Morgi

In the original armors they had a return edge at the bottom of the chest plate because their strapping system required it, with screws in that return edge. However, there is one example of screen used armor not having that return edge: Luke, being too short for a Stormtrooper, has that return edge cut off to shorten the chest plate for a better fit. My personal opinion? It looks a bit flat without a return edge. You don't have to leave a large one (not even one large enough for screws if you're not using the original strapping), but I'd leave a few millimetres, so it doesn't look too flat. Maybe you should just leave it for now, try it with the ab plate and then see how it looks. You can always take more off, but I wouldn't want to have to re-make return edges

It's been a while since my last update... Yesterday I spend the day with Tino (T-Jay) and he helped me make some last adjustments, went over the different armor parts with me and took my basic approval pictures. A huge thank you, I had an amazing day and I absolutely love what we managed to do with the armor. Because I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the things that we did (I was probably too excited by all the cool Star Wars props that he's got around, haha), I've only got a picture of Tino helping with the adjustment of the metal clips of the TD, so that they can lay flush against the tube: Other things that got adjusted were (for example) the frown paint or the curvature of the butt plate. All in all, an amazing day with excellent photos that I already submitted to the GMO this morning. Now all that's left is to wait for their response and see where we go from there.

So glad to hear that! I'm looking forward to seeing your results!

Regarding the holes in the ABS paste: When I was filling up the thigh gaps it helped me to press down on the paste. You can find how I applied ABS paste on my build thread here: I hope this might be helpful!

Don't forget to paint the back of the helmet as well, those two trapeze looked like they were still missing some paint Crazy nice work on the ears! I must admit, I'm a bit jealous at how well they fit... Is it just me, or does your cover strip on the left thigh extend past the thigh...? If so, I'd shorten that a bit to align better with the top of the thigh.

As someone who had to take apart some of my already glued armour at later points during my build, I can only suggest using E6000 glue (if you aren't using that already). When it came to taking them apart it was fairly easy to do so and to clean everything up. Personally, using that glue saved me a lot of stress whilst glueing because it's very easy to fix mistakes. If you're nervous about glueing, that might be something to look into! Good luck on your build, this is looking amazing already!

Might just be me having learned English as a second language, but wouldn't it be more accurate/easier to comprehend to have something along the lines of: "and has upward facing edges"? Not that I know exactly what's talked about, but that sentence sounded a bit off to me. Since you said pointing out typos is welcome, I thought I should mention it. If this is just me, feel free to ignore it

Well, it's only for higher levels of approval. And even so, its fairly easy to correct in most cases by simply taking away a bit of the side: That's what I did with my belt after making a similar mistake EDIT: you should probably cut a better (straighter and parallel) line than the one that I added to the picture

Back to fixing all the issues brought up in my pre approval request. The Ab Plate As justjoseph63 noted, the ab plate wasn't sitting right. To fix this, I decided to alter the strapping by glueing one of the snaps a bit higher: I haven't tried it on yet, but I hope that it'll help straighten the armor. The butt and kidney plate This picture edit by justjoseph63 shows the issue(s) fairly well: I need to pull in the suit (especially the butt plate) without the return edges bunching up even more. Because I'm too skinny for the armor and I can't just make the sides smaller (at least not with my experience, materials and tools), I decided to fix the easier issue first. To pull in the butt plate even more, I opened the strapping and tightened it as much as possible: This makes it even more difficult to pull in the kidney plate, but it also lessens the possibility of the butt plate flaring out like that. In order to have not as much of a bunch up at the return edges, I cut the areas where it bunches up a bit down. Here's what it looks like now when I apply pressure from the sides: Not much of an improvement and because of the strapping between the butt and kidney plate I couldn't really cut down anything there, but it's all I could think of. If any of you have any idea on how to solve this issue, please let me know!

