Cricket

Thank you for making those updates so quickly, Dave! Great work with your kit! I understand that you are currently awaiting your new blaster. Once it arrives, please be sure to take a photo of the left and right sides and include them for review. We can't formally review your application until we have all necessary photos. In addition to the blaster photos, we also need some additional photos to complete your EIB application. We need the following items: Sniper Knee Detail (left, right, and from the front) Right Side Detail (example photo) Left Side Detail (example photo) Hovi tip detail (example photo) Ammo Belt with Holster Attachment (example photo) Neckseal (example photo) Interior Strapping (example photo) Abdomen Details (example photo) Once these photos have been added to your application, we can then formally begin your Expert Infantry review. We look forward to hearing back from you soon!

Hm. I'd have to see pics, but it might. That said, you should be able to resculpt the swoop if it's a little off. Here's what I did with my WTF forearms.

Welcome aboard, TK-46165! Be sure to report over to the 501st Access page and obtain your new Access Level!

Hello Dave! Thank you for submitting your armor for consideration to the EIB Program! Before we can begin review of your photos, you will need to include some additional information on your application. Below are the general guidelines for application: (Note that you may already have submitted some of these items in your application, thank you!) Please follow this format If you are ready to request FISD Deployment: 1: Review the relevant Expert Infantryman requirements on your specific CRL. 2: Create a new post with the title format: "TK-XXXX Requesting [ANH|ESB|ROTJ|etc] EIB Status" 3: Include the following: 1: Your Name 2: Your 501st TK ID 3: Your FISD forum name 4: Your Garrison 5: Upload high-resolution photos of front, back & both sides of yourself in full armor as well as detail photos displaying compliance with all Expert Infantryman items. Please do not forget to include a well lit action shot in front of a plain background. 6: When in doubt, look at previous successfully deployed threads, or simply ask! It's what we're here for. 7: You must be a 501st approved Stormtrooper. If you are, but haven't permission to create your thread, request 501st access in this thread. Thanks again for your submission, Dave!

Lid work. No ears. Can you hear me now? Ear! Loook, it's like my hubby's lid and my lid are cuddling. Awwww.... And me prepping for tomorrow's troop. I love sticker-ing up the bin! And bringing my spankin' new Praetorian DLT-19 along with! (Thanks, Mr. Cricket! {best hubbie EVAH!}) Maybe I'll let him borrow it trooping one day.

Returns aren't required in these areas. Trim for fit and comfort. For my kit (I'm just 5'4"), I trimmed all of it off and then some. You won't see this area anyhow because the belt hides it. See? (I'm on the left) About strapping, it's always a good idea to reinforce returns if using brackets. My RS kit developed cracks where there was no reinforcement at the returns, and that happened even before trooping. I consider reinforcement of returns as just a way to improve durability of the kit (and spend less time making repairs down the road).

I've purchased and assembled both RS and WTF kits, and they're both quality armor. A lot of it depends on what your body type is like and what you like as far as a stormtrooper "look". The RS kit has all the glorious wonkiness of the screen-used armor and is pretty much as accurate as you can get. WTF is a bit more "sanitized", but it's still good stuff. The RS kit is only a one-size deal. WTF offers different sized pieces to fit different body types. Both companies have amazing customer service, which comes in handy when something has been overtrimmed or melted beyond repair! Welcome aboard, and we all look forward to watching your journey!

haha! Yes, it's always nice to have a soft Star Wars kit available. My Jawa is super comfy, but I also enjoy my XWing pilot as well (I'm always a spy for the Empire!). Your ab plate looks like you could trim some additional flashing from around the edges of the cod. Check out the screen-used suit for an example (poor trooper lost his cod...): And just to make sure I'm clear on the torso fitting well... What I mean by this is that your entire torso (back/kidney/butt/ab/chest) is fully adjusted and strapped together as if you were trooping in it. How things fit will change once all your extra returns/flashing is trimmed and strapping is introduced. It really makes a difference! Carry on, trooper!

