revlimiter

Buckets off. Rest in peace Dan.

You guys are seriously nigh identical. Down to the height.

Yes sir! The idea is zero white showing while standing and you will very very likely have to cut the top of the ab plate to have it hidden under the black side extension. Just about everyone with this style armor (new generation?) needs to cut it under the armpit like that. As a bonus, it'll be a lot more comfy and breathe better with that plastic removed.

Thanks!!! I've got 3 tomorrow as well. Wish there was a free comic book day one here... I'm hoping to get to 100 by the end of 2023. That's my goal anyway. I'm aiming for it. 5/2/23 Bernalillo County Fire Department May the 4th promo 61st TK troop, 16th for 2023. This one was a mid week troop at a fire station in the mountains. They wanted clean, white TKs and nothing else. Five of us answered the call. Randy wasn't in the group selfie above because he was a little tied up. We were there to help Fire & Rescue film a promo video for May 4th. We were "new recruits." Tye and I got to practice our aim with the big hose. We did well. The cones were completely safe. Don't want to risk any cones after all. They're expensive. Brandon and Wayne tried on this strange off-world gear. And their weapons. Not sure what to do with these weapons... Ah, yes. That's more familiar. Fire Team Rio Bravo signing off. (I'll be pasting this to our Fire Team log too!)

YES!!!!!!!!!! That double strap thing is something I (am pretty certain I) read and then couldn't remember the exact details. Thank you Glen!! Front offset + side would be great for action, sitting, and not rotating. Excellent. That's what I'll replicate. Cover strips glued on the outside edge - check. I also especially like the relief cuts. Much better than the regular Jimmi thigh cuts. My whole beef with updating the CRL to have the back coverstrips offset is exactly as you mention - how they look offset depending on the wearer. Since many stunt actors wear these costumes, the thighs are different depending on who's inside. I'm sure there's someone who would fit the costume perfectly and have a nicely centered cover strip. Maybe the whole stunt cast that season did their squats and have tree trunks, thus the wide fitment. But that's my beef. Since we make our armor sets specifically for our bodies, and no one else is likely to be in our armor, there should be no requirement to have the rear thigh cover strips offset. Passable? Sure. Just not a requirement to have them offset. Centered is the ideal fit for the ideal trooper, which is everyone here. Stunt actors don't have that luxury. Anyways, didn't mean to soapbox. I understand why they're often offset on screen. I just really hope we don't have to emulate that here. and again, thanks for those photo references!!

I've been trying to find THE answer for exactly what a Rogue One TK needs for their thigh strap and I'm coming up short. Help a brother out? I'm usually quite good at ferreting this kind of thing out. The CRL - The thigh armor is mirrored for each leg and not interchangeable. The cover strips are bevelled and approximately 1/8" thick that does not extend beyond the thigh and has a smaller cover strip layered thereon. The top edge of the thigh armor is unadorned, and the bottom edge has a raised detail that fallows the bottom edge contour. The small ammo belt consists of 5 evenly spaced rectangle ammunition boxes and is installed on the bottom of the right thigh, there are no visible screws or rivets. OPTIONAL Level two certification (if applicable): Thighs are loosely held closed in the back with elastic, shock cord (bungee cord) or white Velcro and are designed to remain flexible. Cover strips will cover both the front and rear joints. OPTIONAL Level three certification (if applicable): The bottom outside edges of the small ammunition belt are angled at approximately 45 degrees. Thigh armor is suspended by a black strap approximately 1” 25mm in width with a plastic side release buckle that is covered by black webbing or elastic that runs down the side seam of the leg. It seems to call for a single strap with a visible (yet covered) buckle on "the side seam of the leg". But... there's no side seam. The armor is smooth on the side and the pants, I think, should also be unseamed. Also, a single strap on the outside edge of the thigh armor would do a poor job of holding it up well. It would always want to spin. My own ANH thigh strap is just outboard of the front cover strip by about 10 degrees. @11b30b4, our lone R1 centurion, has the strap at about 80 degrees from front. Is okay moving forward? And if so, how far forward can I cheat this? @equuspolo has a beautiful thigh strap system on his FOTK. Two straps, mostly positioned at the front. One at dead front and one about 15 degrees outboard. I love this as I believe it would allow the maximum maneuverability. Easy sitting too. And less rotation. This is from the archive. While I disagree with the thigh cover strip alignment (that's an argument for another time), it shows one strap past 90 degrees on the right side. It's more like 110 degrees from the front. There's gotta be another strap in the front, yes? I don't see one in the front. How would this even stay oriented correctly after walking 5 steps? Seems odd. I've gotta be missing something. And that's why I'm asking for help.