Thanks, I'll add it to the list! It might have to wait a bit though, because right now I'm working on the ab strapping to get that straight. Got it in one! Because I use the chin strap that RS supplied, I can shift it from side to side a bit. Too dumb that I shifted it, without noticing it until afterwards, when I really didn't have the motivation to do another suit up on my own in the hopes of it sitting better. Looking at my past pictures, the helmet being at the center has never been much of a problem so far, but I'd appreciate a look at it with Tino so this doesn't happen again. If nobody has any suggestions about the legs, I probably won't put them on the next time (at least the shins) because getting in and out of them is a pain (literally) when suiting up without help. If there is indeed anything I should be doing to improve the look of my legs, please tell me!

You can find some screen-references in the gallery section, so I'd check that out to make sure whatever you're cutting is actually accurate. Or you can use starwarsscreencaps.com to get some screencaptures of your own if those in the gallery aren't helpful enough.

A huge thank you to everybody that has already replied to my pre approval request with all the suggestions! This also means that I'm back on this thread with a few things to work on, the first of which was pointed out by Tino: It's awesome to see the armor coming together more and more, so I'm sure that with all the suggestions I'll be making a few more adjustments to various parts of the armor. Next up: making sure the ab plate sits straight. As always, any advice or suggestions are welcome!

Thank you, that is wonderful to hear! What it looks like right now. My idea was to remove the left piece and glue it into the position marked in red. That should lift the side by a centimetre or two and hopefully straighten the ab plate. What do you think?

Good point, thanks! I think I know what you mean, but I'll probably contact you anyways, just to get a clear line I know what you mean. Do you think it would help if I adjusted the strapping a bit to pull that one side up? What do you suggest I do here to solve that issue? Because this leaves me with the problem of looser (and therefore less fitting) or tighter (with a better fit, but no good alignment of the back plates) and I'm not actually sure what would help here. For the butt plate sticking out at the side, I should probably use those V tabs, right? Thanks for all the feedback so far!

Okay, so it did look chipped, but after looking at a few screen references, I decided that I didn't want that, so I scrapped off even more paint and then repainted the outside of the buttons: They might need a bit of clean up to make them have a rounder shape, but it's better than before with all the paint only on the buttons. I've also gone ahead and requested pre approval, so feel free to head over there as well:

Hello and thank you for looking at this post! If you're interested, my build thread is here: I would greatly appreciate any advice that you can give me regarding my basic approval. Once I get accepted, I will upload my approval pictures to get some advice for L2 and L3 as well, which will be better quality. Information: Future Garrison: German Garrison, White Shadow Squad Armor maker: RS Props kit, build myself Helmet maker: RS Props kit, build myself Cloth belt maker: RS Props Neck seal and holster maker: Darman Boot maker: Imperial Boots Height: about 177cm Weight: about 56kg TK type: ANH Stunt Name(s) of Trooper(s) who helped me: CallMeMrTibbles (thank you for the near constant feedback and advice!), gmrhodes13 (thank you for all the links and small details that you pointed out!) and justjoseph63 (thank you for helping with those last few steps that improve the armor immensely!). Special thanks go to Tino (T-Jay) who spend what has to be hours helping me. He not only answered my questions in a long phone call, but also was available and providing feedback all the time to the point where I feel the need to say thank you for looking at my near daily questions and answering them every single time. Also, he will be taking my approval pictures and helping me with those last few details that you just can't really see on screen. Thank you, Tino, for the help, the resources, the patience and the inspiration! Photos: Armor: Quick note: these pictures were not taken by another person, so I had to improvise a bit with my mobile phone camera. The result is that the boots are oftentimes cut off. If this is a problem, I can do a separate suit up and take close ups from the shins and boots. Personal notes and take-away from these pictures: it pays to have someone there who can make sure your helmet is on straight, so you don't only notice that it's wonky after taking the pictures and putting everything away again. Also, I think I need to pull my butt plate in at the sides. My right thigh looks like there's still too much space in there, but from wearing it I'm a bit unsure how much I can still cut away whilst it remains comfortable to wear. Ab plate close-up: Helmet close-ups: Interior strapping: I hope I didn't forget anything. If I did, please tell me, so that I can add it. I'm looking forward to your feedback!

