TheRascalKing

Thank you for all you have done and continue to do! I'm sure we all appreciate your honesty and candor, and that we all wish you the absolute best as things continue to settle. Let us know if you need anything! Other than some more quality EIB and Centurion candidates of course

I'm curious how your helmet fits with the pouches there - I mounted mine as low as possible, otherwise I can't turn my head to the left. I also used Line 24 snaps to make it removable instead of rivets. Just some thoughts Weathering looks good! I used @justjoseph63's suggestion and picked up some cheap eye shadow - was amazed at how well it worked too.

Looking super good, man! You got this!

Agreed - or maybe just your handguards up a bit. I use a small hair tie as an additional strap around my wrist to keep them in the right place , they look like they're almost down over your fingers... That should help close the "gap" too. Otherwise, looking good!

+1 more. As others have said, Dave has taken over selling AM Armor. AM has a long history and is extremely high quality - few other makers have as sharp of details or similar bright white, thick ABS. Their tooling is impressive and you get a ton in the box for your money (ie, ANH and ESB harndguards, TK and TD sniper knees, etc.). I have built several and they are one of my main recommended makers, especially for bigger guys. The kit even comes rough trimmed out of the box. Absolutely a quality vendor, just a newer face taking the reins. Buy with confidence.

Thank you to Joseph and congrats to Brien!

Hey Tori! Welcome to FISD! What part of California are you from and are you already in touch with your local Garrison?

I saw a recent FB post from Praetorian that the owner had the flu. That might be why the delay. I'd give it another week!

Personal preference, but I like those better for Sandy hip pouches, and this style (also about $30) for HWT. Just me. That style is usually more expensive for whatever reason though, so give em a shot and see what the quality is like! Will probably look better with some proper fake "magazine" inserts, just like these do...

Imperial Boots for boots, trust...

Orange County already has a Jeff L (Oztrooper) and he's got MORE than enough info in his noggin for everyone hahaha Otherwise I'd definitely consider it. Been trying to be more active on the boards when I can, and I do a good amount of Mentoring for the squad as well... Either way, I appreciate the shout-out

Also, Hyperfirm is no longer around - Praetorian effectively took over for them. If you can find one secondhand, they're still great blasters, but no new orders are being taken. In other news, THANK YOU for posting this - it will be SUPER helpful for new recruits!

No piece of any costume is "approved" by the 501st, let me just get that out of the way. Nit-picking, I know - but there's a big difference between "Approved" and "Approvable". Approval comes down to the actual trooper - each piece must fit you and and be correct to the rest of the costume and so on. Nothing is automatically approved by default. That being said, the rubber chemical/dishwashing gloves are the correct approvable gloves at higher levels. At lower levels, including basic approval, there's a lot more room for interpretation in the CRL. And after approval, even Centurion, no one is really going to stop you from wearing different gloves as long as they don't take away from the overall look of the costume. The rubber gloves are THE WORST and super hot (especially in CA). I've literally seen guys take them off and pour sweat out of them. Nope. The Nomex flight gloves are a good choice, but I don't much like the look or feel of the leather strip present on most of them, and they're still pretty hot. If I'm gonna go off-CRL, I want the most comfortable and utilitarian gloves I can get. I've been wearing these for the last year or so and love them. They're cheap, don't get very hot, I have great dexterity and can use my cell phone if I need to, and I just have elastic straps holding my handguards on. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZZ1J73J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Oh, I did make a little progress the other day if anyone's curious. Bought some random 2" suspenders off Amazon and retrofitted them to (mostly) work to hold up the barrel. It was just me working on this, so taking pics and adjusting things was a challenge, but I might as well bring ya'll along for the ride. Random Amazon suspenders: Chopped the ends off to add snaps: My assistant is useless, but means well: Made some tabs to stick in - these are only temporary until I finalize what I'm going to do to reinforce the barrel a bit: Boom, all mocked up! In hindsight, the suspenders are way too long and I had to max em out to get the barrel sitting high enough. I'll either need to cut and shorten them, or mount them lower in the barrel. A couple of crummy test fitting shots: The side connectors are definitely too long and will need to be trimmed down a bit so I didn't attach them in the front yet. I'lll also likely be taking a little off the top of the barrel, and off the top of the cod plate to get everything to fit well. I'm about 6ft and 160lbs, so on the slim side. This kit should fit slightly bigger troopers easier than I originally thought, but I'll need to trim it down, which is intimidating. Anyways, that's it for now!

Or Jim Tripon in the Phillipines, but for his Rogue One style helmets... still might work. Odd that it's a separate piece tho... What make is the helmet?