It was so good! Can't wait to use it again. Almost caught up with my log. 4/29/23 - Special Olympics Unified Events TK Troop 60, 15th for 2023. This was a troop to support Special Olympics at a nearby school. Schools all around the state had these preliminary events with the main competition happening in a few weeks. This troop was hosted by our Galactic Academy. LOOK AT THE DRESSING ROOM!!! So much nicer than our 501st hosted events! I'm gonna demand GA host everything from now on. Gotta help those jawas look their best you know! And keep their hands off our thermal detonators. My daughter practicing her force powers. This is not the selfie you're looking for. All the teams came out this big jaguar arch with the 501st (and GA and RL) leading the way! In between cheering on teams and athletes, we got to clown a bit. Little Leia has some football skills! Lucas and I had a friendly TK race. The crowd cheered us on! And that's all the pix I got. We trooped for several hours, cheered, high-fived, and hugged hundreds of kids, and then presented award ribbons at the end. It was a great day and my first Special Olympic event. Can't wait for the next!

It can be difficult (and often impossible) but the correct way to do a green screen photo is with several lights lighting the screen itself, then a decent chunk of distance, then some lights on you. You should be rather far away from the back wall. 10 feet at least, but more if you can manage. The more distance, the less green shows up on your armor. If you're right next to the screen, your armor turns green as well. Additionally, it looks like the white balance is different in most of these. Force your phone or camera to a specific white balance for all of the shots in the same session. It depends on the temperature of your lighting equipment. Choose one that makes your armor look whitest and stick with it. Not too yellow or too blue. Most phones and all cameras will allow you to do this in a manual or "pro" mode. Also, +1 on Glen's input.

One of the kindest troops one can perform. Well done Mark. Bucket's off. Salute.

4/26/23 -Painted Sky Elementary Read-a-Bration TK Troop #59, 14th for 2023. This was advertised as "a troop where we read to kids" and I was ALL ABOUT IT. See, I did several Star Wars reads troops last year in libraries and really enjoyed it. However, there weren't any good Stormtrooper books to read. None. We were always either bumbling bad guys or a footnote in Finn's rise to the rebellion. So I made one. I spent most of a year of off-and-on work with this little thing. It's based on (totally ripped off) a book that I used to read my daughter when she was tiny. It's a counting book for littles and it reads quick. I started out drawing the pages but that takes life for each one. I decided that lego toy photos would be the play in actually getting this book to exist. @Scimitar loaned me a bunch of his minifigs, I had a ton of my own, and I bought a handful more on ebay to round out the 45 little troops I needed for the book. I took the pix, edited them up, and printed them out on my vinyl plotter. They got stuck to the pages of a huge board book I got at a local book store. Fast forward to April 23 and I finally got to read it!!! There was three of us at the troop. The mando in back was apparently a parent who had a (just kickass) Mandalorian costume. He had non-canon stickers, so we didn't think he was an official Merc. Anyways, this troop was WAAAY more than reading to the kids. We paraded all around the (huge) school with a bunch of Avengers and sports team mascots. All the kids were dressed as book characters - sometimes as a class project and sometimes as just their favorite books. So we paraded. This small trooper caught my eye and I had to stop the whole parade to selfie with him. This class had a whole Star Wars theme (the teacher was Rey) and had another little trooper!! MORE SELFIES! and holy crap, I've never received so many high fives in my life. There were roughly 600 kids. Each one got several rounds of 5s. Maybe 2000 high fives. And hugs! And photos! And questions about being a real Stormtrooper. It was amazing. AMAZING And then. THEN, after all of the parading for almost two hours, we got taken to several classrooms to read to the kids. I read my little TK counting book with my bucket on. The kids cheered. My fellow troopers supported. It was great. GREAT!!! I expected it to be a low key read-to-kids troop and it was this huge parade. This huge celebration! Totally unexpected and awesome. So many happy kids. All because I have a plastic spaceman suit and a flexible schedule.