So true! Sadly I have neither the money, nor the space and soon probably no time to actually start another build -- and I would need to decide on a costume as well, which would be difficult because there's so many good costumes out there...! Thanks! Maybe I'll take some pictures this weekend (won't be the quality that I want for approval pictures though) so I can get some last advice before getting the approval pictures taken on the 29th. I will have to see how my time management allows a suit up. Afterwards I can upload the approval pictures to get advice for L2 and L3. Quick question: because I'm not actually applying for L2 yet because of the blaster, I should stick to the pre approval threads for getting feedback regarding L2 and L3 issues, right? And because I'm the type of person that prefers to showcase an update when it's possible, here's the crotch snap elastic that I folded and glued with E6000 to pull the butt plate in a bit better. I've also been busy scraping paint off of my ab plate buttons, which has the nice side effect of making it look chipped. I'll probably be able to upload a picture later today or tomorrow once I spend another hour or so finishing up the last buttons. Now that I can (hopefully) (soon) cross off the ab plate paint clean up and the crotch snap elastic on my to-do list, I've remembered that I can add adjusting the ABS ammo belt to touch the lower button onto it. I've still got some velcro lying around, so if anybody would like to share some pictures of how they did it, I would appreciate it!

Here's how I use Imgur on my phone: First you have to upload the picture. Once that's done you should have the option of clicking on "View" in the upper right corner. When you view the picture, you press down on the screen (a long hold, the way you do when usually selecting something for copying it, for example), so that the "share" menu pops up: Then you click on the link that I marked. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the suggestion, Rich, this was exactly what I did. Now that there's not much to do until I get the clearance pictures done (unless anybody had any suggestions? ), I decided to spare myself the horrors of trying to put the elastic on and getting it to stay where its supposed to stay by gluing it into the armor. I do have to admit that I'm missing the daily armor build routine. What I might still work on: If I'm not missing anything, there are still a few things that I can do that aren't necessary for basic approval but would improve the overall appearance and set me on Centurion course, such as making sure that the ab plate button paint actually meets Centurion requirements (because that paint was my very first attempt at painting and therefore got way beyond where it should've stayed), finally deciding on a solution regarding my crotch snap/elastic (which I might want to glue so the elastic part is shorter, which would mean that I probably need to lift the back) and sanding down the ABS paste (for which I would need to find a way to set up a good work station for the sanding). Otherwise there are probably some tiny things that I can change to improve the overall look, such as making sure that the S-trim neatly covers the ear and perhaps a few things that I missed but that Tino (T-Jay) might be able to point out when we take the pictures. Oh, and I'll need a blaster if I want to achieve the higher levels. But blaster or no blaster, higher levels or not, there's nothing that should stop me from trying to achieve the best look for my armor, even if it might not be possible to officially get it to Centurion until I get that blaster.

Hello and welcome! As I'm still a new forum member without basic approval, I just wanted to tell you that these guys are amazing and everybody here will help you to the best of their ability. They take "troopers helping troopers" and then take it above and beyond, so someone will always be able to help you. Before starting my armor build I personally had a total of zero experience regarding plastics or power tools and now I've not only got a wonderful set of armor, but also a ton of new skills. Once you get started it's fairly easy to get the hang out of things and I'm sure you'll do fine, especially if you ask around on the forum for tips and tricks! Hope you have a wonderful time on here!