I like the thigh to end just above the knee cap. I would think that if the thigh rests on the knee cap itself, mobility would be even more difficult than usual. The bottom of the right knee is kind of hidden by the ammo pack. Now, about that thigh/torso relationship... (and this is what works for me, others might like to do it differently!). It really depends on your height. I didn't see you mention if you're a member of the Vertically Challenged Club or not. If you're on the taller trooper end of the spectrum, then you don't have to worry about shortening the thighs at all, and you can just build away. But if you're on the shorter end, you'll want to try to maintain the original shape of the thighs as best as you can while reducing the overall length of the thigh. Your goal is to have the armor fit well with as little black showing as possible. Try to look like one of these troopers. Pay attention to how the curve of the thigh follows the curve of the cod. I've seen many, many troopers just hack and slash away at their thighs (myself included with my first set of thighs!!!) before seeing how the thighs fit relative to the shape of the cod and butt plates. It's ridiculously easy to overtrim the thighs if you're not wearing your torso first! And your torso should fit you well before shortening the thighs. If your torso is too long, then your trims on the thighs will be all out of whack. Does that make things a little clearer for you?

I'm looking forward to seeing how your new kidney return turns out! I've always been advised to trim the kidney from the bottom only because that end isn't visible (i.e., in the event that the new returns don't turn out perfect, no worries!), and it's easy to recreate a new kidney notch. But I really like how you were able to just move the entire original return down (I've done a similar trick with hemming jeans to keep the original edges intact). I suppose the work will be in hiding the seam lines where the return and kidney meet. I want to see close up pics of this when you're done. Very clever!!!

The right screw looks good to me. The left screw looks like it could be counter sunk a little deeper into the ear so that the head of the screw is completely flush against the plastic. I'd say just give it an extra twist or two to secure it a little more, and you should be good to go! Once again, fantastic work on your kit, Fabio! Congrats on the well-deserved EIB, and we'll see you at Centurion!

