Cricket

Like Ukswrath said, your armor, your choices. Strap things how you want, trooper! That said, what issues are you having with your snap attachments? How are you attaching the snaps to the armor? Snap plates or webbing? What type of glue are you using? Typically snaps can be difficult to remove from each other if you don't have the snap reinforced inside the elastic/webbing. I like to make a "sandwich" of sorts for my snap attachments that makes removing them super easy. I mean, so easy that you can flick the snap off with just one gloved finger. They literally "pop" off quickly when I need them to. Using a piece of scrap ABS, cut the plastic to fit just inside the width of your elastic and snap. Make a hole in the plastic where the snap will go through. Wrap your elastic around the plastic and set your snap! Don't use super thin plastic on this, or else it won't work well. I like the plastic bits to be about the same thickness as the cover strips, so any scrap material from that is awesome to use. This method makes it really easy to quickly remove your snaps without any struggle. It also extends the longevity of your elastic/webbing attachments because there is no strain on the material at all. It takes a little more time to set snaps with reinforcement like this, but I never have to replace them due to them wearing out on me. FYI, I've glued all of my "armor side" snaps into the armor using 1" nylon webbing and e6000. They conform well to the shape of the armor, and I've never had an issue with them coming off. In my opinion, velcro can be troublesome for various reasons while out trooping. It can be difficult to dress yourself when at a troop when using velcro; the adjustments might seem easy to do at home with a full-length mirror, but often in the real world, we don't have a mirror of any kind to check how the suit looks before going out. Velcro can hold well for shorter periods of time, but could come apart and need mid-troop adjustment during longer troops (I've helped some troopers with this myself!). With my first kit, I seriously considered velcro for all of my strapping, but I didn't like how I had to readjust my kit every single time I put it on. And a true story: I helped a fellow trooper tailor his kit to fit last year, and it was all velcro inside. He was here for almost 6 hours, and there was a lot of try-on-take-off to do. And guess what... we spent a good part of our time making adjustments the velcro strapping (when he put on the kit) instead of spending that time shaping the armor. I ended up using velcro during most of my fittings to achieve my perfect fit, then I installed snaps/elastics adjacent to the velcro, and then I removed the velcro. Velcro was kind of like training wheels for my armor, and making the leap to snaps was like taking those training wheels off. Just a suggestion, of course.

BIG push took place over the past two days to get this kit finished. Here's the story: I am going to attend a high-profile troop on Sunday in TK. Well, last weekend, I helped hubby get some epic photos in my TK. We used colored smoke bombs. Check it! So, the colored smoke actually deposited pigment into my armor several layers deep. Deeper than anything Novus 3 could touch. I had to resort to using 220 grit sandpaper, and even that didn't take all of the yellowed/red staining out of my kit. Moral of the story (and epic pics): Smoke grenades do not play well with plastic. So unless you plan on converting your TK to a TD, avoid smoke bombs at all costs!!! Which lead me to the reason behind fast-tracking my Hero to completion. My Stunt TK is in various stages of needing to be seriously polished, and it's stained in places where I can't clean. There is no way I would take it to a high-profile event in the condition that it's in now. This made my decision very easy: Get the Hero finished STAT! I spent the past two days fine tuning things for basic approval. I still have to trim a little from the right thigh for clearance, trim a little off the bottom of the right side back plate (both overlapping a smidge), stuff a wedge in the lower back plate for better fit/alignment, and install some fans into the lid. But, hey, it's done! First, the lid. And the pics for basic approval. My son took the pics, and my daughter was instrumental to make sure everything was in place! Then there were the fun pics. This kit is actually more comfortable than my first one, which came as a surprise to me! Today was the first day I put everything on and walked around. Happily, I don't have any areas of armor biting or loud rattling of the plastic. I have to figure out what's going on with the paint on the handguards, because it flaked off everywhere during the photos. Worst case scenario, I'll swap out these gloves for the ones from my Stunt kit for the troop this weekend. But overall, I'm thrilled to finally have the Hero I've always wanted to build. Now to finish hubby's Stunt TK, and move forward with converting my Stunt TK to a TD! And huge thanks to everyone for their feedback during my journey. I wouldn't be here without all of you here at the FISD! EDIT: Looking at these pics, I've decided that I need to size down the forearms a bit more. I never noticed it until I had the kit on, but they look a smidge too wide on my arms. Easy fix, though!

