Tilheyra

Troop #15 May 4th was Star Wars Night at the Indianapolis Indians baseball game! The Indy Indians are a minor league baseball team, and are an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates major league baseball team. The Indy Indians played the Buffalo Bisons of Buffalo, New York. The final score was 9 to 3, with the Bisons winning. Despite the result of the game, it was an eventful night, with many more photographs than I can remember taken with Star Wars and baseball fans! My friend Mellissa (standing next to me) was also able to come and be my handler! She has decided to make a Jawa costume and join both the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion! Until her costume is made and approved, I'll be inviting her to some troops as a handler to experience trooping and meet members of Star Wars Indiana! This will also be a memorable troop for me, as this was the first time both shock troopers of the Bloodfin Garrison were able to troop together! As many here are aware, with only 50 active shock troopers in the Legion (as of this writing), it is a relatively rare occurrence for any two to be trooping together, so we (the other shock trooper is TK-5305) took advantage of the opportunity by taking lots of photos and wandering around the stadium together! An absolutely amazing May 4th! I took part in 3 awesome troops and got to be with my family of choice on a special day!

The awesome things I get to do as a member of the Legion are truly amazing! I am having so much fun! I wish I joined sooner!

Troop #14 The Whiteland, Indiana library put on a Star Wars event for kids to celebrate May 4th! Kids were able to talk and take photos with those of us from Star Wars Indiana, make space-themed crafts, and check out the different science and Star Wars books at the library! One kid brought in a radio controlled droid he was working on and demonstrated it for us! During a quiet period, I took the opportunity to absorb some knowledge. We certainly took advantage of the plethora of books to take funny photos! Like the troop earlier in the day, this troop also flew by, so in what seemed like no time we were packing up and heading to the major troop of the day, which was...

Troop #13 May 4th was a 3-troop day for me, and the first troop was at the Toy Buzz & Fizz action figure/comic/soda shop in Plainfield, Indiana! The store had relocated, so this was the grand opening of the store's new location, and the owner was giving away free comics, had some food vendors on site, and invited Star Wars Indiana to provide the right atmosphere for May 4th! Given some of the narrow aisles between shelves, I didn't want to bump into anything and knock merchandise all over the place, so I found some key locations in the store to stand guard. As happens when I don't move much, new folks walked in and figured I was statue, but then would jump when my head would move to visually follow them as they passed by. We were in costume in the store for about 90 minutes, and happened to be there during one of the busiest times that day! Most of us were signed up for another troop that was scheduled for shortly after this troop, so we all got out of costume and headed to the next troop of the day, which was...

Looks like a rematch is due!

Welcome! What stormtrooper are you thinking of building? Here's a list of the different stormtroopers: https://databank.501st.com/databank/Costuming:FISD_CRL

Troop #12 Indy PopCon is a major pop culture convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is the con where Star Wars Indiana goes all out with our different set pieces and recruitment efforts! We were fortunate to have another convention last month (Indiana Comic Convention), but we had much more space for all our sets and tables, so we could engage fans and prospective members in a much more inviting space. Our sets included the trash compactor, Emperor's throne, our Cantina with the bar and two standee tables, and a jail cell. Bounties were collected at the Cantina bar and those who were found and had a bounty were escorted back to the jail cell set for photos. All donations collected from bounties were for a local children's hospital, and we raised $1,760 in cash donations from the weekend! I had previously decided that Indy PopCon was going to be the big con for me to use as a weekend away from home, so I booked a hotel room to be on site most of the weekend. I was able to get away from work sooner than I had expected on Friday to be able to be in costume and on the con floor for a few hours in the late-afternoon and evening! As expected, Friday was the lighter day of the weekend, and most of my time was spent hanging around the booth. A member got a great candid photo of me with the 501st banner in the background! Saturday was a big day for me as I debuted my partially complete Legacy Fem TK armor in the morning! My fellow Star Wars Indiana members loved it! I got so many compliments and that was really touching! Here's a selfie that I took in my hotel room prior to walking to the convention floor: I write a little more about this armor test in my Legacy Fem build thread: After about 3.5 hours in my Legacy, I decided to switch to my shock trooper armor for the rest of the day. Once in my shock trooper armor, I took part in many bounty hunts. Many of us are probably familiar, but for those who do not know, folks who make a donation to charity (a local children's hospital) can put a "bounty" on themselves or a person they know (the person having the bounty placed on them has to be informed of the fact). The person with the bounty then wears a yellow card on a lanyard and is free to roam the vendor hall. If we see them, we then tell them they are caught and they accompany us back to our jail cell set for photos. We added a new element this time and had hand bells made to ring while we shout "SHAME" on the way back to the jail cell vis a vis Game of Thrones! I also enjoyed a little down time catching up with fellow members...and apparently staring off into space... Later on Saturday I discovered the craft soda stand, so I made many trips the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday to refill my mug. Good thing I didn't miss pouring the root beer in my mug, otherwise I think I would have made the owner mad. Fortunately, he is a member of the Great Lakes Garrison, so he probably expected a stormtrooper to miss when pouring (I need to see if I can find him on their garrison roster). Sunday was more relaxed, but consisted of the same activities. More bounty hunts, more hanging out with fellow members, and personalizing the protective nature that is the Empire! Overall, a great weekend away from home, a great opportunity to show the member groups of Star Wars Indiana to the public, and a great showing of charity for children in need!

