Cricket

I've trimmed the butt plate. I've shaped the butt plate in a lovely spa bath. I've begged and pleaded with the butt plate. But it just stares silently at me. I think it's mocking me now. No matter what I do with the flippin' butt plate, it still won't cooperate with the kidney when I put it on. When the armor is assembled with nothing in it, it's awesome. The back/kidney/butt plate look great assembled on a hanger, everything lines up. The problem is when I get into it. It's my butt, not the butt plate. Sigh. I can't believe this build has devolved into discussion about problems with my butt. If my butt was on a vertical flat plane, the armor would fit. But it's curved outwards just below the kidney. This pushes the butt plate out at an angle at the bottom- roughly at a 20 degree angle. As a result, the top (where the brackets are) also shifts from being horizontally flat (and meeting nicely with the kidney), to being angled about 20 degrees down at the edges (pulling desperately away from the kidney). At first I thought that I had altered the kidney too small. But I'm swimming in there, and there is still lots of room all around. My butt is the issue. I am not willing to try to lose weight to get my butt smaller (at 108 lbs, I don't need to lose any weight). However, if the kidney were a slightly more rounded shape though, this wouldn't be a problem. When the kidney is slightly flexed so it bows outward (squeezed inwards from the left and right sides), the butt plate fits because more clearance is allowed for my booty. When my butt isn't pushing out on the butt plate, the problem with the kidney/butt plate meeting together goes away. So. With as much of a hassle as it will be, I think I'll need to reshape the kidney and ab plate by a few centimeters. It'll be less hassle than weight loss, that's for sure.

We did? I don't seem to remember that, but that's not saying it didn't happen. I've been breathing in a lot of e6000 over the past few months. I don't see anything in your build thread about garter/thighs either. Link me up (or PM to the message). I really don't want extra pulling and tugging on the belt, which is what would happen if I go the webbing route. The thigh stretches back, so either the elastic stretches between the belt, or the webbing pulls the belt down. I've worn my fair share of garter belts (more when I was younger *cough cough*), and not having any sort of stretch on them is just not comfortable to me. Scouring the FISD threads and surveying my garrison about this has been really interesting. The whole webbing/elastic garter thing seems to be more of a Coke/Pepsi preference, n'est-ce pas? Thanks for the feedback, troopers!

Your magnetic shins turned out great! Nice work. Strong, aren't they? <br><br> And you've also joined the ranks of Cod Cutters. Welcome! Looks good, and probably feels better overall when you're suited up. <br><br> Hey, don't know if you saw it or not, but you've got a crack developing on your chest plate on the left side next to the bracket. Looks like a stress crack to me. Might want to get that repaired and reinforced sooner rather than later.<br><br> You're making great progress so far! Don't stress that it's going slow. Slow=less mistakes! Oh, and I'm 7 months into my build and still not done yet (almost though!). Keep it up!

Haha... No capes! Thanks for that suggestion, Mark. I've actually already built two mock-up garters (I didn't bother documenting that part): one with 1 inch webbing and one with the 3 inch elastic so I could try out which one works better. For me, the elastic one is hands-down more comfortable holding up the thighs as I walk (even when the thighs were still too long). The webbing just doesn't feel as secure on me. I didn't have issues with the thigh riding up under the cod at all with the elastic garters (nor with the webbing, actually!). The 3-inch elastic doesn't allow for the thigh to twist out of place. For extra security to prevent things from sliding, I will be adding a small square of velcro to each bit of elastic (under the elastic loop and attached to the belt). However, if I ever do decide to ditch my elastic garters, I will fully credit you for the idea. Thanks again!

Thanks, David! Okay, so after careful reviewing the kidney/butt plate issue today, here's where the problem has been isolated to: I've had to reshape and shrink the kidney, which resulted in needing to reshape the butt plate. I had shaped it before, but clearly I didn't shape the butt plate good enough because it's popping out all on its own on the left side (the inside is supported with blue tape where the brackets/elastics should go). The center and right sides are good, though. My repairs are still curing, so I'll wait until tomorrow to get the butt plate shaped to match the kidney. It seems easy enough, but it's harder than it looks when you're doing this alone. Still, I think with enough of a hot water bath and patience, I should be able to get this lined up. In the meantime, I deconstructed my garter belt and made a new one. My belt is a 2 inch tactical belt. I like it because it is very heavy and sturdy. But I didn't like how the buckle needed to be threaded through and adjusted each time I put it on. Easy fix by purchasing a 2 inch quick release buckle. I then cut off the 'threaded' buckle, heat sealed the cut end, and threaded the new ends through the new quick release buckle (no sewing of that required- yay!). Then I took two lengths of 3 inch elastic and sewed loops at the top to thread the belt through. Those elastics will be glued into the thighs. And voila- new garter belt! I'll get this installed once I've cleared the kidney/butt plate hurdle. I'll probably experiment with adding some padding at the back of it as suggested by Mark, too. The finish line is in sight!

