Scout_Troop3R

Well aside from a few costume fails in the shoulders and shins, comic con went very well. I'm glad to be on the final steps and tomorrow I'm back to work on it. Aside from repairs to the shoulder snaps and shortening the thigh straps the big thing is reshaping the shins to fit better, they're a bit flat at the front and rotate on my legs after walking, and putting some better velcro on at the back. While I didn't get too many pictures I did get a few, so here they are. (This last picture was just for a friend, I only noticed after that I'd left my shirt on! lol) Overall comic con was very awesome, being a TK was great and I really appreciated the capital city garrison giving my shoulders a bit of a patch-up to make it through the day. Can't wait to submit my approval pictures. (By the way, do you have to submit for Expert Infantry first before Centurion? I think it is that way but I'm just making sure)

Ah I see, I misread that and aligned it with the corner of the ending ammo pocket, at least it's an easy fix.

Alright I finished the belt, added the belt snaps to the abdomen, did a test fit of everything and made some mobility cuts in the legs. I switched the elastic leg straps for some nylon ones so that they sit at the right height and mostly everything fits right, the only things I have to adjust is a little bit of trimming the return edge in the left shin, and maybe switching the elastic shoulder bell straps for nylon ones. I'll put together an emergency kit and do another fit before I leave tomorrow just to make sure everything's right.

Yeah after the show I'm definitely going to fix the thighs, and I definitely will be posting some photos and finishing the touchups to bring it to Centurion. Thanks! (P.S. Thanks for the like Tony! Your build thread for your AM 1.0 and tips and tricks have been super helpful to me over the last two months, I probably wouldn't have been able to get it done so fast without it.)

Well I'm just about at the spot to be able to wear this thing properly, and just in time for comic con. Got the thighs glued earlier and the thigh garter belt system done today, and started gluing the front of the shins. I also hand sewed on the snaps connecting the shoulder bells to the shoulder straps, and put the biceps and the bells together by attaching it at the back and using a hook on the inside following ukswrath's build process, which was very cool! All I have left to do now to get it ready for comic con is finish the shins and do the belt which I can get done tomorrow, after the show I can finish painting the rest of the rivets white and do touchups on the buttons. (Oh, and do the gun.)

Yesterday I glued the strap connecting the right arm to the right bicep, I think it turned out very well today, it fits right and doesn't pinch. I also redid the paste on the left bicep, and it turned out better this time, with only some slight discolouration but I'm still going to paint it white. Today I put on another coat of paint for the buttons, I think one more should do it and then it'll be excellent. I'm also going to start cleaning up the bicep and putting on the straps and parts to connect them to the shoulder bells.

Thanks! Yeah I noticed that as well, I've spent the last day doing touchups to those areas and I'm just about to continue working on them.

I think it's just that I didn't apply enough directly in the crack and its affecting it somehow. I've fixed the gloss before just by sanding and polishing, just in that picture I put a little more on after because I wasn't happy with it, I'm probably just going to paint over it, sanding and polishing is exhausting.

I've done some more work over the past few days, put the trim back on the center plate and some panels back on the left bicep to make it the correct size. Something I've noticed though is there's always a visible line (with the center console being the exception), but the rest of where the paste ends up matches the colour. I was thinking there was something wrong with the paste but it seems like it's the application of it instead that results in it, regardless I'll have to redo the bicep panels probably but I did learn something from it. Also started on the paint, did the first layer yesterday then cleaned it up to the correct shapes and I'm going to mask it around the circles and put on the second layer. I've got a little bit of cleanup work to do on the center plate's edges as well.

Yeah the 4 button piece was buried in packing peanuts, and I realized my mistake with the center panel but it should be a straightforward fix. The belt rivet covers are still untouched so I'll get to those when doing the belt. Today I'm getting started on fixing the center plate and left bicep, and painting if I have time. Thanks

Good news!! Despite triple checking previously I figured I'd give it one more go before messaging Dave, and low and behold I've found it. Somehow it was in the place I'd checked previously and found nothing, funny how those things work isn't it? That is such a relief, this is back on track to being done on time.

The rivet covers are different, I have them in a drawer. I guess I trimmed the center panel too much because I didn't want it to bonk into the chest plate if I had to bend over for whatever reason, I didn't know it had to stick out that far, big facepalm. (Future me speaking: Wow I was totally thinking in the wrong dimension, thank you so much for the example below!) I can put a trim back on it easy enough. I just hope I'd be able to get the part from Dave in under two weeks, I really want to have this ready before a show if possible. I don't know if it's just the gloomy weather today or what, but a growing handful of times on this project it feels it's been one step forward two steps back.

