Timberwoof

I'd use a triangular file to square up the openings of the "teeth". It's probably more important what they look like from the outside than from the inside.

Enough fiddle-farting around with extraneous details. Helmet. I read threads and references and emails up down and sideways. Here's what I think: "Teeth" are black. Eight are standard. Areas in between number eleven, so white "teeth" not cut out in the last ones are correct. Here's my helmet now: I went at the lower overspray with a fine file to pretty good effect; that can use some touch-up. I might as well do the upper lip as well. I painted the extra gray areas as seen in some other Anovos ANH builds but I don't like the shapes, so some very gentle filing and touching up is in order here. I'll try a toothpick as a brush. The green visor keeps falling out because the velcro pads glued to the helmet keep unsticking. I'd glue them to the pads there, but underneath them is some bad engineering: I don't like how those screws are sticking out. I can either unscrew them, clamp them down on a vise I haven't got, saw them off, and put them back, or get that Dremel I've always wished I needed and cut the ends off in situ. That will satisfy my sense of good engineering and make those sticky pads stick better. Maybe I'll glue them too. Once that's done I can correctly place the visor velcro. That's a dodgy system, but it's the 20% solution that solves the problem 80%. I can wear my glasses inside the helmet, which pleases me greatly. I may also fiddle about with the velcro pairs that hold the helmet liner in place, and address its fastening that unsticks. (Old adhesives all over the place!) Hmm. Plasti-dip for the inside. That will probably become top priority once I get transferred to Tatooine. My Imperial Issue waist belt is on order. That project comes next.

Amazing what semi-gloss black and flat black and careful masking can do for a lowly Hasbro toy.

Welcome, Newtrooper. Did you see https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/38-getting-started-read-this-first/ ?

Stairs are manageable. When fursuiting at a new place, like a con hotel I haven't been to before, I like to wander around when it's not crowded and learn all the stairs. For every step up I step forward just enough to feel the edge with my toe, then up and step onto it. For steps down, I feel for it with my heel. And I'm not afraid of holding on to the railing for guidance. The TK helmet has really bad downward vision and tilting the head down doesn't work, so I'll be using that technique a lot. At least I can wear my glasses under my helmet so I can see elevator floor button numbers. In my fursuit I gave to get up really close or just ask for the floor. I'm hoping my fursuiting "skills" will help when trooping.

Labor-intensive as in tedious, not hard.

You've come to the right place. This forum has a section specifically for kit builders to log their progress, report problems, and make suggestions. There are plenty of "build threads", each one by one builder. Pick one and read through it. If you decide to take the plunge, then read a few threads again. When you think you have learned the material, read a couple of threads again. There's a lot of detail to cover, and a lot of tricks and traps. https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/152-first-order-stormtroopers/ I don't think you can buy a smaller one; I suspect you'll have to modify yours. You're probably not the first person to have come up against this problem: look through the threads; I'm sure you'll find a couple of threads written by short builders. Best of luck and patience. (You don't have to be skilled to build a kit; you have to built a kit to become skilled.) (Well, you do have to be careful.) Oh, look what I found, just by browsing. This is for the Anovos ANH kit, but it may give you ideas for yours. https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/

The last spray painting I did was all the pipes in my basement in the ANSI colors for water, gas, electric, and sewage because. It takes a light touch and patience to do this. I'm pleased that the copyright notice and the CE thing still show up: that means I didn't overdo it.

Spray Paint Practice. I inflicted the 3M sponge sander on my Hasbro E-11 to remove a yucky yellow grunge layer, some painted wear marks, and the Imperial logo. I wiped the dust off, then sprayed flat black paint at it. The Hasbro H-11 is clearly designed to be easily manufacturable. The tubes are only at 90° angles so the molds can retract from it. he way it is made, it cannot have the angled ones of the canonical design. That's why it can't be used for the advanced levels of accuracy. This is going to be just an exercise in model-painting. The next step will be to mask the pewpew part and expose the grip, and inflict semi-gloss paint on it. Then I'll try painting that u-shaped indentation gray. Already it looks a lit more impressive than its original white, orange, black color scheme.

I tried my hand at very fine model painting to get the required teeth on the helmet. I'm not pleased with how they turned out. The helmet has all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle asymmetries. This is the work so far, which I'm letting set rather that risk smearing it. Time for the lamp with the big magnifying glass.