So I took the face/cap back apart. I filled in the holes with some ABS paste and added some small pieces of ABS sheeting behind the repairs to make things a little more structurally sound in there. Reattached things so the tubes were more in line with each other. Then got to work on trimming the fronts of the ears down. Much better now, methinks! Befores and afters: I also removed some extra material from around the eyes. I have the most difficult time seeing exactly how much to remove off of them. I stare at the screen refs, and I still don't see it as well as I'd like to. Seems okay to me? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thanks again to Paul for the suggestions for the ear fix!

Greetings Dave and welcome back to your Expert Infantry review. Thank you for your EIB application. We really appreciate the extra effort you've made to submit additional photos for the review and make changes as requested. It's been long enough... Are you ready??? Let’s get to it! 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. *********** Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: You've done a fantastic job putting together your armor, and you should be proud of it! We would like to offer a few suggestions as to how you could do some additional fine-tuning to make this kit look a little more screen accurate. Again, these are suggestions only, and are not required for higher-level approval. ************* Starting at the top, we're looking closely at your helmet, beginning with the ears. You totally nailed the angle of the right ear! You aligned the right side perfectly with the angle of the trap. Great job! The left ear has the correct angle, but it could stand to be moved back a little bit if you feel up to the challenge. Your ear is still great, but we thought we would point this out to you in case you felt like trying for a little more screen accuracy. Ears are always a challenge for most troopers (myself included)! Screen reference: Moving down on the helmet, we noticed that your vocoder could benefit from some clean up around the edges to make those lines crisp like Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen after we paid the moisture farm a visit. A small brush with a little enamel thinner or a toothpick would make this vocoder most impressive. Screen reference: Now let's look at your ab buttons. Typically the paint on the ab buttons stays within the raised area of the button and does not extend beyond it. This isn't anything that would prevent you from achieving Centurion, but if you'd prefer to get them looking a little bit more screen accurate, you may consider reducing them down just a tiny bit. This can be done with either some enamel thinner and a small brush or with a toothpick (gently scraping the excess away). Either way, it's a quick and easy fix to make your kit look a bit more ANH-y!  Screen reference buttons: Did rebels blast a part of your ab return? This is a highly visible area... while not required, you may consider filling in those extra holes at your ab return with a dab of ABS paste. We noticed that the snap on the upper right side of your ab seems to be placed a little too far inside the ab plate. Typically the center of the snap hole should be 12mm in from the edge, and 12mm from the top. While you don't need to switch this out for approval, we would like to mention it for improved accuracy should you decide to improve this area. Screen reference: Measurement reference (disregard the "seam line"): While we're cleaning things up, you might want to give a quick buff of the e6000 off of that sniper plate. Further down, we noticed that your butt plate is hanging a bit too low back there. It really should be tucked so the snaps don't show as much. This is an easy fix by placing the tab part of the butt plate into boiling water for several seconds and adding more of a curve to it. You can also improve this by shortening the strapping between your cod and butt plates as well. Screen references: While we're on the butt plate, we noticed that you've got screen-accurate screws on those brackets. Nice touch! You may want to consider countersinking these further into the returns so the tops sit flush with the plastic. Depending on your armor, you may need to add an additional layer of ABS to the underside of the return to reinforce the holes. I've reinforced returns where brackets go on all of my kits, and it doesn't take much time at all to do. Once this is done, you can gently open up the top layer of the holes so the screw heads sit flush on the plastic without worry that the returns will crack. I used a step bit and opened up the holes by hand (not with a drill) because you really don't need to remove all that much to get the screws flush. Another thing to consider is that when the screw heads are raised like this, they tend to lock on the screw heads above them (this happened to me when I was test-driving my first kit before approval). Screen reference: Working further down, we have noticed that there is a bit of a gap at the bottoms of the backs of your thighs. You may want to consider filling in the gaps with some scraps of ABS and/or ABS paste. Screen reference: While we're