Great observation Peter! You may want to be careful on that assumption, though. Sometimes the actor's suits would get bunched up under the armor and stick out a bit. So what you may think is an odd cut of the armor is just black shirt overlapping from below. Just my two credits!

First of all, I want to thank some of the veteran troopers here for sharing some invaluable feedback on my kit. It's an honor to have you guys not only put eyes on my build, but also offer suggestions on how to improve it. So... Thank you! Before diving back into the rebuild of my kidney/butt plate, I was thinking about last night's discussion about padding. My back plate has also been a source of minor frustration for me. The bottom of the back plate kept wanting to pull itself into and slightly under the kidney. So even though it wasn't overlapping back there, it kind of looked like it was. I have some foam, an exacto knife, and velcro, so I carved out a 1 inch x 1 inch x 6 inch wedge of foam and velcroed it to the bottom inside of the back plate. And WOW. What a difference in how the back looks now!!! The back plate and kidney meet up perfectly now- there is no shifting inwards of the back plate. I can't get a decent picture of how it looks, but believe me, it's a gazillion times better. Now I'm off to get the kidney/butt thing resolved.

Hey, you're off to a great start!<br><br> Don't stress too much over the bicep returns. The area at the top will be hidden by the shoulder bell. You can always adjust the return at the bottom once it is fitted to your arm. <br><br> For the forearms, I would trim at the wrist. There is detail at the elbow that you don't want to lose, and could be challenging to recreate if you cut it off.<br><br> Chicken arms here, too. Chicken arms FTW!

Yeah, the foam may very well be a good option for me once I get everything lined up properly. I am floating quite a bit inside the armor. Just to give you an idea of my size, my waist is 26 inches, and the armor around me is 40 inches. Lots of room to move in there for sure.

Agreed. The brackets weren't lined up, even though the kidney and butt plate are lined up nicely. Yep, agree on this as well! The kidney/ab goes together just fine without the belt. When I say 'cinch the belt', it is more to keep the belt up on me. Even though I use the ab snaps and velcro under it, the belt likes to move around a little on me unless it is snug. The improper placement of the brackets was causing the butt plate to flare out when it shouldn't, which resulted in me trying to make things even tighter, which made things worse. Gah! Thank you for the feedback, Mark! Much appreciated!!!

Thank you for your input, troopers! Both of these suggestions would work to force the kidney/butt plates together, but it's a band-aid. Unfortunately, it won't solve the fact that the pieces just aren't fitting correctly as they're currently strapped in. If everything is adjusted properly, the pieces should fit correctly. So after staring at the pieces for hours, I'm now thinking that the butt plate is the culprit. Here's why: the kidney is correct size (width wise). I've got the brackets in the right locations on the kidney. So when the belt pulls everything together, it fits as it should. No pulling, tugging, or stuff out of alignment. So I can let the kidney off the hook as being the troublemaker. Now the butt plate. The center bracket on the butt plate is fine. But I think I've got the brackets on the left and right sides positioned too far out. I did this to avoid "butt flare" (flaring butts away! haha...). So when I cinch up the belt, the outer brackets bring in the butt plate to curve. It also results in the excess material being forced and "bubbled" out where the brackets aren't secured just under the kidney. The butt plate shifts inwards with the kidney on the left and right and simultaneously outwards away from the kidney at the back when cinched. So my center bracket on the kidney showing a crack in one of the bracket holes is likely due to the stress of the butt plate trying to pull away as the left and right sides are brought inward. And the cracks I'm seeing in the butt plate in the curved areas on the left and right (but not on any of the bracket holes) would also be due to this forced inward curve. Okay, still with me? I think this will all be solved by finding a new location for the left and right brackets on the butt plate. Any residual 'butt flare' will be dealt with via a hot water bath. And if there is a little extra on the width ends of the butt plate, I'll just make them into extra returns. I will keep you posted!