So today I've started getting the torso bits ready for painting, and I've run into a bit of a problem. The middle torso piece is all good, I have that nice and trimmed, just needs painting then gluing, the four buttons on the side is a different story. I'm not actually sure of what to do about the side ab buttons, on the AM v5 torso it's just flat there, and it either doesn't come with or AM forgot to send a 4 button plate for it (I have triple checked, but I'll keep looking to see if I have it), I did get 2 3 button plates but they're at least 15mm in diameter at the most as opposed to the 11m that's required, and then there's this. Abdomen Armor The abdomen armor has a button area that matches the color pattern shown (3 blue + 6 gray); buttons are approximately 7/16" (11mm) in diameter. Abdomen armor buttons are integrated and painted directly on the Ab plate. Ab button paint shall not extend beyond the bottom of the actual raised button. No separate buttons are allowed. So if I just paint the buttons right on the flat part of the armour, then that's fine for the first and third part, but there's no actual raised buttons there, but if I make a panel of raised buttons using what I have, then that violates the first and third but satisfies the second. ]https://i.imgur.com/Hmouhnm.jpeg I think the best thing is just to paint the buttons right on, but I'm going to wait for a bit of clarity first.

Reinforced the back straps today, I'll give them a test tomorrow. Also started working on getting the arms all ready, and that starts with fixing the left bicep which I'll start working on tomorrow.

If I make all the back straps out of a firm fabric instead of elastic I reckon that will improve things.

Well I've done a lot of strapping work over the past few days on the torso and did a test fit I'm mostly happy with it but I am a bit annoyed with the angled sides and the butt, I have to reinforce the straps on the butt plate or change it from elastic to fabric to stop it from sticking out I suppose. Not sure what I'm going to do about the sides yet though. In the photos I took the crotch strap isn't connected, I found that made the butt plate stick out even more.

Today I worked on more strapping for the torso, mainly installing the rivets and straps on the left side of the armour and also preparing the shoulder straps. The one on the bottom right is an extra millimeter or two out of alignment, but hey what's a stormtrooper without a bit of wonkiness? The other thing that happened today was I finally got my boots, and instead of paying $300 CAD for some leather ones to paint white or $100 USD for some keeptrooping boots, a very cool member of my local garrison sold me some TK Boots for just $100 CAD (They look like they're brand new too!), they're a bit of a squeeze, thankfully leather stretches, but holy cow that's the best $100 I've spent in a while.

Well it's been a busy week, had a camping trip, but thankfully I'm back to work on this. Drilled out the rivet holes on the left side of the abdomen and kidney, and then glued on some reinforcement to both areas, and the shoulder straps. Would have worked on more straps, but I've run out of time for the day. (and clamps lol)

Today I trimmed down the shoulder straps to be more accurate, much better looking in my opinion. This took an hour or two as I didn't want to un-glue it and had to cut (I didn't want to use a Dremel on that with it attached and potentially mess something up, also the mess) through 2 layers at once on the parts where it connects to the chest, and AM makes quite thick armour. The other thing I managed to do today was trim down the edges on the abdomen to 5mm of width, and I made sure to bevel the inner corners of the edge to reduce chances of armour bite. Tomorrow I'm going to work on the kidney and maybe the butt if I have time, trimming edges if needed, cutting out the notches, and making a bunch of snaps.

I definitely see what you mean about the trimming the sides compared to the originals. As for the number of bars attached to the plate I actually did do 1 large and 4 small glued to the chest plate, though either I need to move them forward down the chest plate a little more or I'm just bad at taking selfies lol I'll get rid of those large tabs in the back too.

Oh wow that's awesome, thank you so much!

Righto yesterday I wasted on the hand guards by mistake, AM sent these nice ABS plastic ones and only after gluing did I realize Centurion needs latex/latex-like hand guards so womp womp whatever, I'll pick up some of those off Trooperbay. Today I got started on the chestplate, trimming down the shoulder straps to 3mm horizontally past the ridges and 2cm vertically from the top of the bottom ridge, and the neck area of the chestplate to match, turned out well and left it to glue over night, tomorrow I'm going to have a go at marking out all the snap locations I can and making a few, not sure which style I'll do yet but I'll look into it. Progress is coming along well.

Right so the next thing I'm going to work on is the chestplate, work from the head down I suppose. The arms are the most complete thing south of the helmet so far so I figure I'll do the torso and connect all that up. Time to do some research.

Oh those are quite clever, and thanks so much for the suggestions since knowing my luck I'll need them lol.

It's been a little bit since I've posted but I've actually been working on my costume in the meantime through the recent heatwave and other things, and aside from a clearcoat and a minor paint touchup or two the helmet is done! thank goodness Even the ear piece fits now after I made a big hole by mistake! Right now I'm just getting home from a weeklong trip and consulting my garrison as to getting boots, I'd order from keeptrooping if I could but sadly they only go up to 13US, I'm a 15US. While looking for my imperial officer jackboots I found Crowprops and I actually really like the boots I've gotten, but other troopers in my garrison have apparently gotten poor TK boots so I'm hesitant to order there again just in case, my boots also took 8+ weeks to ship last time which just doesn't work for me as I need them before 7 weeks. I did find a nice pair of black chelsea boots online though, and they're cheaper than Crowprops so I figure I'm going to buy those and paint them white.