looking at the backs of your legs, make sure that you get that left shin closed completely before trooping for the Empire. Screen reference: And we've made it down to the bottom of the kit! We noticed that your shins are riding kind of high and could stand to be seated further down on your boots, roughly where the green lines are. This is a common occurrence for many troopers. There are several methods that troopers use to keep those shins down. The one I use is very simple (you can read about it in detail here), but it essentially involves making an elastic stirrup loop that has velcro sewn into a tabbed end. You step into the loop before putting your boot on, and you keep the tabbed velcro piece pulled out of the front of the boot as you put the boot on. A piece of industrial velcro is stuck inside the front of the shin. When you put the shin on, you simply stick the velcro tab of the stirrup onto the velcro inside the shin. And presto! The shin stays snug on the boot and doesn't rotate! It also has the ability to flex a bit as you move due to the elastic. Others use different methods, so use the method that works best for you to keep those shins in line! Screen reference: That´s it for EIB! Congratulations and welcome to the ranks, trooper! ******************************** Centurion Requirements: In this section we prepare you for Centurion. More photos may be requested in the future that allow us to make better decisions on possible adjustment etc. If there are any areas of concern they will be discussed here. Because Centurion photos show much more detail than EIB, items pertaining to Centurion might be seen there and not here. We try to point out all we can from what is seen, but the final accuracy is the responsibility of the trooper. Below you will find areas that will need to be addressed for a future successful Centurion Application. Please note that text descriptions in the CRL are only one part of the approval guideline. We consider both text and pictures (CRL and Reference) when reviewing the costume. That said, let's get on with prepping you for Centurion, trooper! ************************ Shoulder bells- There should be a minimal gap between the shoulder armor and the chest/back plates. You did a great job lining up the tops of the shoulder bells to meet the shoulder straps! However, we're still seeing a bit too much of a gap between your shoulder bells and your chest/back plates. Typically, the curves of the shoulder bells follow the side curves of the chest plate in the front, and the side curves of the back plate in the back. If your body type allows it, adjusting the strapping to bring the tops of the shoulder bells further in at the shoulder straps, doing some additional trimming of the tops of the shoulder bells, and/or removing all of the return at the bottom of the shoulder bells can help reduce the gaps. (Note that the screen-used shoulder bells follow the curves of the chest and back plates and are not necessarily trimmed in a straight line.) Screen reference: Back plate shall have no, or minimal overlap of the kidney plate. We have noticed that your back plate is overlapping your kidney, as shown by the blue arrows below. It looks like you have room to move your entire back plate up. This would effectively solve this overlap quite easily! You may find that you will need to make trims at your shoulders (as shown where the red lines and arrows are) to make the back plate fit correctly in the shoulder area (where the back plate and chest plate meet). This small adjustment will make a huge improvement on how your kit looks! Screen reference: Belt- Drop boxes are vertically aligned with the end of the ammo belt with minimal gap between belt and box. I know when you've got your belt laying flat that your drop boxes line up nicely with the ammo belt. Nice work on those! However, in some of your photos, the boxes look like they shift around a lot. This issue can easily be solved for Centurion by simply adding a few drops of e6000 to the white elastics in the back. A little bit of glue will absolutely keep those drop boxes in line! Screen reference: The top of the ammo belt should sit at or just below the bottom of the central and vertical abdomen button panels. You're super close on this one! Your belt could stand to be moved up just a bit to meet up with those lower ab buttons. An easy way to move up the center of the belt (and keep it there!) is to stick on a small piece of industrial Velcro on the ab plate and belt in the middle to secure things in place. Screen reference: Forearms- No return edge on the inside of the front of the forearm is allowed. You did good work on the forearms, but it looks like there is still a bit more on the inside of the ends of your forearms that still need to be removed. I've highlighted the areas that need to be removed in the image below. A little bit of time with a Dremel will knock this out easily! Aaand that’s it! Once again, we are proud to offer you a well-deserved congratulations on achieving your Expert Infantry award. You can be certain that Lord Vader will be most pleased with your efforts. Be proud of your achievement and we hope to see you soon at Centurion!

