FarEast

Also today I got two LBB (Little Brown Boxes) of softparts! The undershirt is made by Sheev's Emporium and regarded as the most accurate undershirt and neckseal currently available. The shoes are through Katherine Partis in the UK who supplied the originals to the set, so these are the real deal!

The hip armour was built using the templates provided by one of the awesome members seantrooper - many thanks for sharing this with the community! Because I was unable to get a long roll of plasizone I had to get creative and hide the breaks behind the armoured plates. 1mm Plaplate was added on areas that would take the snaps and also accessories as these would prevent damage to the plastizone if they got caught on anything or through general wear and tear. (I will be reprinting the cyclinders as it turns out the body is too long in comparison to the movie armour. Once everything had cured it was time to hit it with more Sahara Beige and then connect it all together! (Please note that the front of the hip armour has been deliberately left open - I'm reprinting the adbominal armour and can't cut and bond to size until I have a finished piece!)

Next up was the hard belt - The thermal detonator and pringle can were up scaled to 108% from Sean's original as they were too small in comparison to the movie props. Again I have to thank Paul Prentice who diligently researched this and with those finished assembly and modifications could begin. The hard belt needed to be shaped to meet the contours of the armour and it turned out that my recycling bins in the kitchen were a perfect match! The thermal detonator was modified using 0.2mm Tamiya PlaSheet and then CA glued into place. The same was done for the strap line on the Pringle can as it would sit too low on the hard belt if done the original way. Also additional detailing was added to the top of the can - apparently there are two types of detailing from reference photos and I opted for this one. Let the painting begin! Next on the list was attaching the ammo boxes from Paul Prentice to Rob Kittel's amazing belt and buckle system.

Sorry for going dark on this build - lots and lots have been happening on it and just didn't have enough time to update it! So the next step was to get the shoulders and strapping to movie accuracy! Que - Paul Prentice who offers the most accurate models on the market! So the first job of the day was to sand back the paint and build a ramp to launch the strapping so it leans over at an angle and also a new mount with raiser for the buckles. This was achieved by making a frame using off cuts of PETG plastic sheet and then filling it with automotive filler. Once cured it was sanded to shape, repainted and the strapping attached at the front with bond. As you can see the angle is perfect and swoops up and over the shoulders and tucks into the slots on the back plate The buckles and foam were then attached to the sides of the armour and weathered.

I'm at a loss for where I need to be looking for reference materials n what I need to modify on my armour to get it to level two - or even level 3. I'm feeling a bit lost without visual aids.

Yes, which according to reference is incorrect so I took a look at other SDS armour builds here and replicated what they did. As for the seams - actually it was a pretty big gap (3mm) as I have large thighs and to accommodate them the armour was built by SDS to fit me. I might sculpt a seam line in.

So last night I did the scary job of cutting back the trim on the thigh armour that goes all the way to the bottom - because the trimming is of a different type of plastic it’s bonded pretty strong to the main armour and even careful sawing left holes in the armour. I filled these with ABS putty base from the original belt backer. first heavily filling the back of the thigh armour to give added strength and then to the front. This morning the putty had cured enough to add another layer. once this has fully cured it will be sanded back and then polished to hopefully match the rest of the armour.

Rivets it is then!!!! or maybe Chicago screws - in the CRL though it says snaps can be used but no colour is given

Today I was in Ebina watching my son play football so I decided to use the down time constructively and really make some inroads on the T-21 after Sean lit a fire cracker under it! One of the most tie consuming parts was the cooling fins inside the jacket, DONE! Along with the muzzle break, sights and other detailing! Also the main receiver got finalized, once those are printed the actually build will be about 95% complete and will only require 'StarWarsification' The outer barrel jacket is well on the way to completion!

Right Chicago screws it is then! Next up getting rid of the screws on the sniper knee! While that's curing time for an easy one - totally non functional.

So this project stalled due to the issue of the barrel taper and I thought that it wouldn't get off the ground again. Thankfully my friend Sean Fields creator of the Shoretrooper 3D files that I've been using came to my rescue today and whipped me up this! This has basically jump started this project significantly as I have pretty much everything else ready to go on the frame!

Its a photo distortion - if you look at the photos one of them is me measuring the the TD cylinder tube its just under 190mm and then with the end caps its spot on 190mm I think the next step I need to take is start taking photos of each part and get feed back on if needs changing or modifying for Level 2 CRL clearance. That way I can just make a job list and work my way through it.

Annnnnnd done! Again many thanks for pointing that out!

Roger that sir! Many thanks for that!

Jut the kind of feed back I was after! I'm not entirely sure what that actually means is there any photos show how they should align - it will be an easy fix!

