Alay

You got this! Just make sure you're using E6000 if you're not 1000% sure/confident of where you're gluing. E6000 is amazing stuff; you can jam a butter knife under it to pull it apart easily without issue and if that doesn't work just throw it in the freezer for an hour and it comes right off

Damn dude I looked away from your thread for five minutes and you're blasting through it! Great work! Bring those shoulder bells in so they're snug to the chest if you can

Nice job on the buttons! I'm actually most nervous about that part of Chris's kit... we're both pretty inept when it comes to any sort of painting, even with masking :s

As Luc said; the cover strips should be roughly in line. Your fitting looks pretty good! With the rest of the armor on it won't feel as big. Picture says a thousand words so hopefully these might help... here's how my arm armor looks for my left arm right now Note the bend of the elbow and how the forearm sits. The side with the bumps in it goes towards the "outside" while that cut is where your arm bends. You can also see the inside of the forearm ends a lot further down than the outside; that's fine, the coverstrip overlaps a little The strapping is towards the outside, just about under the cover strip. This way the cover strips "line up" like Luc said. Inside the bicep Inside the forearm (I use velcro to be able to adjust, but snaps work just as well) You're pretty much spot on, just turn those forearms before adding any strapping

As I recall the helmets for the heroes in the film actually had huge openings in them for that purpose. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than I can confirm or tell me I'm full of bologna though! It took me a while to get comfortable putting my helmet on and off. My glasses get in the way now, but it's doable. You'll get it down For the biceps, rule of thumb is you want the opening to be about the same diameter between the biceps bottom and top of the forearms. You can always add foam padding to the inside of the biceps too for comfort and keeping them steady=)

Thanks :3

If you're gonna be pulling them apart a few times to work out sizing you might want to hold off on inner covers until you've got it about where you want each piece. E6000 is great for flexibility of use, but it takes bloody long to dry Can never have too many magnets. Just watch your fingers!

Also I bought this for setting snaps after much hassle with hammers and pliers and cutting studs and stuff... Wish I started with it.

Your helmet bottom looks right. AP has some of the smallest lids of the bunch from what I gather. Put it on sideways then turn it after your nose is in. The ears don't come all the way down but are mostly covered by the trim I'd take off a bit more of the return edge of the top outside of the biceps... they'll never really be seen under the shoulder bell anyways so no sense in snagging yourself on them. For the forearms, I thought mine had to go much smaller than they actually did... I just glued them with a typical 15mm coverstrip and they ended up perfect as is. Remember after they're completely closed you need to be able to fit your hand through it so don't go too small looking great so far!

I score/snap coverstrips too. Needlenose pliers sometimes are needed to start it off, but otherwise with a bit of work it comes apart

Glasses free unfortunately isn't an option for me... the world is a big multi-colored blur I mean... I guess all things considered it's about the usual of what you can see inside the helmet

Any suggestions for glasses in helmet? I have a tough time getting them in and out. Might get a contact lense prescription and just get daily ones for troops.

Jesus dude glad you're okay! You might want to upgrade your snaps... I have heard some people frustrated with the Dritz brand before. I've used Tandy snaps and they've been quite nice if occasionally tricky.

I use a belt sander. Don't bother sanding much of the butt-join sides as you'll cut those to size for the coverstrip. The inside you'll want to take off enough that it's smooth and there's no catch, but with a bit of return edge. Also for score and snap, you actually need a ridiculously small amount of cut to actually be able to bend and snap. Don't worry about giving most bits more than one or two shallow cuts

Good luck! Fellow programmer here so I know that hands on fear. You'll do great!

Yup! ANH stunt TK. Dunno if he's going to go full Centurion or not, but I might nudge him in that direction since most of the cosmetic changes are worth doing in my opinion anyways... only bit I'm not a fan of is the male snap on the front of the ab plate, but it's hidden anyways. Not sure if I should make a new thread or not, but I'm detailing a ton of the process of trimming/sanding/assembling, so hopefully we can put up an AP kit tutorial similar to something like ukswrath did for Anovos. Might help a newcomer or two

E6000 comes apart super easy, if you're using that. When I had to resize my stuff I just glued both, figured out how much had to go, cut about 75% of that, reglued, sized again, and so on. Usually I reckon you'd want to take a bit off both sides where possible, but for the thighs where it has an explicit edge you might just do the back. Stuff like biceps/bracers, I'd do half and half. Just my 2 cents tho

Submitted my 501st application so now the waiting game starts... hope I didn't screw anything up! Submission gallery: http://imgur.com/a/xBxSd Once that's done, I'm going to see about maybe cutting some room into the back of the shins/thighs so I can walk nice instead of waddling I also bought some silk glove liners, and some nomex gloves for potential trooping... we'll see how they work out. We'll be starting on my husband's build tomorrow We're going to try to take a lot more photos and do it more tutorial style to help others.

Nice work so far! Anovos kit is very pretty. Hard to see 100% from the photos, but your eyes might need a bit more trimming/sanding out. Post an upclose picture first though as it might just be the image.

Suit is built to centurion CRL so only thing I might need to change for EIB/Cent is fitting. I might get some gloves that don't make my hands hate life for trooping though... That Rubber is tough on them haha

GUYS, IT'S OFFICIAL, MY SUIT IS COMPLETED! Some post shots to show the fitting... LOOK AT MY FLEXIBILITY!!!! ACTION POST TIME!!!! And finally adding in the (non-submission costume) pieces to model after my old SWG character of eight years... And of course, the biggest smile I've had one since getting the big brown box! (please excuse my _awful_ hair) But lets be real; the real fun has just begun! The rest of the fitting! I definitely need to remove some return edge on the shins, maybe cut away the back of the tops for more mobility. The thighs have one or two pinch points too. Any comments on fitting, where I can improve? THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!! BEST COMMUNITY EVER!

I made a thing to stop the overlapping on the strapped side... Shamelessly stolen idea from zv288bot's post. Basically take a long somewhat thin piece of abs and bend it at a 45 degree angle, then back straight. Make sure another piece of ABS fits smoothly under it. I also sanded and rounded the front side so it doesn't catch. Glued in with E6000 ezpz. Works like a charm

Looking good trooper! Might want to tighten those butt straps so it doesn't go over the belt on the outside. Might need to bend them a little inward too.

The Anovos gloves look pretty comfortable. I really want to nab a set of them

Last night definitely helped lift my spirits The frustration was the push I needed to get over my fear of cutting into those kidney plates to the extent they had to be for my body type. Thanks Sly! I've been sanding off where possible now to try and avoid tears. It will probably take a few troops to figure out all the pain points that need to be removed. Thanks! Unfortunately no sewing machine... I'm thinking E6000 the velcro on the armor and change velcro above the loop to snaps. My mother has an industrial sewing machine from the 40s down at her farm that I'll have to borrow next time I drive down there!