TrooperTim

Yeah, it's fantastic. I'm not looking forward to this summer though. I'll probably finish my armor by then and microwave in it from the heat.

I appreciate all the feedback Stukatrooper! Almost done with the helmet's exterior. Still have a lot of electronics to complete for the inside. I have Smitty's lenses temporarily installed with painter's tape (need to epoxy that area) and Stompers speaker hovis (which I have yet to test out). You guys rock! So far everything has been hand painted, although I cheated a little and used electrical tape as a stencil to get the clean black lines so maybe it's only partially hand painted. I might have made the back trap lines too thick. Probably doesn't matter too much. I'm really thinking about painting the tube stripes, but it'll be much easier using decals... so I dunno. I've been looking around it seems like there's almost always one less stripe on the right tube than on the left. I'm wondering if I should go with 12/13 stripes or 15/16 stripes. Hmm... most everything in this universe is inconsistent anyway so maybe it's just personal choice? Oh, and I'll probably raise the brow up more. Still looks too hero to me. *Post Edited* Thinking ahead about painting the ab buttons; I happened to come across some blue paints lying around and wanted to see if I could find a close match to Humbrol's Midnight Blue. I came across Testors 1111 Dark Blue which looks pretty good. Need to do more testing to be sure.

Started to paint the helmet. I think it's coming along well. Using Testor's Gray 1138 and Flat Black. I think I painted the vocoder correctly. I've looked at a lot of references and they all have the same basic form, but the columns are painted at different heights. Might have painted the top 3 a little too high. Chime in if anything looks wrong.

I'll be referencing this thread thread when I assemble my stuff. Great step by step explanation. These help a lot for noobs like me.

I've looked at a lot of references to make sure I'm trimming enough off. Probably be making the teeth holes larger and work on the eyes just a bit more. I can't wait to paint it!

I assume you're referring to the drill holes for the ears? Both the face and back pieces lined up correctly on their marks. I initially though I might need to adjust the drill holes to get everything lined up correctly, but no adjustments were needed. I'll post an image of it tomorrow. Just about have it ready to be painted! Then to make it even more epic, I just need to get Stomper's hovis, Smitty's lenses, and more foam for the interior.

Thanks stukatrooper, I'll follow your advice. Dougefresh: Yeah, build threads are great! I really appreciate the feedback guys.

Work has prevented me from working on my armor consistently... but I have been making progress. Got quite a few pieces trimmed out and almost ready to be assembled. Decided to start working on the helmet this past week. I'm filing out the teeth right now and finishing sanding out the eyes to get the proper look. With my luck I figured something like this would happen during my build. The rotary nut from my dremel gouged the ear. Like and idiot I didn't cut from the underside of the mold and somehow got in a bad angle. I'm thinking about getting some caulk and filling in the small gouges then painting it over with white enamel paint. Not sure if that's the best way to fix this. Other option is to buy an ear replacement or a new helmet for that matter. Any thoughts on fixing this?

Finished trimming the calves. Going to use my dremel sanding bit to trim off any excess I missed and sandpaper to finalize. While trimming a part of the calf, my utility knife slipped. $@#%! It's not bad, but noticeable. Now to figure out how to hide this mistake. Chest is trimmed, needs to be sanded. Bells are 100% done. Schwing! I should get electrical tape too. Great suggestion TK-1287!

Maybe not the best place to start but I decided to begin trimming with the ab button and hand plates. Seemed easy, plus gave me time to adjust to the material since I've never worked with ABS before. I'm holding onto the abs scraps. May come in handy later. I taped the cut line on the armor piece to make it more noticeable while trimming. Now to sandpaper the edges to fix any mistakes during trimming and even everything out. I'm using medium (100) grade paper. Finished, more or less.

kev1969: No scratches. There's some hardly noticeable scuffs and what appears to be a sharpie smudge on the back of the helmet. All the pieces arrived without any defects, though I'm new to this stuff so don't really know what to look for. Looks great to me! Bigturc: If I have questions, I'll ask! Most the answers to common mistakes and problems seem to be already on the forums here. Just have to find the thread and follow the veteran's lead. TK-1287: It arrived very quickly. I sent my full payment on Oct 8 and it arrived on Oct 15. They already had some in stock, I'm assuming for the halloween rush, so it arrived very quickly. They said it could take 4-6 weeks if they didn't have them in stock. nyoron: Fun on a bun. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to work on my armor. I got called into work on my day off. Bummed me out a bit, but didn't mind. I can use the money. I'll have all day Monday to work on it so I'll post lots more photos of my progress soon!

After 9 months of researching and slowly saving up money I finally decided to get an AP kit. I considered FX but didn't feel it was right for my body type seeing how I'm 5'9-130 lbs (skinny as a rail...*sigh*). I also wanted to have a more screen-accurate look and decided this armor was the best option for me. My goals are to join the 501st and eventually gain FISD Elite status. I'm going for the ANH Stunt look. I received my armor yesterday and decided to start documenting my quest in this thread. There's a lot of great references and build threads here and I'm sure they'll come in handy when I get stuck! This will be my first armor build so hopefully I won't make any disastrous mistakes. I'm in for a long journey and a lot of hard work but it'll be worth it. ============================== * * * Armor Trimming * * * ============================== Right out of the box... a pile of awesome: Tools I'll be using: =Utility Knife / X-Acto Knife =Dremel =Sandpaper =Work Gloves [prevent cuts] Here we go!