Greetings Fabio and welcome back! Thank you for your EIB application. Let’s get to the review! CRL and EIB Application Requirements: All required photos have been submitted. Thank you for taking the time to submit such great photos! Your armor contains all necessary elements to qualify you for EIB. The entire DO Team would like to congratulate and welcome you to Expert Infantry. Beautiful job on your build, sir! Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: It is always challenging to size down a full-sized kit, and you've really done a fantastic job of it! I would like to offer a few suggestions as to how you could do some fine-tuning to make this kit not only look better, but be more comfortable as well. Helmet: Lately Anovos has been assembling their helmets with the ear screws in a somewhat vertical alignment. The "ideal" ear placement is as seen below, where the screws line up with the rear angle of the top trap. While correcting this is only a suggestion, it is not a requirement on any level to fix. We thought we would point this out to you in case you felt like trying for a little more screen accuracy. Screen References: Arms: The cover strip on the front right forearm looks like it could use a little bit of trimming. Sharp hanging edges like that can cause an unexpected armor bite! (ow!) This can be quickly taken care of with a Dremel or a snip with some lexan scissors and a little sandpaper. Legs: We've noticed that your butt plate and thighs are very close. On your right side view of your kit, you can see the butt plate slipping under the back of your thigh. That could cause some super painful armor bites! A little trimming at the top of your thighs in the back should be able to easily fix this! Also it seems that your right thigh looks a bit big (as we noticed in the photo of the back of your armor). Taking in the right thigh just a little bit more will not only make the kit look better, but will be more comfortable as well! Screen Reference: Sniper Knee: You did a really clean job of trimming that sniper knee! While this won't prevent you from obtaining Centurion, we would like to suggest that you square off your sniper knee instead of curve. This would take just a few minutes to do with some sandpaper and really help improve the accuracy of your kit! Screen References: Back: It might be the photo angle, but the back plate looks like it is riding a bit too high on your frame. I understand about your height (I am not all that tall myself!), and some adjustments to the back plate to bring it down would really help you look your best! In the photo below, you can see yourself on the left, the screen captured trooper on the right. This makes it easier to see where ideally to get your back plate lined up on your frame. The OII Box should be centered somewhere around the middle of your back. If you move the back plate down a bit, you should be able to see how much of the bottom of the back plate you’ll need to trim so it doesn’t overlap the kidney (or you may choose to remove some of the bottom of the kidney, or remove a little bit of both to keep things in proportion). Which now brings me to the shoulder straps. The straps on the suits in the movie don't make contact with the OII box. You could either take a few bars off of them, create more of a bend in them, or move them lower on the chest so the straps no longer touch the box back there. Any of these options are super quick and easy to do! Your armor is in the photo on the left, screen suit on the right for comparison. Additional Screen References: Centurion Requirements: In this section we prepare you for Centurion. Because Centurion photos show more detail than EIB, items pertaining to Centurion might be seen there and not here. We try to point out all that we can from what we see but the final accuracy is the responsibility of the trooper. Helmet: Ear screws shall be slotted, flat topped, countersunk and painted white. The lower screws in your helmet will need to be changed out to a flat head style screw pictured below. (This is a common issue with Anovos Helmets) Reference Photo: Belt: The top of the ammo belt should sit at or just below the bottom of the central and vertical abdomen button panels. If you're aiming for Centurion (as I am certain you are!), you will need to move your belt up a bit as illustrated in the image below. You can do this with velcro, moving the snaps on the ab plate, or combination of both. Screen References: You may potentially run into a little trouble when you raise your belt. It looks like if you move your belt up, your belt will be interfering with your chest plate. You may want to consider raising your chest plate up in order to better accommodate belt placement. This can be done pretty easily by trimming your neck line deeper. The bottom shape of the Anovos chest has a deeper arc than the screen armor chest, which is why there is so little room for that belt to fit in the correct location on your frame. Again, this should be a really easy fix if you make a deeper cut at the neck and move the chest up. A good guideline is to look at how much of the vertical ridge detail is showing above the ab button box. This kind of spacing should allow you to bring your belt up to Centurion requirements. Screen Reference: Shoulders: There should be a minimal gap between the shoulder armor and the chest/back plates. The backs of the shoulder bells look perfect; great job on those! The front shoulders still have a bit of a gap that can be adjusted to bring those shoulder bells tighter in. The tops of the bells should touch the shoulder straps. To fix this, simply move the elastic strap that connects the bells to the shoulder strap. Screen Reference: Back Plate: Back plate shall have no, or minimal overlap of the kidney plate. Your back plate is overlapping a bit at the sides. Tightening up the strapping in those areas can help to eliminate that overlap. In addition, you may consider curving the sides of the back plate in with a gentle hot water bath. I had to do this for my own kits. It's an easy fix, and it makes a world of difference in how the bottom of the back plate and top of the kidney meet on the sides. Your photo is on the left, the screen capture is on the right for comparison. Additional Screen Reference: All in all, you've done an amazing job with your armor, and you should be very proud, trooper! Congrats again, and we look forward to seeing you at Centurion!

Another +1 for Darman's Props. I highly recommend the 8oz holster over the 4oz holster. I've owned both. If you plan on being able to holster your blaster on your own while kitted up, you need the extra weight of the 8oz leather. For me, the 4 oz was too floppy, and I constantly needed to request assistance from a handler to give my arm a rest during long troops. The 8oz holster can be molded and stretched to hold its shape nicely. I never have issues putting my blaster away or pulling it out when I spot rebel scum.

Yep! I just sent you some to get you going along with rivets and some washers. Out in the mail today! I tend to find my supplies at Amazon and buy in bulk. I'm always in process of building some kind of costume for either myself or my family, so keeping snaps/rivets/glue on hand is a requirement in this household. I just noticed your pic and figured out why it seemed so familiar to me! This was taken of me last year at DragonCon... haha... (and yes, I also brought my TK)

PM me your address and I can mail some snaps and rivets to you.

Yeah. The bottoms of the left shin halves are a bith! (and the left shin especially so...) Good news is that coverstrips should conceal all. I'm gluing the coverstrips on now, I've lined things up fairly well, and clamped/taped the heck out of things. Fingers crossed it all looks good once the glue cures.

The birthing process of magnetic shins isn't always pretty... but it's progress!

