chiefbonan

Hey Joseph, just got back from the armour maker, he said it was fine to use the handplates as moulds. Shouldn't be an issue! Glad you asked! might as well do a round up on things that need doing! Neckseal- The neckseal I made had ribs made from grey doortrim painted black, the paint is cracking horribly, just need to redo them with black doortrim. Helmet- Need to attach s-trim, add paint to the vocoder, put in the strapping and the frown inside mesh. Shoulder bells- Need to add elastic inner strap. Ab Plate- Need to add the button plates as well as attachments for the belt to go on. Thermal detonator- Needs to be repainted (wrong colour), and assembled. Belt- Still haven't recived my soft belt back yet, so belt needs to be started. Thighs- Need to add inside padding. Calves- Need to add inside padding as well as elastic straps that go under my feet. Handplates- Need to create the laytex handplates for cert 3. (using the hard pandplates as moulds as mentioned above) Boots- Might need to get new ones. I painted them white but the paint is cracking, also the left boots keeps making a squeaking sound every thime I walk. Buttplate- Need to add a new silver snap at the groin next to the other one. Everything else is finished and ready to go. Once I have it all mostly fitted though I can do some fine adjustments to make it fit together perferctly!

Would like an opinion! We noticed that most people make their hand plates by making molds. Would it be possible to use one of the hard ABS hand plates as a mold? Down below is on of my hand plates, sorry about the strap, but you can see how it does concave and has the shape inside. I was just wondering if it would be possible, and/or viable, as in the laytex wouldn't work with the ABS or something like that. Thanks!

Awesome, thank you, legend!

Hello everyone. This virus has slowed everything down for us which is a shame. I'm sure everyone here has been affected already. The person we gave our belts to has taken around 3 weeks and counting on putting our threading on our belts. Apparently she's resstarted a few times, which is a bit annoying. We've finished everything else at this point on my armour, just waiting for the belt to be finished so we can do a full armour fitting and get to editing before approval. Some questions about the ears, are these gaps fine as they are?: Also where do the belt boxes sit in relationship with the end of the hard-belt? 1, 2 or 3? Thanks all. Stay safe and healthy out on the field troops! 1 2 3

Oh sorry! I meant left mic tip!! In the photos, do you think the left mic tip shouldd be fixed in comparison to the one on the right?

Will do this! Thank you. Your videos helped alot, hats off to you. I must ask, do you think the left vocoder is sitter too upwards? thanks!

Hey all. pretty much finished my helmet! Big step forward. All it needs done it putting on the s-trim/mesh and putting in the head mount. It also needs to have a clean wipe to get all of the grime off of it. Photos here: What do you think needs to be touched up / fixed / adjusted? Go as hard as you want, I want this thing to be done and dusted for approval! Thank you

Hey eeveryone, what way does the S-Trim go on the helmet?

Any ideas on how to fix these up? One of them I stuffed up a bit bad, stincils pretty much tore when I peeled them off.

Update time! We get our belts on monday, so my armour should be finished in around a week or so. Very excited. Shame I can't wear it around much at events due to the virus . Dad got his armour! Very happy man! I've been painting my helmet for the past few days: The left side lines need to come up a bit though in this picture. They need to be detailed a bit more too, remove the leak marks. Pictures of the frown, with the ghost tooth! The cheek pieces that also need to fix the leaks: Voccoder, need to fix up the bottom right: After careful prying, we removed the wires from the mic tips: Inside the helmet, now painted black: New paint brushes, make detailing much easier: And finally pictures of my cat sneaking around the new armour! We might make her a member one day...

Hello all, are these eye holes good? Going to put in the visor piece once the painting is done in a couple of days, will sand them down a bit but just wanna check I didn't leave too much of a lip:

Hello all, small update, my father should be returning tomorrow from his trip, as I'm waiting for him to return since I'd rather do the armour building with him! I seperated the two halves of the helmet and painted the inside. I don't know if I should start painting the decals yet, since the brush set I have is quite cheap, might not do the best job plus be harder to paint with, we will see! Have to do some digging around to see if I can find more.

Wow! these are actually super helpful! thank you

Are there any good painting guides that use the common stencils on the helmet? I just split my helmet in two to make it easier to paint the inside plus the details. I actually removed the vocoder paint since it was not well done. Just put in the mic tips to see how they'd go!

It seems that might be the only option, since I cannot seem to remove the wire mesh without causing damage

Hello! Our stuff from trooper arrived today, all came in good condition! Have run into one major issue though. The mic tip we got from TrooperBay seem to be incorrect. We thought the would be hollow but they are not, so we cannot paint the inside white, which is for Cert 3! Really damn annoying since we spent $60 all up on two sets, guess it's my fault on that one though. See how it's all filled in? The only way I could think of fixing it would be by dabbing the paint onto it, then scratch removing it from the wire, which will take ages. But it does say in the CLR the 'correct' tips so I don't know if these will pass as 'corrcet'. Just very annoying since trooperbay seemed to have everything else pretty accurate/ seemed pretty favourable in this community. But hopefully I won't need to buy new ones!

Hello friends, armour building has gone on halt for a bit, so you may not hear much we'll see, still waiting for the trooperbay stuff, but that should arrive tomorrow! Meanwhile I've been doing a DL-44 blaster kit, here is the finished result: Now I know us Stormtroopers aren't allowed to hold DL-44s as per the CRL, but if I'm not approved before the convention and/or not have my Doopy Doos blaster yet, I'll probably take this little guy for something to hold and take pictures with! Hopefully I can get stuck into painting the helmet tomorrow!

Hey all, whats the best way to mount the visor in the helmet?

good job so far!

Hello all, thank you for your suggestions with the helmet! We picked up a hard hat for around $10 at our local hardware store. We were originally going to remove the white portion of the helmet seen above, which you can see it can be removed from the little white tabs locked into the yellow locks. We were going to stick these 8 tabs onto the helmet, but realised it would be nightmare to test, measure and line up properly. So instead we removed the entire top half of the hard hat to make a sort of 'crown' seen below. Then we cut out a section at the back so it could bend and mold a bit more to the shape of the overall helmet. It fits really well into the helmet and sits perfectly, but we are going to wait until our visors arrive so we can fit those in first! @Shinyarmour1 Thank you for your detailed write up, it really helped! we were going to go with the foam/strap option, but from my years of cosplaying as daft punk, which gave me less breathing room it gave me PTSD, I had a heap of padding in it. @CableGuy Hello sir! Neat idea with the adhesive EVA foam, we will look into that as an option, looks very proffesional!

Is it a good idea to paint the inside of the helmet black?

Hello all. What are some good options for strapping in the helmet? I know I've seen people use hard hat mounts or just a strap under the chin. Also, how do I attach the elastic to the shoulder bells?

We are now just waiting for our belts to be finished and the stuff from trooperbay, which is our mic tips, visor, S-Trim and stencils for the paint. Thanks for all you help so far! Dad's armour is on it's way, should be getting here in around a weeks time. Still fels sort of surreal since I always though I was too skinny to be a stormtrooper but it's coming along nicely and I don't look half bad!

Is it okay for the thigh to underlap the but piece show here?:

Thanks! I'll have to look into them. Hopefully my current boots can get me past approval, getting closer to finishing, right now just waiting around, since our belts are being stiched as I type. Then once the helmet bits arrive we will have a painting day when we go in and paint all that needs to be. Very exciting! Also love your profile picture, looking badass