The batteries will indeed die just sitting there and existing. My first icomm battery sat in the unit from 2017 till 2021 and didn't get trooped with once. It was dead when I tried it after years of sitting. I replaced it and got about 5 months of life out of that replacement. The link Glen posted is the best solution to the icomm battery and is what I followed. Well worth that mod.

4/22/23 -Family Fun Day TK Troop #58, 13th for 2023. Lucky troop 13 for the year was a family event put on by a local biker gang to get some toys, bikes (the pedal kind) and fun into the lives of some local kids who might not have it otherwise. I decided since the weather was nice, I'd wear my HWT pack and bring my DLT... and carry them for 2 hours... It was honestly a great time, even though my shoulders were a begging for death at the end of the day. The pack looks SOOOO COOL! But 2 hours is a lot. One of the officers here was interested in my DLT. He asked what it was and I answered something about "standard Imperial issue DLT-19" which produced A FACE on the officer . When I went on about it being based on an MG-34 and started showing the differences, he made the other face and was super stoked to talk about it. Just a couple GMLs inspecting a local transport. Nothing to see here. There was a good sized tent FILLED with beautiful parrots and exotic birds. Mesh sides so you could see them and they wouldn't get too hot. Kids could go in and pet/feed the birds. I asked and was instantly denied, even though I promised to leave the BFG outside. I had to be content with just a routine interrogation. And then there was ducky fishing. But it was okay since me and The Colonel (also named Adam) were the highest ranking troops in attendance. Two Adams fishing. There's a joke somewhere in here. And instead of Disney Princesses, they had actual pageant winners at this troop. Miss Senora New Mexico looked like she needed a DLT in her life and got a kick out of posing with it. She was SUPER kind and didn't mind selfie-ing with me. She tracked down the rest of the Beauty Queens and then all posed with our group. A+ troop! Would troop again, but maybe I'd leave the pack at home. I clearly need to work out more...

Greetings Vasco! Have a look here for anything you'd ever need to know about ANH Stunt Stormtroopers. Caleb has created an amazing index. And we have a list of makers here.

4/15/23 -Ellen Reavis Race for Autism TK Troop #56, 11th for 2023. CLOR-5435 - troop 20, 4th for 2023 There were three troops on 4/15/23 here. My daughter and I signed up for two. The first was the Ellen Reavis Autism Race, one that I attended in 2022. I got to bring my newly printed 1:1 scale vintage LEGO BLASTER to this one!!! And little Leia got to wear her shoulder Lola. As two people on the spectrum, this troop was important to the Wolf Pack. Me and Leia did our best to spread some smiles. As 10:00 hit, the 501st led the way for the race. (Vader's bellowing cape was rather epic throughout this whole windy troop) 4/15/23 -Star Wars Fest 9 TK Troop #57, 12th for 2023. CLOR-5435 - troop 21, 5th for 2023 Star Wars Fest is a yearly event at a huuuuuge library in the neighboring city of Rio Rancho. They haven't had it since 2019 and we had something like 35 troopers in attendance across all three clubs to celebrate the return. (I'm behind two of the three Leias in this photobooth shot) ... is Little Leia taller than Cloud City Leia? hmm. My girl may need a new costume STAT. I found this strangely dressed librarian working a data terminal in the back. She answered all questions to my satisfaction, so the binders didn't need to come out. The reading material was EPIC at this troop. I settled down in a quiet corner with some interesting reading material. Perhaps I'll be more threatening after reading some tips. And lastly, say hello to the DRG's newest TIE Reserve! Janith is the 2nd person I've approved as a GML and the first who's trooped.

Looking VERY good James!!!

Can't keep Morgi down!!!

How is the pack mounted? I don't see shoulder straps. It looks really good. The whole thing is coming together nicely!! Excellent improvements.