Any feed back on this would be very much appreciated - from reading the CRL the belt, holster and Thermal Detonator now meet all the requirements for Level 3 so conformation of this would be greatly appreciated and that way I can move on to the next part of the upgrades. I'm actually only aiming currently for Level2.

Last on the job list today was the Thermal detonator - the clip was just not acceptable and so it was time to do a work over on it. Time to remove that horrible clip! I wanted to make sure that it met the specs so measured everything up - the last thing I wanted was to rebuild the whole thing from scratch. Time to get building! So with that done it was time to see how it looked: Ignore the plate sticking out on the right - I know you can't now I've said it haha So all the jobs I planned on doing today are complete - along with another part of the Shoretrooper just finished printing!

The next step was a simple one - modifying the SDS holster Loops are bad (unless you're building an Inferno Sqd. build and they seem to have loops!) Snip Snip! These were then attached to the belt using white headed snaps.

Well it seems that my original build thread has disappeared and what with the photobucket nonsense it kind of makes sense as all the photos had disappeared to. Anyway the original build thread is still available - without photos over on the Japan Garrison page here: https://501st.jp/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1851 So today I was able to put some creative talent in the SDS armour to bring it up to spec for the 501st and with the first project being the belt and everything that attaches to it as it required the most work. So with a Rob Kittle belt from Imperial Issue.......hmmmmm yummy! First job was to remove all parts from the solid ABS SDS belt. With the ammo packs free it was time to remove the buttons. With all the parts separated I could go about modifying the abdominal joining point and prepare the soft belt for mounting. From there it was about reattaching the parts

All that's left is to paint it weather it and distress it!

Last part to make were the backpack greeblies - again many thanks to Lance who pointed out that the boxes were actually angled. Also several of the parts required some attention to get the shape correct. Lot of little parts all available from Sean Field's files Chop - Chop! Primed and ready to go!

Stoo Collin's recommended that I add two more additional details to the build - the most significant being that the side stripe continues up and over the top of the backpack. So to do this I made a mask of the top of the backpack. I then transferred the tape to 0.3mm Tamya PlaCard and cut out so that I would be about 5mm short from the edge and the remainder was trimmed to fit so as to create the lip. All of it was bonded with superglue. The bottom of the backpack has a much larger plate that is clearly visible in many of the photos of the movie costumes. I went about this in the same manner Once the glue has cured it was given a light sanding and then primed ready for the base coat.

So the last piece to bring the build log upto date was the backpack - Now first of all I want to say a BIG thank you to Paul Prentice and Stoo Collins whom really helped me out with a lot of the additional detailing and without them this part wouldn't be what it is - the upgrades are relatively easy to make with the right tools and materials so I'm hoping this helps others who are building Sean's incredible armour to tweak theirs - I'm potentially going for a Level II grade armour so hopefully these upgrades won't be in vain. The two backpack parts took an insane amount of time to print mainly due to all the support structure but I'm glad I took my time! Finished one! And on to the next! The parts beautifully mesh together. A few defects but those will be sorted out with automotive body filler. The edges seemed to finish within minutes compared to the backpack! More filling! But finally I had a complete backpack - I was a little confused where to go from here but it kind of started to make sense after looking at the cutting template and such. First things first were the small details on the backpack - holes, raised parts and indentations The should harness mounts have two indentations at the back on either side so I decided to remove the mounts and start again.

So now it was time to move on to the arms, Shoulder bells, Biceps, forearms and hand guards. The forearms went together very nicely - left no post processing, right ready for paint. The fit was perfect on the right arm but due to my accident the left forearm was a very tight squeeze but with a bit of sanding on the inside all was good! The hand plates I increased the size by about 2% as I have large hands - again it worked out pretty good - just need the gloves! Both biceps received a base of Sahara Beige Then the right side got the Toyota red treatment The shoulder bells were a real PITA to print but I got there in the end! From here it was just a matter of painting, weathering and distressing. Also making sure everything fitted correctly!

So with the bucket complete its time to work on the upper torso and back! The first task was to correct the minor details in the build to make it more screen accurate. First of the easy one - the armour needs to flick up a little higher at the ends. As well as making the lines to the front of the armour more straight rather than curved A bit of automotive filler and a bit of sanding and its all good! Next step was a little harder and that was to widen the slots on the front blast plates. Some serious cutting and dremel work needed! More sanding then followed by a heavy coat of black automotive primer. I let this cure for several days as I wanted it to be fully hardened ready for the base cot of Beige Brown. Again I let this cure before applying the Sahara Beige. After more waiting for curing and a little light sanding to remove drips and thickness differences it was to apply the Nordic blue markings. annnnnnnd more waiting! Very happy with the finish however this is way to clean!