Making great progress, Jennifer! Keep it up! There are a few things I am noticing that you may want to address as you fit your kit... The area in green should ideally be trimmed from the kidney. It will make the kidney fit better on you if you remove it. Same thing with the extra flashing on the ab plate. Which brings me to your Han snap. That's the little snap in the top right of the ab plate. Sorry to inform you, but it's in the wrong spot. Photos below show where you have it currently vs. where it should approximately be. A good guideline is to make the hole 15mm in from the plastic edge both horizontally and vertically. Screen kit for reference: There was a really good discussion about this issue (Han snap and kidney/ab rivet placement) on the RS kit here. Don't panic about the hole leftover once you move the snap! Use a little bit of ABS paste to fill it in, polish up, and you'll be good to go. Shoulder bells: I made the big mistake of initially trimming mine down just based on a straight measurement. The screen used bells are curved, not straight. See pic (screen bells are the slightly yellowed ones): That said, try to hold off trimming your shoulder bells until your torso is fully adjusted! If your chest/back are 100% perfect how you want them to fit, then that's the time to get those shoulder bells tackled. Shoulder bells should follow the contour of your chest and back plates. Think of the bells and chest/back as puzzle pieces that should meet together as seamlessly as possible while still retaining movement. There is no exact measurement for this because each suit is shaped differently. Rely on screen captures to emulate what you want the bells to look like. How to do this? Once your torso is fully dialed in, then tape your shoulder bell to your shoulder strap. You want to sort of wedge the bell on your shoulder, and under the chest/back plates. Take a pencil and trace where the chest and back overlap. Be conservative with this so you don't over trim. Then remove the bell, trim, and try the bell on again. Move your arm around and take note of where the bell catches on the chest/back. Conservatively mark those areas on the bell, remove the bell, conservatively trim, and try on again. Also don't be afraid to hot water bath some additional curve to those bells (you'll see that the screen bells kind of 'pinch' in at the bottoms). I think you get the idea. This requires a lot of try-on-take-off, but the effort will result in some super sweet-fitting shoulder bells! Now about the butt... I know you don't have it on now, but with as much as you've shortened the front of the suit, you will need to shorten the back as well in order for the back to fit you properly. Your kit is fitting you like mine did before I shortened the back. Take a good look at where the bottom of the cod is and where the bottom of the butt plate is. While I can't find a good screen shot of this, you'll have to rely on the illustration for the time being. Focus where the butt plate and cod line up. Those areas should meet approximately on the same plane. Basically, before I trimmed the kidney and back plates for height, the back was too long for the front. The elastic you will be installing to secure the cod/butt plates should not be a structural element (as noted in the CRL, it needs to be there, but does not to be functional). I hope I haven't been too confusing on these things! Sizing down the RS kit is no easy challenge. Again, you're making great progress!

I hope I'm not too late to the party here! I had many of the same issues with my WTF that you are having on your WTF kit. You had mentioned that the WTF armor is a fan sculpt. Walt has told me that this comes from a screen-used ROTJ suit- which is why the kidney/butt plates are fused together. (Those troopers must have been itty-bitty!) The WTF kit is tiny compared to the RS suit, isn't it?! I barely had to trim anything on my WTF. The RS? Trimming for days... I think I could have built another TK with the amount of excess ABS I've trimmed. (currently building my 3rd RS TK right now...) If you haven't shaped your forearms yet, may I offer a tip? (I remember how badly oval-shaped the WTF forearms are.) I suggest assembling the fronts of the forearms together first by gluing an inner cover strip. Tape the heck out of the outside seam, though. This will allow you to clamshell-fit your forearm securely for width. All sizing adjustments for width take place on the back seams. Once you've got it properly sized and trimmed for width, glue an inner cover strip to the inside back seam (taping the heck out of the outside seam again). Then boil up some water and knock that oval into rounded submission! Inner cover strips add a lot of strength to the forearms, and allows you to get some decent hot-water shaping done without falling apart. Sidenote, congrats on recruiting your wife with her TD! She looks great!

Hey Fabio! Exactly what I asked for, and I love your Can-Do attitude! We will be processing your Expert Infantry Application shortly. Thank you for your patience!

