Morgi

Just because it's the truth, doesn't mean you have to say it

Happy New Year, everyone

Well, in the end, that's up to Bart, but it's definitely best for you to start your own thread. You can start your own build thread over here, share some pictures of your armor and current fitting and get some personal feedback. That would make it easier to keep track of both Bart's and your progress and give both of you individual feedback. That being said, welcome to the FISD -- if you want, you can introduce yourself in the New Member Introductions. Additionally, I can only recommend this thread by MaskedVengeance: There you can find an overview of everything relevant to your TK build/adjustments. Keep asking questions and you'll have a nice set of approved white armor in no time at all, Gregory!

If we're sharing outdated pictures of our helmet interiors, I can join in: Taken a long time ago, but aside from removing my chin straps nothing changed. The front padding is at around 3.5cm and at the back I got two 5mm strips, fit around the curve of my head. That's good to hear. I can't stress enough how important a comfortable helmet is, when you're running around in it for up to 10 hours... @Nairy is magic, you can take his helmet comfort and compare it to my mobility. Possible, sure, but not at all the norm EDIT: Comfort doesn't just mean headaches. I found it incredibly difficult to put on and remove my helmet if I always have to open/close the chinstraps. Just pulling it on and off is way easier if you don't have to deal with the chinstrap. Especially, in cases of medical emergencies. If you tend to get dizzy spells or something like that, your chin straps might mean the difference between getting an emergency glucose and crashing to the ground in full armor. I oftentimes get trouble with my blood sugar and for me it's essential that I can pull of my helmet in seconds at times.

Regarding glasses: I too wear glasses. Thick padding in the front of the helmet (similar to what @Nairy said) works wonders. I got absolutely no problems wearing them inside the helmet due to the padding. Just gotta get enough distance in the front of the helmet. You can try out chinstraps, but I found that they left me with headaches and troubles moving my jaw. If you add enough padding on the sides of the helmet, there shouldn't be too many bubblehead feelings. A lot of that is personal preference (comfort vs appereance).

It's an addiction

Welcome to the FISD! Centurion is an awesome goal and you can find all the help you could possibly need on here. From my latest knowledge, AP should still be operating, you might want to try contact them per e-mail, if you need anything. Not many armor vendors have a website, instead you can find an up-to-date list over here. Imperial Boots open once a month for about a week during which you can order, then close for the rest of the month to process the orders. Just keep an eye open, they should have another run soon. In the Attaché List you can find some troopers in your area who have committed themselves to the task of helping TK recruits, so do not hesitate to reach out to them, should none reply to you first. Again, welcome, and enjoy your white armor journey

That's some nice work on your arms, good to see how much the over-all look has improved! I, personally, would recommend getting the helmet as low as possible, so you can view through the inner upper corners of your lenses. This gives you the best field of view to the sides and downwards, so you don't end up tackling too many small kids Maybe try what it feels like without the padding at the top and if that works for you? OT Troopers did have their helmets extremely low, here shown with the reference pics from Joseph's CRL Reference Guide: Although there's really no need to go quite this low with the helmet, I think it helps with the overall appereance.

I wear glasses underneath my helmet with no problems at all. The solution was to have a thick padding in the front of the helmet and (almost) none in the back, allowing for space for my glasses: Works super well, I've never had any issues and it's pretty comfy as well, since that foam padding is fairly soft. I've trooped 10 hours at a time with this and there were zero problems. Hope this helps!

Signing up on here is truly one of the best choices I've ever made -- thank you to everyone who keeps this forum the place we all know and love! Whether that's the staff in their endless pursuit of keeping everything going on or the troopers/recruits contributing posts to this forum. So with that in mind, I too wish all of you very happy holidays and can't wait to start into another year on this forum!

