomorrow I will affix the eye pieces, some detail pieces on that side, and the brow edge part. I think I'm going to heat and bend some leftover ABS for that, but I'll toy around with that more tomorrow.

Starting a new piece of the puzzle tonight. Let's see what we can do!

The clips are just 9.5" lengths of square aluminum tubing with some little extras on them so they aren't that heavy, but certainly more weighty than just balsa wood. They make the pouches look nice and full which is what I was going for.

Ah ok, gotcha! I shall certainly try that. A few more things this afternoon - sanded the sharp ends of the shoulders as they were digging in quite annoyingly, assembled some more 'amm'o for the shoulder pouch, and got the last piece I've been waiting for in the mail - the large spanish pouch for the left side of the belt.

Thanks! In terms of the knee plate rubbing - it clears it but barely. Do you mean making the top of it lean forward a bit so the thigh is slightly behind it? Just having a bit of trouble visualizing what you're talking about is all. But thanks for all the continued helpful comments!

My uncle is a huge Star Wars fan and was actually the fellow who got me started on my own journey as a big fan of the franchise many moons ago, so we decided to surprise him with being greeted to Thanksgiving dinner by a Sandtrooper. Happy Thanksgiving to all you marvelous troopers here on FISD! (luckily for me, mom's a photographer so she got some great shots) Pouch and neck seal should be arriving in the mail tomorrow and then it's time for some submission photos to get into the marvelous 501st. Exciting times ahead for sure, but in the wise words of Yoda... "But now, we must eat. Come! Good food. Come!"

Most definitely! I've been up to Albany a few times for this and that, so perhaps I shall add a troop or two up that way in the years to come!

Excellent, can't wait to see all the submission shots and to hear about upcoming successful troops!

Oh I'm sure our paths will cross at some point! If not we will make it so. Been keeping an eye on your build thread over there - can't wait to see what your full kit looks like all weathered and sandy!

Thanks! I've been using Pandatrooper's method (found in this helpful video series) with just the burnt umber but in different grades of heaviness for different shades of brown in various parts of the armor. That being said, here are all the parts weathered in that style. Once they are all dried I will put the whole thing on and finally take a look at how it looks on me tomorrow. Also! The strapping system to hold down the shins worked marvelously. So if you are looking for something to help keep your shins down against your boots instead of grinding against your thighs, I can certainly recommend it. I also submitted the first part of my application for 501st membership yesterday evening, so things continue along nicely. Just waiting for my neck seal and spanish pouch to arrive, then we can start accessorizing!

Beautifully done, congratulations indeed!

That helmet is stunning! Cannot wait to see the whole thing together.

Congratulations, looks fantastic!

Decided to get a touch more weathering done tonight as well, so here is the second round of weathered parts. Will be doing the ab, kidney, and butt plates later on tonight.

So I tried to add velcro at the tops of my boots to keep the shins down, but didn't have all that much luck with it. I considered doing the stirrup method of attaching the shins around the bottom of my foot, but figured that might be a pain to get on and off a little. So, I came up with this: I attached two strips of 1" elastic to the boot elastic, installed some snaps, made four new nylon snap plates, and glued those into the insides of the sides of the shins. Once the E6000 dries on the shins, I will give them a whirl - hopefully these snaps will keep the shins down to the boot and keep them from twisting side to side but still have enough give for mobility all the while.

Got a little bit more done today. Trimmed up the thighs, put velcro on the shins and boots to hold them in place, and put some soft material around the bottom edge of the shin to prevent chipping of the paint on the boots. A few days ago I did the plasti-dip treatment of the interior of the helmet as well as installed the harder green lens material from Trooperbay. Last but not least, I did the first round of weathering! This took me what felt like forever, but I think it's coming along as I intended. Let me know what you guys think of the weathering so far so I'm not too far off the path. As with the troopers in the film, I'm trying not to go too heavy with the weathering and leaving a fair amount of white exposed.

So I just finished "Battlefront: Twilight Company" the other night, and throughout the book they kept referring to power/battery packs for blasters. So this got me thinking - what would something like that look like? I still have no idea, but I received my canvas ammo pouches from Trooperbay and realized I had an opportunity. It seems popular to fill them with wood so they hold shape nicely, but I thought why not fill it with something a little more interesting? So, here's what I did for fun! 1) First up, I found this post over on MEPD that has MP40 magazine dimensions. So I went over to Home Depot to start gathering materials, the first of which was 1" square aluminum tubing which I cut into 9 1/2" lengths. 2) Next I put gorilla tape on the bottom of the pipe so it doesn't tear the ammo pouch going in and out. I also wrapped a bit of the tape around a 1/2" PVC plug to fit it snugly in the other end. 3) Originally I was going to use bolts for some detail stuff on the top side, but then I came across these hose clamps which I thought would look neat. So I forced them around the top of the tube and hammered them on before tightening the screw. 4) Then with a heavy duty screwdriver, I clamped down the hose clamp as tight as it would go and glued in the PVC cap with some E6000. 5) Then it was time for some painting! Just a little black spray paint was all it needed to look uniform. 6) I found some small craft corks at a local craft store and though that they would make a nice detail piece on the end. Painted them red to look like some sort of actuator button. 7) Then I glued the little corks to the top of the power pack with a dab of super glue. While at the craft store I also picked up a white paint pen in order to write on some serial numbers on the cartridges. I took some metal pieces to the one on the left to scratch it up and also smeared the paint pen a little to give it a 'used' look, so my trooper will be carrying two new packs and a used one (because we obviously don't litter with used power packs of course!) I also painted the nut blue for a little more detail. 8) And here's what they look like finished inside the pouches. Now if someone asks me "is there anything in your pouches?" I can say "Of course! This DLT-19 doesn't run on just air alone!"