Making great progress, Jennifer! I know you've put a lot of work into that sniper knee. It is a major PITA for most of us! It looks like you could still stand to move it up a bit. Typically, the bottom ridge of the sniper knee lines up with the ridge of the shin. They overlap and kind of lock on to one another. You know you've got it correct when there is not really much distinction between the line of the bottom of the sniper plate ridge and the bottom of the ridge on the shin. Here are some screen grabs to show correct alignment. The green dotted lines help to show where the sniper ridge should overlap on top of the shin ridge. And another to illustrate how 'seamless' the sniper knee and shin look together: Those shoulder bells! haha! Huge, aren't they? I strongly suggest waiting to trim your bells until you've fully adjusted sizing of your back and chest plates. This tends to mean that for best fitting your kit, make sure your torso is fully adjusted to fit first, then work on getting those bells cut down. The inner curves of the bells follow the curves of the chest and back plates (don't cut the bells straight!), and it looks like your chest plate could still use some trims on the sides still for better sizing. It's ridiculously easy to overtrim the bells if you cut them first before finalizing the chest/back plate fitting. Use these troopers' bells as your reference. I would simply cut it off instead of trying to pull it off or use acetone. You don't want to damage any of the armor, and acetone can make quick damage happen. Reglue your elastic with e-6000. E-6000 is your friend! It's strong, flexible, and stays put. And if you need to remove it, it can be done fairly easily without any damage to the ABS. Save the ABS paste for filling in holes. I'd avoid it for elastic adhesion in the future.

It depends on what kind of gloves and handguards you're using. You're building for ANH, so you don't have the option to sew them on. If you're using rubber gloves and flexible handguards, then you'll want to glue those on. I prefer trooping with my rubber gloves and wear silk liners underneath them. For me, this is a super comfy way to troop! Others don't like it as much and choose the cloth/Nomex option. If you're using cloth or Nomex gloves with the hard plastic handguards, then you can simply glue a few elastic loops to the handguard (using E-6000). You slide your gloved hand into it so the handguard stays fixed to the back of your hand.

Good job getting the images in your post! Much easier for all of us to evaluate things to help you. You've got a lot of adjustments that need to be made on your kit, but you mentioned that it's a rough draft, soooo... There are two things that jump out at me right off the bat: thighs and shins. Thighs: they can still be sized down quite a bit to fit the circumference of your leg. Typically, you can fit about two fingers width in the top of the thigh. More than that, and they're too large. More than that, though, is that they will feel too big, like a pair of loose cargo shorts, and they will rattle around quite loudly. I like to think of thighs fitting more like a pair of well-fitting jeans. Not too loose, but not too snug, either. Screen reference, and look at how close the tops of the thighs fit on these troopers. Second thing are the shins: In the photos, the shins look like they were cut at a really severe angle. Could we see some more detail on those? Also, the shins are riding up too high. They should fit snug well on top of the boot and stay there. Screen reference for the shin placement on the boots: Have you had a good read through one of Ukswrath's amazing armor build threads? Man, it was my go-to when I was building my first kit, even though the armor makers were different. I've even referred back to it for my 4th TK build (currently in progress, but almost done!). https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31920-ukswraths-am-10-build/

Hey Michael, Just a suggestion, but you'd probably get more feedback on your pics if you posted them directly in your posts instead of posting a link. @justjoseph63 gave you some good tips! Also, who is your armor maker? I don't recall it being mentioned, and it can often help us provide the best feedback about what kind of adjustments you'll be needing along the way.