Adjust Ear Position Here's a little treat for all the perfectionists and improvement-seekers out there. How To fix my ears. I'll reference methods that I already used to change my knee rivet placement and adjust my ab-kidney rivets but will go a bit more in-depth for those curious. As Glen rightfully pointed out back in May, the angle of my ear and the ear screws wasn't as good as it could have been. With my ANH Stunt Centurion now achieved () it was a good opportunity to work on this problem. Firstly I removed the left ear, positioning it on the rest of the helmet to find a good angle, marking down the correct screw placements and other changes I needed to make, in order to fit the ear into the new position. Part of that was moving the top of the ear further back and the bottom of the ear towards the front. Since I needed to change the screw positions I filled the holes in the ear with ABS paste. Here's a tutorial I made a while ago. However, contrary to my advice back then (and now. Don't do this.) I went over it with barely ABS-soaked Acetone towards the end to give it that smooth finish. Don't do that, just sand and polish it. If I didn't have three pairs of replacement left ears I wouldn't have done it either. Luckily it turned out well for me. Once the ABS paste had dried I drilled a new hole into the ear, the time double checking the angle and screw placement. Everything fit well, so I counter-sank the screws for that Centurion Appereance. I apologize for the bad lighting, but this is what the helmet looks like now. I'll probably tighten the screws a bit further for a closer ear fit. Although the angle and placements aren't perfect now either, they're a lot closer to the desired outcome. All in all, this took me about 45 minutes spread over two evenings, so it was a pretty quick fix. Next up? I've talked with @MaskedVengeanceabout replacement canvas belts and how to properly fasten the ABS belt to the replaceable canvas belt, so I think that might be a good project to start into the new year with. Additionally I still have two proposed changes to my current armor that I'd like to implement in the future, based on information by Alan Flying, who had played one of the ESB TKs during the Bespin scenes. Happy holidays everyone and have a good start into the new year!

Once more, welcome to the FISD, Marc! Glad to have helped you get started and I'm looking forward to your journey

Thank you! It was long overdue. Thank you! And thanks for all the support Adam, these are genius! Thank you so much! And, yeah: Next up, a Clone! Phase 2 Animated Comet Don't worry, I'll return to my beloved TKs. There's still the HWT and the Hero to complete the set -- oh, and getting my ESB at least to EIB, if not Centurion Thanks! I, too, am very glad. Thanks! So glad I manage to keep all of you laughing. We all need a bit of joy, laughter and happiness in our lives

Thank you so much! Glad to finally have that badge Oh, and no worries, all of my cracks get the proper treatment-- including my shoulders. If you look closely at my strapping picture, you can spot the reinforcements for both shoulders: Going for a winter-break and light clean-up right now, so I'll add my handguards to the list, thanks for pointing them out! Otherwise I'll remove all color stains and a bit of the weathering that doesn't look good to me, fill in some cracks and reinforce most of the problem areas once more. Gotta keep myself busy

Sure you're not Force sensitive, Caleb? Love how this has escalated into memes!

Don't worry, it's a common reaction when people find out I was born in 2003

Yeah, the space inside the armor is a huge help at times. Without it, I would have had to make mobility cuts by now, as there's definitely a lack of space between my armor plates As long as you manage 80° angles in your legs and got a flexible chest-strapping, most of these things are possible, no matter if you get that angle because of mobility cuts or the space inside your armor. Here's a (not really) helpful tutorial on sitting down in armor by myself. And maybe the fact that I'm 19 is also a help, I'll get back to this in 30 years to compare to my mobility at age 49 Thanks for the compliment! As before, I'm awaiting your feedback (anxiously)

Disregard? I think we both know that won't happen, now that it's been pointed out With 10cm I face the additional challenge of storing everything, I'm not sure if I could fit that much into my current storage (113L), even if I made it removable. As I'm currently on my way to work I can't watch the video, but I suspect it's gonna look a lot similar to what I already have in my armor. Theoretically the next step would indeed be removing the return edge, but I am reluctant to do that, as to me the return edge in your picture above simply seems to be in a tighter bend, not gone. I'll figure something out, thanks for all your input and ideas. But let's hope I'll be able to do that once I got my Centurion badge, so that I can properly focus on such improvements, as well as my ESB TK details