So close!!!! I finished altering the thighs to fit yesterday, and I was all excited to try on my kit for the final fit, which was to be followed by submission pics today... and then... I saw cracks. The fit of the butt plate has been nagging me because it pops out of alignment with the kidney when the kidney is secured with the belt. If you look closely at my pics, you can see it. It's not something that would affect submission pics, but it was something that I was going to address after initial approval. So as I was looking at the kidney/butt connection before putting it on, I noticed cracks in two areas of the return that are not part of the bracket holes. Ugh. This confirmed that something needs to be done asap about how the butt plate and kidney are getting along. Right now, they're having a fairly decent brawl; upon further examination of the kidney, I saw a crack beginning in one of the center bracket holes. Damn it. So I separated the fighters to get a look at what needed to be immediately repaired. Both have suffered injuries. I've managed to ABS paste and reinforce the cracks at the stress points. My kidney gets pulled in a bit when the belt is tightened, so the kidney shape changes somewhat when it's on (the kidney is made more flat at the back and rounded at the sides when tightened by the belt). But the butt plate doesn't have the support of the belt, so it's just left out there on its own. The brackets are doing what they're supposed to do, but I think I need to reposition them. The brackets are lined up perfectly when the kit is not on me, but I'm fairly certain that the brackets are not lined up when everything is on. I also think I've got the butt plate overly curved inwards, which results in outward stress on the returns when the kidney is tightened to my midsection . Understand that the kidney and butt plate meet perfectly when the kit is NOT on me, but they fight when they're on me. Frustrating. So after the ABS paste has dried, I'm going to try this: putting on the torso including the tightened belt, but keeping the butt plate off. I'll then reshape the butt plate with hot water based on the kidney shape while the kidney is on me. This way I can make sure that the shape of the return on the butt plate matches the kidney as it is worn. If someone out there has any additional suggestions about how to fix this issue, please chime in. While my butt plate and kidney plates recover, I'll be doing some additional tweaking. Like redoing my drop boxes on the belt. Part of the problem with the drop boxes popping out at the sides is because the elastics were too short when I had the thigh armor on. Easy fix to make the elastics slightly longer on those. And rebuilding my garter belt (I'll be doing a more screen-accurate thigh-glued elastic version instead of snaps). And touching up all the paint that has chipped off during my many fittings. Sigh. Bad news is that this will delay my submission pics by a few days. The good news about this is that it'll solve the nagging issue I've had with the butt and kidney pieces before submitting my pics for initial submission. I should be able to complete repairs this weekend. I expect to send in my pics next week.

Hey, no need to say that. And it's not making me start all over again. In fact, working with the heat sealing iron is quite easy for me now. The new changes to the thigh didn't take me more than 20 minutes to do. So, easy alteration. I ditched using a jig for making new returns on the thighs. You don't need a crisp angle like on the torso returns, but more like a soft 45 degree angle. All you need is heat from the iron to gently soften the ABS, and gentle polishing of the heated ABS with the wood stir stick to get a nice 'organic' edge. I began here: If you look closely in the pic above, you can see my pencil line where I needed to make the new return. I didn't cut any of this off (yet). Using some Goo Gone, I erased the pencil marks from the plastic. I didn't want the heat to embed anything in there and mar the finish. After about 20 minutes of careful heating/wood polishing, I flattened out the angled return part of the thigh. Can't see what changed? Keep reading... When working with a heat iron, remember do not put heavy pressure on the iron while heating the ABS. It will cause weird creases in the plastic. Just hold the iron firmly in place and wait. Watch closely and you will see the plastic start to soften. Once it is soft, remove the iron and buff for about 10 seconds to the desired shape/angle with the wood. The wood helps to sculpt the plastic into place as it cools (it leaves a polished finish, too- bonus!). If you don't get the shape/angle you want, just reheat the plastic and repeat the process. You will most likely need to make several attempts to get the shape you want, so be patient; you'll be rewarded with some pretty spiffy new returns. Here's what the top of the returns looked like after initially flattening out the angle on the thigh. Holy buttercream, Batman! That return looks FRIGHTENING, doesn't it? haha.... This kind of thing doesn't scare me anymore. I've got the angle I want, so that's all good. Still, gotta take care of that nasty return. A few minutes of using my lexan scissors to trim, and some sanding, here's the result: (before on the left, after on the right) Another angle (before on the left, after on the right): I'm good on this now. Time to get kitted up again to get the left thigh fit!

Who needs a selfie stick when they've got an e-11?! Great idea. Nice! BTW, there are cheaper alternatives for the 360 degree GoPro wrist mount over on Amazon if you're wanting to do this on a budget.

Hey, we're in the same boa... er, Imperial Transport... with our vertically challenged statures, so I've seen you encounter some of the same issues that I've already worked through. So, (short) Troopers Helping (short) Troopers, right? (and yes, I do comb the posts here a LOT!)