This!!! ^^^ I hadn't really noticed that detail on the assembly before. Looking closely, you're spot on about this, and I pulled the lid apart to realign. Temporarily clamping the cap/back to the face plate, I set the "thick" ears on the helmet, and BOOM. I totally see where I went wrong and why they fit the way they do. I may only need to trim just the thick fronts of these ear curves now (the backs are fine). I'll try this before starting on the untrimmed set. Thanks, Paul!

Wow!!! Huge double congrats to you!!!

Agh, yeah, I know, I know... I really should fix this. I don't like how they look, either, to be honest. The ears are 'passable' but not good. Sooo... I went digging through my bin of scraps from prior builds, and whaddya know... an extra pair of untrimmed RS ears appeared! Which means the lid isn't finished yet. It'll look better when I've had another crack at it, for sure. Thanks to Paul for your honesty! And thank you, Tony for the feedback on the eyes. I'll take a closer look and trim some more on them.

This lid for my hubby is finished! As always, constructive criticism is always appreciated. The front sides of the curved part of the ears is larger than the back, I know. There is a large gap between the face and the cap/back pieces that I could not get to fit closely. It's almost like a step-off of sorts. The cap/back has some serious flare at the bottom edges of it that could not be riveted into submission... as a result, the front side of the ear curve is thicker than the back. Ah well, glad these don't have to be perfection! Still have to add the 'fine tuning' padding (the foam star is in there, but I know we can do better with some tactical padding!), and wire up a pair of fans with switches to run off of a portable USB power source. I've gifted my hubby with a wall-mount to display the lid, because as we all know, TK lids are art! Currently, you can find heavy-duty metal ones on Amazon for about $14 shipped Prime. I've got five of them to display my different helmets (Hero lid and X-Wing still WIP), and they really make a great statement in my nerd room! Easy to install, too. They come with 5 screws/wall anchors each (you only need 4), and it takes just minutes to get them up. Lids are better on the wall than in a bag!

I suggest removing the excess along the green lines. If the bottom of the bicep is the same way, then remove that as well.

Hi Michael! You could also stand to remove some returns from the top of the forearm, top and bottom of the bicep, and bottom of the shoulder bells. (Screen used shoulder bell is on the left...) :D

I use an old butter knife to remove cover strips. Gently slide it under and work it along the length as you go. Good luck!

Sorry to inform you, but that's the problem right there. The front halves need to be glued first. The fronts of all stormtrooper armor pretty much are the same sizes, and all of the sizing to fit your frame is done in the back of the pieces. My advice is to take a step back, unglue your parts, and start from the front. For your front seam on the thighs, you will be using a 20mm cover strip to cover the seam. But you will also want some of that raised ridge showing as well. Take a look at this screen-used thigh. You'll want to make sure that some of that ridge still is visible, so when you trim the front halves, you should leave roughly 12-14mm of raised area still intact on each half. When glued together, you end up with a flat surface of 24-28mm. This will allow you to secure your 20mm cover strip on top of the front of the seam, and still leave a few mm of ridge on either side. Does this make sense?

The ATA helmet is smaller than the RS. Here are some comparison pics I took of both before I began assembly on the RS lid. But even after assembly, the RS was still noticeably larger. The ATA coloring is closer to the RS ABS than the WTF. Ooooh! I just made an acronym salad!