Excellent, thank you all for the info! I hunted around for some more options as well and found this thread. So if the velcro isn't enough, perhaps this will fix the problem nicely. Yeah, the chest piece is just slightly big on me (length and width), so some trimming will have to come. I want to heat up the sides and pull them in a little more as well so they rest snugly against the ab piece.

OK, finally got everything ready to do a full test fit so here are some shots: Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated of course! A few things I have already taken note of: 1) the top inside of the thighs will need to be trimmed back for more clearance with the cod piece - they slide and pop with each step so a touch off that region should quickly fix that 2) the strapping for the abdomen needs to be adjusted to pull in the gap on the left side The biggest question I have at this point is how to keep the shin pieces down upon the boots. They tend to push up and out (as seen in the last shot) instead of staying down onto the boot in place where I want them. Should I hold them against the boot via velcro or is there another method you guys have used? Anyways, thanks for all the help so far - looking forward to 'moving along' into the final stages!

I think it's time to take a small break from armorcraft for a little light reading. Seriously hoping to find the key to accurate blaster shots in here...

Thanks! The system works pretty well. Might need to grab a pair of suspenders just to really ensure they stay where I want them. It worked fine for just tromping around the basement a couple times, but I'm not entirely convinced they will stay put for a troop. But that has yet to be seen! In other news we are certainly getting closer now! Only a few teeny things left to do before the full fitting happens. - gotta trim an arc in the back of the thighs where it lands behind the knee for better mobility. Right now it's just a little uncomfortable to move, so that should clear it up no problem. - the shins are too long so I'm going to need to take a bit off the bottoms. Currently the shins and thighs are too close and the ammo belt and TD knee plate keep making too much contact. - need to go buy some sew on snaps to get the arms attached to the shoulder elastic Other than that, everything seems to be finished or nearly finished fitting-wise. Still weathering to do which will certainly take some time and gotta get the pouches (en route) on the belt somehow. Regardless, here is what we have: Grabbing a tote to store things in - might be a little small but it'll work for now. Plus it has wheels for ease of transport - bonus! The good news is that it seems I have a bit of time on Thursday to get a bunch of things done. Hopefully I can do tirst full fitting then which I'm definitely looking forward to!

'Our helmet is the only 3-part kit on the market'...my AM 2.0 kit strongly disagrees. Come on, at least do a touch of research...

I'll definitely fish around over there - hopefully I can track 'em down. Thanks! Ok thank you - just want to make sure I'm not seeing things wrong from the movie stills. It's too bad I didn't mention the hand plates sooner! A few more things this evening while I still wait for some E6000 to dry. Found an old belt tucked away in a drawer and decided to make some thigh garters out of it. I'm going to try using nylon for the straps instead of elastic as I don't want them pulling down at all, but it's going to be a work in progress once I get to test them out fully. Added in the bicep strap in the shoulder bells. Once all the glue is dry for the arm snaps and the elastic straps are all built, the arms should be complete.

I based the sniper plate on this picture - it seems to me that the sides of the plate and the top of the shin are in line, so that's what I did. Here's are some better shots of mine. If it's too high I can certainly reattach it! Do you happen to know where you can get the latex cheese grater plates? I would much rather use those but didn't know they were available - I had only caught wind of the latex TK hand plates.

Got a large bunch of things done between yesterday and today. First was finishing up the strapping of the torso. I tried it on a few times and made a handful of adjustments to get the fit a bit better, so now I'm just waiting on a few nylon snap plates to dry to test that again. Other than that, here are a few more things: In order to be closer to screen accuracy with the cheese grater hand plates (as the trooper I'm trying to replicate for this build uses those), I trimmed down the edges of the AM 2.0 ones to make them much thinner as they appear here. So here are my thinner ones. Went down on the edges as far as the slots in the middle to make it all level. Left is trimmed and right is the original AM 2.0 one. Installed the rear cover strip on the back of the shins. Once that dries tomorrow I will install the white velcro to attach them. Trimmed the belt, cut off the corners for the 45 degree angles, sanded it a bit, installed snaps on the ab plate and belt to affix it there, then riveted the canvas to the plastic and installed the square circle cut outs to cover the rivets. Then installed the ammo belt on the right thigh and the TD sniper plate on the left shin. Added a little E6000 on the ammo belt just to keep it more secure in combination with the two rivets. I should be able to get all the internal arm strapping done later tonight when I get home from work as I trimmed the shoulder bells - they weren't sitting close enough to my actual shoulders. Now that that is fixed I can get the arms finished up and attached to the shoulder straps. More to come soon!