YEAH! Congrats, Jon! Looking forward to seeing your EIB application. WTG!

Thank you for that honesty, Germain. Seriously, when I get feedback like this, it makes me reevaluate how things look. So I've taken another good look at what I thought was good, and have decided to rework things. Reducing the thighs down to my size has been more challenging than I thought, especially since I want to retain the original lines of the armor. I want to keep as much of the length of the top and sides, so this meant removing plastic from the inside and back of the thigh. On OT suits, I kept seeing an angle cut at the back of the thigh where the butt plate and outer thigh meet. Germain's comment had me looking again at the OT thigh pics. Today I realized that because I had to squeeze the thigh pieces inward, there was no way to completely get that OT look. :/ Yes, now that I look again, that notch is a little awkward (despite my pride for having sculpted it with such flair and making such a killer return on it!). Here's a comparison so you can see what I'm looking at. I think I will end up removing the excess above the red curve line and building a new return below the red curve line. This will remove that hard angle and allow clearance at the booty. Thanks again to Mr. Accuracy Hag for the input!

Agreed, Germain! I have had to remove some from the tops and back, but I've done my best to retain the original lines of the thigh. Unless I was always in just a standing position, there would be no way I could walk without injury at some point as the thighs were before. I've spent the past three hours working on trimming down the thigh, millimeter by millimeter. This has been the most difficult part of the build, by far. I don't have someone to follow me around with a pencil to mark where the armor touches in places, so it's taking an insane amount of time to get this right. I'm marking blindly where it seems like the armor is hitting. This would be much easier if I had a background in gymnastics. I think I've put on and taken off my armor over 20 times today. Ugh. I'm almost there, though. Pics. Before trimming on the left. After trimming and new returns on the right. From the side before trimming (left), and after trimming (right): And another look of the back. I trimmed the back while trying to follow the original lines on the thigh- which follows the line of the butt plate- and I'm happy with how it turned out. I like 'notched' thighs because it looks more like the thigh and the butt plate are supposed to fit together, like a puzzle piece. It would have been much easier to simply trim the back in a curve, but it doesn't look as tailored to me. Really happy with how the returns came out, too. Note: no need for returns on the inside of the thighs because no one can see 'em! Tomorrow I hope to finish fine-tuning the inside of the left thigh (a little bit of contact happening somewhere in there), and get going on the right thigh.

Use an online photo hosting service like Photobucket, Flickr, or whatever service you prefer. Once you've uploaded your pics there, you copy the image link and can paste it into the body of the text here. Clicking on the little "photo" icon in the bar above where you create your post will open a dialog box where you post the link for the pic. I've modified my RS kit to fit my 5'4" frame, and if I can do it, you can too (my shorty build in my sig). Use e6000. Always. You will be happy about this later, even when you don't want to wait for it to dry. Good luck on your build and have fun!

The arm on the left needs to be a little more bent. haha... No, seriously, you've killed it!!!! WOW. Beautiful work.

I had problems finding guidance for the sniper knee as well. These might help. And these were from someone's Centurion application (RS Props commission):

Thanks, Marc! The backs poke me in the butt quite a bit! I've removed some off of the back, but not very much. I'm in the process of taking a little off of the side where the thigh meets the cod as well. Lesson learned that you don't need to remove everything all around the thigh- just here and there!

Use this pic of screen used armor as your reference, paying attention to keep your rivets in between of the red line guides: A wise quote from Locitus (Mathias) about this kind of thing: "All measurements should be considered approximate. Look at reference pictures (not other peoples builds!) and try to do achieve the same look. The problem we (the staff) always run into is that when we don't provide measurements, people either ask for them, or go crazy and way out of proportion. But if we do provide measurements, people take them way too seriously, as if it was the absolute truth and anything that is off by even a fraction needs to be crucified and burned." Hope this helps! BTW, ABS paste is your friend. It's saved me more times than I can count!

ABS paste all the things!!!! Seriously, make yourself some ABS paste (acetone mixed w/clean ABS scraps), patch the holes, sand, polish, and you're good as new.

Here are some pics to help clarify what I meant. I suck at explaining things like this! Here's what you are with now vs what I'm fairly certain it should be if you're aiming for Centurion: Your belt should be covering the lowest rivet. From what I've read, you want your top and bottom rivets about 10mm in from the ab/kidney edge, and 15-20mm from the top and bottom edges of the ab (starting with ab rivet placement first). Center your middle rivet evenly between them. While the following diagram is to illustrate kidney notch placement, it also shows what the rivet placement should be. If I'm off here, someone please correct me!