Oh, yeah, you can absolutely fill in those gaps with ABS paste. ABS paste is simply ABS melted in acetone. Use acetone you can find at a hardware store for best results. Cut your ABS into teeny-tiny pieces. And I mean itty-bitty. The smaller the pieces, the faster the melt. Put them in a small clean glass jar. For me, the perfect size is a baby food jar. Cover your pieces with acetone, just enough to cover the top of the pieces in your container. Stir with a wood stick, then let it sit. Seal your jar. Don't make the jar totally air-tight or you run the risk of creating a small bomb. Keep the lid attached with a snug rubber band. This allows just enough gases out, but keeps things still melty inside. By the next day, you should have a smooth milky substance - that's your ABS paste! It will probably be too thin at this point. Stir it and leave the jar open for a bit. Stir more and wait. It will thicken up as the acetone evaporates. You will know it's ready when it's about the consistency of peanut butter. If it gets too thick, just add more acetone, stir, cover, seal, and wait. Easy as that. To fill a tooth hole, I recommend putting a backer piece on the inside of hole first, just so you don't ooze your ABS out the other side. Apply thin layers of the paste at a time. If you slap on a big gob of it, you will end up with an appalling amount of unsightly tiny bubbles in your ABS patch. Thin layer application and a little fine sanding between layers is key to getting a clean patch to convert from Stunt to Hero. When you've applied all of your paste, polish up, and you're ready to go! Next, you'll need to make sure you have the Hero ears. Hero ears have three bumps on them. Stunt ears have four bumps on them.

Hey Michael, Congrats on your kit! I took a look at your pics and noticed that your helmet is a Stunt version. A Hero helmet has six gaps on the frown, but the helmet in your pics has eight gaps (which is the Stunt version). Here are some examples of Hero frowns: Are you planning on filling in those extra gaps at the ends, or is there another lid enroute? You mentioned that you don't have decals for the tube stripes. Stencils are totally the way to go! I sponge-applied my paint to the tube stripe stencils (found over on Trooperbay.com), and in less than 20 minutes, I had some sweet tubes installed on my lid. Easy and clean results! https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/38416-crickets-rs-stunt-build-for-the-vertically-challenged/?do=findComment&comment=539691

Sorry to read that you've had surgery, but really glad you're doing better now! Just a suggestion, but you might have found it a little easier to send Andrea at RS an email and request a new shin. (*ask me how I know* ) Kudos to you for the ABS surgery work, though! And I don't know if anyone has mentioned this to you yet or not, but the white color of the RS kit is quite different than the WTF kit. If you're considering a WTF lid, you should know that the ABS is very white. In contrast, the RS white of your kit is more off-white. Don't be surprised when you notice that they don't match. That said, people mix and match all the time, so if you don't care about that kind of thing, then you'll be fine! This might help you see how different the whites are a little bit better... TK on the left holding a blaster is Anovos (I'm pretty sure, but not 100%). "Thumbs Up" TK is me in my RS kit. Hero TK on the right (short TK) is wearing a WTF kit and an ATA lid.

Hello Dave, Overall, you did an outstanding job on your helmet! In examining the details on your lid, we have noticed some small areas of clean up that will need a little attention before we can further process your application. Some of the gray paint has spilled outside of the teeth areas. A toothpick or a small brush and enamel thinner would easily clean up those areas and make that frown look like it just came off the ANH set. Next, could you please clarify which blaster you are submitting for your Expert Infantry application? We only need one. Thank you!

Thanks for those photos, Dave! Upon initial glance, it looks like we have everything we now need to begin your Expert Infantry review. We will let you know if we need any additional detail images. We will get back to you soon!