Today I went grocery shopping. On the way back someone asked me whether I was a TIE fighter pilot. I said, yes, I am, and he complimented me on my jacket. Fun, but not quite up to standards. (That's not a blaster in my hand, just the remote for the camera.)

Silly me! I should have guessed that from the most excellently detailed and explained Anovos instructions, which are almost as good as Ikea's!

Thanks for the reply, TheSwede. The shoulder bells do have elastic under the arms. I'm going to trim the return edges and make sure the arms are rotated correctly. The problem with the thighs was that they were up too high and the whole chest armor was too low. I spent some time the other day just trying different fit of parts and got better results. I am probably going to replace much of the strapping system with non-elastic straps, with snaps where possible. I'm loath to argue the requirement for the teeth with my local reviewer. The biggest job will be to make the belt correct. It's flimsy anyway.

Here are the photos I submitted.

Welcome. I can try to help, as I'm a relative newbie. I hate to just reply, "What kinds of help do you need?" so I'll also suggest https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/38-getting-started-read-this-first/ . How can I help? Are you starting a Star Wars costume project?

I had three construction issues and a bunch of dressing issues in my request for approval. ("Dressing" means details that can be fixed by a keen assistant helping me get the armor on.) 1. There was a problem with the shoulder bells sticking out too far. It was awful one one side as the biceps had rotated (and I hadn't noticed.) I'll need to trim off some of the return edge. That's tricky on the inside curve and I don't want to overdo it. 2. Thighs need to be trimmed. I don't know what that means. I have asked the reviewer to clarify. 3. Correct the Anovos belt. The Reference Guide says "two rivets at the bottom", which my belt has. It wasn't clear that the two rivets it is talking about are the ones attaching the straps to the belt. This is described un Ukswrath's thread, so that has to happen. That Anovos bet is rather flimsy so I think iI'll redo that form scratch. 4. "Helmet needs the last 2 teeth painted on the frown." However, in Ukswrath's thread, "Out of the box the Anovos helmet meets basic, EIB and SHOULD meet Centurion standards…" The Guide says “Frown is painted gray and does not leave the teeth area. Eight total teeth on the frown are cut out.“ Are the grey teeth painted as shown in this thread a requirement at basic?

I got a Sterilite 40 gallon rolly box for $24 at OSH. With clever packing the armor completely fits inside. Since it is black and has cool techy shapes molded into it, I could not resist also getting a rattlecan of glossy white and a roll of masking tape. The lid is drying. I'll have to sand it where I was a little over-enthusiastic in applying paint, then paint that area again … lightly. Gmrhodes, your animated GIF is cycling in time to my wall clock's ticking. It is almost as hypnotic as my Prius dashboard's Passenger Entrancement Mode.

background: gray lighting: lots a mark to stand on camera on tripod, long lens, correct height, correct framing, focus costume checklist: fiddly bits photo list: sides and poses

Got my friend to help check the armor out and take photos. I look with a critical eye at a few dressing errors that I could not see and my friend did not know to look for. It's a lot of ask of friends. Yeah. When locals build suits, I will host Photo Shoots and help get the armor to look right.

Score and snap works best. Score slowly and steadily. File the edge down to reasonable flatness. The recommended 3M sander-sponge does a god job on exposed edges.

What are the interior dimensions on the Husky bin? How tall is it? I saw another thread in which someone had painted his bin in black and white. It was quite nice! So far I'm using the BBB my Anovos kit came in; it has the right volume but is tall enough to be annoying in the back of my shuttle.

The TK anh stunt-2 reference says, "Vocoder (vertically ribbed chin detail) is painted black." Doesn't it make sense to put the loudspeaker in there? It would need some isolation to prevent the wearer's speech microphone picking up the vocoder speaker. As long as a black mesh was used in the furrows, it should look okay and pass inspection. Yes, the old Harman-Kardon speakers from an ancient iMac are still in the recycle bin.

Four colors of Krylon Fusion. I suspect that will be amost twice what I spent on the Hasbro. I checked prices of the Rubies on eBay. I am happy with my choice of Hasbro.

Can you find a way to cause rubbage from putting it into and taking it out of its holster? I plan to document where this one actually got worn, and use that for the wear patterns.

Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes. I second the notion of more clamps and magnets. I have about eight clamps and twenty magnets. I wish I had had double the number because that's enough for one cover strip on an open edge and one cover strip when joining two halves.