Whoa, thanks for all the amazing feedback, guys! The move went well and in-between putting everything into its proper place, I managed to get another small detail done: the fabric behind the frown. Whilst I was still at home, I took an old black elastic fabric,cut it down to size and sewed it together, making for an easily-breathable black cover: At my new place I glued it in (making sure to keep the glue in the wide-open window, cause this is a one-room apartment and I do not want that stuff anywhere near my bed): Because in RS Prop master's reference pictures video they showed a picture that made clear that the original helmets didn't have a mesh behind the teeth, I wanted to try and hide the fact that I have one. Therefore I only glued the sides and left it without glue in the middle, so that it wouldn't touch the helmet there. As a result, when you look at the helmet from the side, you can still spot that there's a gap between the teeth. This also helps to conceil the fact that there's fabric behind it, because the weave isn't as obvious as it would be pressed right against the frown: Once I get around to it I'll continue working on the thigh gaps, but I'll have to figure out how exactly I'm gonna do this in my new apartment first. I'll keep that in mind once I get to it, thanks!

I've taken several pictures of my progress, I hope this might be helpful! First I gathered my materials - several sizes of wooden sticks, the ABS paste and (of course) the thighs, where I had a piece of ABS with some tape to hold it in place: I actually needed two pieces of ABS due to the shape of the ridge -- one inside the ridge and one on top of that to cover the gap between the ridge and the cover strip. Because I was reminded of this several times, I only put on small layers one at a time. I've found that if the ABS just covers the tip of a toothpick, it was easy to get in the gap without smearing it all over or getting too much on there. After ~2-3 layers After a layer I would press down with a clean toothpick to make sure it lays flat and that there would be no bubbles or gaps. I also used this time to push in any of the paste outside of the gap. Because of the fast drying consistency of the paste, it felt like moving around chewing gum that has been chewed on for a few hours already. I repeated this process several times until the paste matched up with the armor. The closer I got to the edge of the armor, the smaller the drop of paste got. I had to clean my toothpick every now and then to make sure that I could still work cleanly. I also had to add a drop or two of acetone every now and then to my paste in the jar and stir it in with a toothpick, to make sure the consistency stayed roughly the same and that it didn't harden in a layer at the top. Once I got to a point where I was happy with this gap, I closed the other gaps as well in the same way. Afterwards I went back to this one and closed up a few spots that weren't as clean as they could be and still had some gaps. Once it dried, I took some scissors and cut away the visible part of the tape that wasn't covered with the paste. Next I'll have to wait until its dry and then sand the paste smooth and maybe cut the return edge so it looks smoother. Once I've got it sanded down, I'll see if there are any gaps that I've missed that need another bit of ABS paste, fill them up, sand it down and so on until I'm happy. Because I won't manage that until Friday, I will leave that to future me and leave those gaps as they are for now. Justjoseph63 (and anybody else who might be reading this), I hope this was at least a bit useful in showing my progress and how I applied the ABS paste.

Took me a while to update, I'm getting really busy packing everything up -- my workplace is gone as well now, so there's only very few things that I can do now until I get everything sorted out at the new place. One thing that I did was making some ABS paste, but the first try contained to much dust and other things that somehow (probably because my work station where I kept my scrap ABS was my bedroom floor) got into there: So, I scrapped that one and started a new paste today, where I washed every piece of ABS scrap before I cut it and put it in the jar. I'll keep this one outside for this night and see what it looks like tomorrow: It's looking much better than the other one, if you ask me. I've also prepared the thighs by putting some scrap ABS behind the gaps and making sure it stays there with some tape. I hope to get the ABS paste on there tomorrow or the day after, so that I can get that done at least before the move. I'll have to see whether I have the time for that.

Thighs after doing the corrections: Thanks, justjoseph63 for pointing them out, they're much better now! I'll probably mix myself some ABS paste now for those gaps. Would probably be good to get the acetone work done before moving into a small room where I can't work outside anymore

Well, this has to be the fastest update so far The thighs are glued and currently drying and I just finished painting. Doesn't seem like a huge difference, but there's definitely some more black paint on there: I also got rid of some of the grey in the frown: Thanks for all the feedback so far!