4/7/23 - Tony Hillerman MS Spring Carnival TK Troop 55 - 10th for 2023 This was a repeat troop. This school did the troop last year and ran the event again for 23, requesting us again. And, if I'm honest, it was the worst troop of 2022. The kids hated having us there and were really snotty and horrible. I was reluctant to go again, but everyone was aware of last year's situation, we had a bunch of handlers, and every troop was on high alert. I didn't even wear my thermal detonator for fear of it being stolen. Yes, it was that bad in 22. Fortunately, the 2023 event was totally different. It was a complete success. We were setup next to the Whack-A-Teacher booth. Each teacher had their photo printed and kids got to throw tennis balls at them. I had a great time "helping" those who had TK-like aim. In other words, the kids who missed had TK help and then got prizes for knocking out their chosen teacher. Vader didn't need help. He had the force. Those who knocked out multiple teachers got to spin the wheel. And the Army was there with a helicopter!!! The organizers kept talking about "getting your pictures with the helicopter" and I expected a drone that was gonna take our group pic. Hidden way around the back of the school was this beauty. They asked me to pose with the chopper. I posed. I wasted no time climbing into the pilot seat. If they're inviting me, I'm sitting. That's all there is to it. Ethan vacated the chopper in a hurry after I started flicking switches. And then... I was in hyperspace! We all expected the worst, but it was, I think, the best troop of the year so far. The helicopter pilot pic may stay in my sig for a while...

100!!! Very nice. Looking forward to your troop log!

3/30/23 - Literacy Night TK Troop #53, 8th for 2023. A group of us gathered for the Literacy Night at a nearby elementary school. I think this was the first time having the event since before COVID. Kids were happy to have us there. David in his newly approved Anthology-era Obiwan. He was one of the first 501st I met in 2016, back when he trooped as Clone Wars era Obiwan. The school mascot was full of sass and needed to be reigned in. Orbit (ABQ Isotopes ball team mascot) was also in attendance. I will never turn down a selfie chance with Orbit. As for the troop, while good, chill, low-key, and indoors... I managed to get super dehydrated. It crept up on me and took about a day to recover from. I should have stopped after 10 minutes and had water, but I went the whole troop... no one said TKs were extremely smart. Anyways, it was a good warning to myself about the impending summer hot weather troops and the importance of hydrating the day before. -------------------------- On the morning of April 1st, our garrison had an easter egg hunt at one of ABQ's larger parks. 24 gift bags, beautifully painted and decorated eggs and 2 grand prizes. Open to all the clubs. At 7:30 AM!!! As you can see, not too many came out. But man was it great. Huge thanks to Jenn and Chris for organizing and running this. My family loved it! and later that day. -------------------------- 4/1/23 - Haven House Second Annual Eggstravaganza TK Troop #54, 9th for 2023. CDZ-5435 - troop 19, 3rd for 2023 This was a big egg hunt troop. Characters posed for pix in one park while the nearby soccer fields were completely and totally covered in eggs. Never seen anything like it... and I managed to not take a photo. It was at least a Star Destroyer worth of eggs. I also didn't manage to get a group photo to share... I did get ice cream. @elwessbrandon commandeered the vehicle and supplied tasty rations for the troops. Bubbles was delicious. Meanwhile, my daughter kept peace between Bruce and Vader. Posing with my new commanding officer. And a shot with Jim and his new Din outfit. He looks amazing! Warm, but amazing.

Just a little.

They're listed in the shops to avoid. They are otherwise known as Jedi-robe.

This is a super timely post. to all who contributed, especially @justjoseph63 I got super dehydrated at a recent troop. It was an EVENING, INDOOR troop in pleasant weather. It totally snuck up on me. Over 50 troops to my credit and I managed to get dehydrated at a fairly low key, chill indoor troop.... it can happen any time. I apparently didn't drink enough that day before the troop. Took me nearly a day to recover. Stay hydrated out there troopers!

Perhaps you noticed Joseph's coin looks a little... different? A very limited number of GOLD Command Staff MEME Coins exist. Most are currently traveling around the globe in search of their owners.