This is nothing about the belt and it can't really be fixed with foam-- Unless we're going for 10+cm. To put this into perspective: I'm 5'10 (177cm) and weigh 117 lbs (53kg) on good days. Thus I am severely underweight. For most armor parts, foam does work, but I've tried such with the abplate and if it doesn't even begin to help when I got 7cm, I look for a new solution. This one is my strapping, which let's me slide my armor into the correct position, not only for approval pictures. Maybe I should have adjusted my sliders incrementally, if so, that's on me for prioritizing trooping over Centurion, but I'll wait for the DOs to give me feedback on that. All I can say is, if I loosen the sliders even further, chances are it won't look any better, as the edges already align in the picture above -- I just don't have enough mass to fill the armor so well that there won't be any shadows from unfortunate lighting. A close-up, showing the alignment. As you can see, the shadow comes from a sidelight due to the shape of the abplate, not from any overlap. By not having any lights on my front, I could have avoided the shadow, but I don't think it's gotta do with my strapping/padding (unless we artificially push out the kidney, which would look pretty bad on the inside as well as from the outside -- should there be any different lighting, perspective or camera angle), nor do I think a change there will help with wearing or trooping the armor. Thanks for your feedback, Glen, hope I could explain my choices and armor a bit better EDIT: thanks again, I've had a few minutes to think a bit about it and already found a few possibilities to fix this: adjustment to my strapping, magnets... However, I want to take this opportunity to implore the DOs to not make me retake the pictures, as the last time taking pictures for Centurion took me a few months. Also, the fact that the following were recently approved (congrats guys, and please don't take this as criticism regarding your Ab-Kidney connection... just as a desperate argument for the DOs by myself, lol), so there should be no immediate need for more pictures:

Haha, it was about time The Meme is strong in this one Thanks guys! Thank you! It's got its fair share of weathering and a few cracks, but I love it Well, 38 official troops plus half that unofficially have left their marks, so it's not as shiny as it used to be, but I love the weathering There shouldn't be much, if any overlap in the pictures as I've got a fairly rigid strapping and Biggi double checked, but thanks for the mention. Let's see if the DOs think this needs to be corrected, I hope not, as I'd probably end up with a gap between the two plates... Thanks, Sir Awaiting your feedback! Of course! Here's a clearer picture, hope this helps: Don't mind the angled shot, but this perspective really highlights the ABS paste, so it's easier to spot what I did: the curve correction at the top of the abplate, as well as the former rivet positions Thanks for the overwhelming amount of feedback so far, I'm really happy how excited everyone is

2022 Reflection My first full year of trooping ended, counting 34 Troops this year. I had so much fun, got my EIB and ended up forming the Chaos Division Fireteam with my Trooper buddies. Thank you to all, who made this year so special! And as long as we still have a few days left in this year, it was finally time to tackle the last big challenge for my ANH Stunt TK. I can sit, kneel, lie down. I got my EIB. What's left? Obviously the one thing still on my to-do list since September last year. Let's see if we can get this done in 2022 as well Centurion Application Well, finally the time has come, and I've submitted my Centurion Application . I'm very happy that I finally had an opportunity to take these pictures and tackle the last modifications with the help of my TK-sister @Swoby. Thank you, sister! Last Modifications One of the modifications I've struggled with the most was my thighs not being a similar shape. The difficulty was, that I had no way of controlling how the back shape of my thigh looked without someone to help me out. Now, with someone to look everything over, I managed to find a good mix between cutting the armor to size and adding padding. Aside from the regular paint and repair work, I had one more challenge: getting the ab and kidney gap to line up. I'd accidentally managed to have an angled cut at the top, so I had to put a filler ABS piece there and fill the curve up with ABS paste. I'm very happy with this one, as you can't even notice it anymore Now, I've still got a few things on my to-do list, but I'll keep those secret as long as my Centurion Application is ongoing. Don't wanna give anyone ideas Enjoy the holidays

It's a Christmas Miracle, but here's my Centurion Application. Thanks for your consideration! Mandatory Information Armor = RS Propmasters, assembled myself Helmet= RS Propmasters, assembled myself Blaster= Troopacoola, assembled by @T-Jay Optional Height = 177cm Weight = 53kg Boots = Imperial Boots Canvas belt = RS Propmasters Hand Plates = RS Propmasters Electronics = not applicable Neck Seal = RS Propmasters Holster = Darman's Pictures Full Body Action Shots Alternative ideas: Helmet Shoulder Detail Codsnap Interior Strapping Thermal Detonator Ab Detail Neckseal Gloves Boots Knee Ammo Belt Sniper Plate Belt Forearm Openings E-11 Additional Pictures angled Hengstler Counter Buttplate-thigh gap fixed as per EIB Feedback, other recommended fixes are documented in my build thread If there's any pictures missing or you need another close-up on anything, please let me know. I'm looking forward to your feedback!

... and here I thought RS Commissions were cheaper than 1K for the helmet alone