Work and life have been much busier than I anticipated, so I haven't been able to make much progress on my Legacy, despite my goal of having most of the armor complete by a major convention the last weekend of April. I made the best of the situation and made the little progress I could and accepted that I would use the con to test out as much of the armor as I could. As this armor requires many alterations for me, I do not want to rush anything and make mistakes! I was able to wear most of the armor to Indy PopCon on Saturday (April 27th), and even though I had an incomplete set of armor, I amazed and impressed my fellow members of Star Wars Indiana! I was pleasantly surprised myself as I pulled it off better than I had anticipated! Here are a few photos! As my helmet is not complete, I went with a wig and some makeup to complete the look! And we were able to get a photo with Xavier Jimenez (Tusken Chieftain from The Mandalorian)! As can be seen in the photos, major things to complete are the lower leg armor, the helmet, and the belt boxes. I also wore different boots than what would be approvable (I didn't want to worry about such a tall heel during this con). Many, many more details need to be completed as well. I need to add shims and apply ABS paste to the sides of the thighs, the forearms, and parts of the top strap of the chest armor. My biceps and shoulder bells need to overlap a bit more, so adjusting those straps will be necessary. There is a tiny bit of a visible gap between the top of the abdominal plate and the bottom of the chest plate, so more strapping needs to be secured (I had previously put 3 straps on the interior of this area, but only secured 2 of the straps as I wondered if that would be enough. Well...looks like all 3 need to be secured when I wear this). Also, as there is a visible gap between the abdominal and kidney plate I will want to extend those edges to close that gap. Fortunately, I knew most of these issues before doing the test at the con, so few of these corrections to make were unanticipated. Work continues!

I wish I was able to hear more of it! We didn't hear much as we did not go into the ticketed areas, but it was great to hear the opening theme through the open doors to the auditorium! Thank you! The first 10 (and 11th) have been amazing and have been quite the range of events as well!

I didn't even make that connection! I'll have to put in a suggestion for their name change to get with the times.

I ended up singing Barbie Girl in my head for the rest of the event.

Troop #11 April 20th was a two-troop day for me! The second troop was at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Concert! We provided the proper atmosphere for the performance by trooping the lobby of the theater before the show and during intermission. Following Legion guidelines, we remained outside the ticketed areas. Many photos were taken, and I should receive those soon, but here's the one photo I have in the mean time: We took part in the Star Wars Indiana tradition of getting photos near the Soldiers & Sailors monument (the theater is right next to it) that Indianapolis is known for. I'll also post that photo when I get it!

TK-47933 requesting the 10 badge!

Troop #10 A favorite troop among many members in Star Wars Indiana is the Republic Airways Plane Pull. This is a charity event put on by Republic Airways to raise money for children's hospitals, and teams that sign up for the event (and raise money) are given their turn to, literally, pull a plane a short distance. The Republic maintenance hangar at the Indianapolis airport was set up for the plane pull itself, as well as included different food vendors, booths and activities with the local professional sports teams, and different aircraft on display. The event started with the mascots of the local sports teams pulling a small, single engine airplane. This was followed up with children directly benefiting from the charity event pulling the small plane! Star Wars Indiana was then given our turn, but we were given the rope to the plane all the other teams would be pulling, which was an Embraer 175 regional commercial airliner. Wikipedia notes the empty weight of an Embraer 175 as 21,890 kg (just above 24 tons). I was surprised that we were able to get the plane moving so quickly and covered the pull distance (15 feet) in such a short time, but we also had 18 of us pulling the plane, and aircraft are supposed to roll pretty easily. Someone was in the cockpit of the plane to apply the brake as soon as we reached the max pull distance, and they certainly weren't playing around with getting the plane stopped! Here's a photo of us pulling the plane! After we had our turn with the plane, we were let loose to roam around the open areas of the hangar and tarmac. I headed with some of our TIE pilots to go in the other commercial aircraft on display. We made sure to verify the credentials of the captain before the TIE pilots examined the controls of the plane. Not being able to negotiate the small space of the cockpit, I decided to make sure the coffee maker was in working order in the event our pilots needed coffee. Our pilots may have had the more exciting job: Plenty of photos were also taken with the smaller aircraft on display on the open areas of the tarmac! TIE pilots and rebel pilots alike had fun taking various cockpit photos, and like usual, the public absolutely loved us!