Greetings, John and welcome back! Thank you for your patience while we have been reviewing your application. I want to let you know that you've done an stellar job on this build and you should be very proud of your work! In this evaluation, we ensure that your armor follows the requirements as set forth in the CRL L2 Expert Infantry Badge guidelines. We will also point out what will be needed in order to prepare you for Centurion if you choose to apply. You've come this far, and I really hope that you will continue your journey in excellence and apply for the Centurion Badge! CRL and EIB Application Requirements: All required submission photos have been posted and I am very pleased to announce your armor displays all the necessary elements to qualify for ANH Stunt Expert Infantry. On behalf of myself and the entire D.O.Team, Congratulations! Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: In this section we review observations made by your fellow troopers and ourselves. Some observations may lead to suggestions to improve the overall look of your armor. Let's begin at the helmet. The vocoder looks like it could use a little more refinement around the edges. This is super easy to do with a small brush and some enamel thinner. That should really refine those edges for a spot-on ANH look! Screen reference vocoders: Now to the ab: Nice job on painting those ab buttons, trooper! I know the WTF ab buttons are super big, and you can clearly see that you didn't paint outside the edges of the buttons. This isn't anything that would prevent you from achieving Centurion, but if you'd prefer to get them looking a little bit more screen accurate, you may consider reducing them down just a tiny bit. Screen reference buttons: Let's look at your holster: For better accuracy you may consider using slightly smaller fasteners on your holster connections to the belt. I see that you've got a Darman's Props holster, and those fasteners were most likely included with the holster. He typically includes smaller open-back Chicago screw posts (they simulate rivets on the outside, but can be removed if necessary) for the belt attachment. That said, I've recently ordered a holster from him and noticed that he sent me solid-back screw posts for the belt instead of the open-back ones. I have extra open-back screw posts to replace them, and would be more than happy to drop some in the mail for you if you'd like (no charge of course!). Send me a PM if you're interested! Further down to your legs: If you're striving for a little more ANH accuracy, consider putting a sharper trim on the inside of the sniper knee. It's just a little sandpaper and a few minutes to get this detail dialed in nicely. Screen references: ******************************** Centurion Requirements: In this section we prepare you for Centurion. More photos may be requested in the future that allow us to make better decisions on possible adjustment etc. If there are any areas of concern they will be discussed here. Because Centurion photos show much more detail than EIB, items pertaining to Centurion might be seen there and not here. We try to point out all we can from what is seen but the final accuracy is the responsibility of the trooper. Below you will find areas that will need to be addressed for a future successful Centurion Application. Please note that text descriptions in the CRL are only one part of the approval guideline. We consider both text and pictures (CRL and Reference) when reviewing the costume. That said, let's get on with prepping you for Centurion, trooper! ************************ Beginning with the helmet: "The helmet is accurate in detail and proportion to official references." You did a fantastic job of cleaning up the paint around the frown. Nice work! Looking closely at the screen-used Hero helmets, you'll notice that the gray teeth tend to be larger than the holes around them. The holes of the teeth on your helmet have been cut bigger than what we tend to see on screen-used helmets, and some of the gray teeth are super skinny. While this hasn't prevented you from achieving your Expert Infantry award, it will need to be fixed for Centurion. Basically, you will need to fill in some of the edges of the teeth to reduce the size of the holes. This kind of repair can be performed with some ABS paste to build up the edges to make the holes smaller. You could also use any other type of putty that sands smooth because ultimately you'll be painting it anyhow. If you feel that this kind of repair is too much of a challenge, then a new face plate would be your best option for fixing this issue. Screen reference Hero frowns: Let's take a look at the tears on the helmet. Requirement CRL L3: Tears/traps shall be hand painted or use decals that emulate hand painted (with correct ANH details). The decals you applied to the tears are too large for the space where they are placed. In the "spirit" of Centurion, they should fit within the recessed area of the tear and not spill out of it. If you prefer to use decals, you will need to find smaller ones for Centurion. Another option would be to hand paint the tears. If you're worried that you may not have a steady enough hand for this kind of work, there are sellers who offer stencils