Hey Jennifer, Welcome to the world of white armor! Can't wait to see how you rock that RS kit! About that kidney/ab closure... your seam line where they meet on the right should close straight. Like this (using my pics from my EIB application in my RS kit): I've always been told that the belt isn't structural; you shouldn't necessarily rely on the belt to pull things together. I mean, you can, but this symptom simply means that your kit isn't built properly for your body (yet! ). From the pic you posted, it looks like your ab/kidney are sitting high on your torso. The top of the ab button box ideally should be positioned at roughly the bottom of your sternum. Maybe share an additional pic or two showing the front? This can alter how the kidney/ab meet up. To be honest, the best way to see how everything fits is to tape the parts together from the inside (back/kidney/butt, chest/ab), then tape the front and back halves together, and try it all on. You will quickly see what needs trimming/shaping, and in what areas. And your kidney still needs to have flashing trimmed from it. That will also help reduce that gap you're seeing. Many thanks to @Mworm1974 for sharing one of my build threads with you! However, the one he shared focused mostly on my ATA Hero lid. Take a look at my RS build thread here for much more info about how I assembled my RS kit. I also documented my second build here, but it's a WTF kit (overall, much smaller than the RS suit). Keep in mind that since you've trimmed the cod, for best fit, you will need to either shorten your kidney or shorten your back plate (or, like I did, shorten a little of both to keep things in good proportion). Looking forward to watching your progress!

Hey Shawn, How goes your progress? Any updates? I hope trimming that ATA ABS hasn't gotten the best of you!

Holy cow, are we mid-way through April already?! Progress on this kit has been slower than I'd like it to be. I take full responsibility for it, though! I have a serious case of "Ooh-look-a-project-itis" lately. I'm still not done with my Hero TK build (although it's coming along, I haven't documented it, though!), and my T-21 foam build is still mid-way through, and I still have to convert my stunt TK to a TD (and build the backpack for it), and then there's this TK I'm working on... and most recently I got the itch to start looking into 3D printing a shoretrooper. Oh boy. Since my last post, I was able to acquire some TK Boots for my hubby (thanks to @Commander Gree!). And today I finally made some flippin' progress on this kit, which has me thrilled! I present to you... LEGS! Trimming for width is always the most challenging part for me. Not only do you have to trim to make the parts fit properly, but you have to make sure that the front and back seams line up. Which is no easy task with the RS shins! One half of the shins (the left halves, the RS kit comes with two identical shins) has a lot less material at the bottom of it than the other. This isn't an issue if you plan on shrinking the shins down a lot (as I've had to do to my own shins in the past). However, I hardly have to trim anything off the backs of the RS shins on my hubby, so I don't have much room to adjust for wonkiness. In the pic below, you can see how the shins line up in the back. There is barely 1cm of material overlapping at the top, and nothing at the bottom. (This was taken before I finished trimming right thigh for size, so please ignore that!) The shins fit my husband perfectly as taped, so I'm going to have to do some serious coverstrip magic to straighten things out. *For the record ALL RS shins are made like this; it isn't some lame overtrimming from the studio.* I will be assembling his shins with magnetic closures (like I've done with my other 3 sets of shins), and all the hardware for that part of the project has already been created and acquired (I really am not a fan of making magnetic buttons out of ABS. I had the foresight to create those last October- yay!). The other bit of progress made has been with the torso (no pics for this part). I've reinforced all the returns and installed the brackets for strapping the torso parts together. I've also been successful with installing the split rivets and strapping on the right side kidney/ab, and installing the Han snap. These are all little things that seem to take a lot of time to get done for me. But when it's done- WHEW! I'm off to get stuff glued now.

Thanks for those, Fabio! Boy, you're quick! Before we can get things rolling, we also need one more updated photo: Hovi Mic tips with more accurate mesh. It should be fairly easy to pop out the fine mesh screen and put in something that resembles the mesh in the green circles as shown below. Once we have these new photos, we should be able to get started on your review. Thank you!

WTG, Lorelei! Congrats, trooper!