for exactly this kind of thing. Feel free to send me a PM if you need guidance or support on this! Screen reference tears: Next, we will discuss the shoulders: Requirement CRL L3: There should be a minimal gap between the shoulder armor and the chest/back plates. As Joseph mentioned earlier, those shoulder bells need to be brought in quite a bit. Unless you're storing some serious explosives under the shoulder bells, you don't really need that big of a gap on the outer edges of the bells. The top ridge edge of the bells should meet the shoulder straps. You may find that some simple placement adjustment of the shoulder bell elastics paired with a little bit of trimming should bring those bells in line where they should be. It helps to remember that the front sides of the shoulder bells should follow the curves of the chest plate, and the back sides of the shoulder bells should follow the curves of the back plate. The shoulder bells and chest/back plates should fit together and still allow for movement with as little black showing as possible. Screen reference for shoulder bell placement: Additional screen references for shoulder bell placement: Further down your kit, we've noticed the shims on the kidney: Requirement CRL L3: "A single visible seam line is present." There is nothing at all wrong with shimming armor where needed, and you've done a clean job of it! The wording on this requirement can be a little confusing, but simply stated, this means that the shim lines (as indicated by the blue arrows below) must be completely concealed. The only seam that should be present is the one between the ab and kidney armor pieces. In order to disguise that seam, you'll need to create a batch of ABS paste, apply it to the seam lines, sand it down, then polish it smooth. If you have any concerns about how to do this process, please feel free to send either myself or any of the Detachment Staff a PM about how to do this. We are here to help you succeed and know you can do it! Screen reference for kidney/ab seam: Next, to your belt: Requirement CRL: For ANH Hero, the holster is affixed with four fasteners, two on the top, two on the bottom (two per strap). Fasteners may be rivets, snaps, or Chicago screws. We noticed that you have the correct amount of fasteners attached to the belt (great job on that!). However, the placement of the top two fasteners are situated too far away from the top edge. And while the CRL doesn't specifically indicate exact placement of the holster fasteners, please note that we consider both text and pictures (CRL and Reference) when reviewing the costume. Based on the ANH Hero as seen in the film, the fasteners should be roughly where the green circles in the image below are located. Your fasteners will need to be relocated further up for Centurion. The holster fasteners should be placed so that they look a little more like this (I used your pic with some Photoshop magic... it would be great if fixing a belt was as easy as a Photoshop edit!): Screen reference of a Hero holster fastener configuration (that's Han): Let's discuss your sniper knee: Working further down your armor, we noticed that your sniper knee needs some adjustment. Sniper knees are a challenge to most troopers. We see that your sniper knee plate is sitting a little crooked. This is another instance of the CRL not specifically indicating exact placement of the sniper knee, but in reviewing for L3 please note that we consider both text and pictures (CRL and Reference) when reviewing the costume. The sniper knee plate as seen in on-screen TKs are aligned straight in the front of the shin. We don't mind this at the Expert Infantry level, but we will ask you to correct this if you choose to apply for Centurion. From your photos, it looks like you've got some room to move the right side up along the ridge. This small adjustment should straighten out that tilt! Screen reference for sniper knees: And lastly, we noticed several black snaps on your kit: For your EIB this is perfectly fine. However, if you're choosing to continue on to Centurion, you will need to swap these out for silver snaps. Please note that you only need to swap out the Han snap located on the upper right ab, and both butt plate snaps. The color doesn't matter on any of the other snaps that you currently have installed on your armor. Screen reference image for butt plate snaps: Your Han snap: Screen reference image for Han snap on ab plate: That's it! You have done an outstanding job with your Hero, trooper! Congratulations once more, and we hope to see you at Centurion very soon! Now get out there and blast some rebel scum!

Hey Dave, Thanks for submitting those additional photos. I'm loving that Aurebesh customization in there. And that magnetic kidney/ab closure is very nice! We still need some additional photos before we can begin. We need the following images to complete your application: Front view sniper knee Left side ab/kidney detail, closed, no belt (you don't have to be wearing it) Right side ab/kidney detail, closed, no belt (you don't have to be wearing it) Forearm wrist ends Kidney/butt plate exterior view of the returns/screw heads. Once we have those photos, we will be on our way. Thank you for your cooperation and patience!