Peregrinus

I think you mistyped... I now have mental images of a Muslim being used to reinforce plastic. --Jonah

Electrician (residential, commercial, marine, low-voltave, etc.) and film student. I think that sums it up succinctly. --Jonah

I need to dig though the Making Of book, but you may be ascribing too much diligence to the production folks. *heh* Odds are they filmed the escape scenes after the garbage masher scenes and no one really noticed or cared that the once-white canvas was down dingy. I could be wrong, though. --Jonah

I'm right here. Been working, and my TR has been taking precedence. I've been a bad boy. I got to "passable" (for 501st entry standards), and instead of waiting to be able to take pictures in it once I'd been cleared by my surgeon... I impatiently moved right along to tweaking and upgrading. >_> So now I'm trying to finish my glove upgrade, my force pike tweak, and my robe retailoring in time to get pics in before the Emerald City Comic Con the weekend of May 10-11. *headdesk* My GML's gonna kill me... At least I'm waiting on the bodysuit, armour, boots, and DH-17 until after the con. Nice to know I have some self-control. --Jonah

To wander into Serioustown for a second... One the one hand it could be randomly generated, as parts of U.S. military serial numbers are. On the other the letters could actually have some sort of meaning. One theory I've hatched, based on EU materials, is that it's to indicate they're from the Legion/Battalion/whatever attached to TarKin's governorship. Various sources give the Stormtroopers who boarded the Tantive IV the "DV" prefix, which makes sense if they're the Stormtrooper Regiment attached to that Star Destroyer -- the DeVastator. But that's all in-universe. Out here in our little club, we glommed onto the TK-421 designation and applied it across the Legion. Then decided we needed something to indicate non-basic-Stormtrooper costumes, so came up with variants where the "T" stands for "Trooper", and the second letter stands for the variant in question: TB = Trooper, Biker (Scout) TR = Trooper, Royal (Guard) TS = Trooper, Snow TA = Trooper, AT-AT TD = Trooper, Desert TX = Trooper, "Special" ...And like that. --Jonah

Be warned, though, they're not anamorphic widescreen, and the colour transfer is crappy. If you can find one of the Criterion laster discs, you'd be much better off. --Jonah

Well, for me, "hand painting" means priming black, masking (as needed), and airbrushing grey. *chuckle* --Jonah

I think as long as the colour is right and it isn't sloppy, it shouldn't matter how the effect is achieved. --Jonah

Can find details for the costuming of such over at the SpecOps Detachment. --Jonah

"Semi-gloss" = "satin", which is what the black bits should be painted. It doesn't really matter which satin/semi-gloss black paint you use, so long as it works for you and you can get your desired results from it. This is a good thread for people to post the paints they've found that work for them. Testors makes semi-gloss blacks in both enamel and acrylic unde rthe ModelMaster label. Tamiya makes an acrylic, too. Humbrol has an enamel. Those will probably be the most easily found, but there are others. --Jonah

"There's one -- set for stun!" --Jonah

I was very lucky. My parents took me to see movies with them instead of leaving me with a babysitter. I saw Star Wars at Cinerama in Seattle when I was about 2½. I don't remember much beyond Luke and Leia swinging across the chasm, and being so stressed by that I buried my face in my dad's armpit. I have clearer memories of the first time I saw Empire. I remember when General Rieekan ordered the evacuation, I turned to my mom to say something like "that's not fair -- they just got there", when the scene changed to the Imperial fleet and the first strains of the Imperial March quite distracted me. In September of '82, for my 8th birthday, my mom got me (amongst other things), a membership in the Star Wars Fan Club, which I've held to this day. I still have those old issues of Bantha Tracks. By the time Jedi opened eight months later, I was utterly hooked on what has since become my primary costume for the 501st -- the few, the red. While Empire is my favourite of the movies, Jedi is the one I was the perfect age to appreciate. Funnily enough, I wasn't much impressed by Jabba's palace or the Ewoks. For me, it was all about the fight at the sarlacc, the actual infiltration of Endor and the destruction of the shield generator, the fleet scenes and space battle, and the duel in the Emperor's throne room. Vader's laboured breathing after he got blasted by the Emperor's lightning still makes me tear up, and his final words to Luke -- with the help of John Williams' music... Well, by the time Luke torches the pyre, I'm a wreck. --Jonah

Growing up, the version I "always thought of" had flat green lenses, probably thanks to the Sandtrooper scenes. I'm probably going to do bubble lenses on a stunt build for my secondary set of armour because I'm going to do it in red, and I don't think flat or green lenses look that good with red. *heh* --Jonah

Is the 'B' the colour, Paul? I find lots of things for '290', but very little for '290-B'... --Jonah

Maybe print this in Aurebesh, with diagrams and illustrations? --Jonah

I wouldn't mind something like what Boba and Jango wore in the costume test photos... The Hawkbat Battalion Clonetroopers had ponchos, too... How 'bout it, Paul? Do you still have any Phase I Clone bits around? Or did you lose all that when you sold your Fordo? --Jonah

Fnord.

Hm... How far back do Homlin's experiments go? Maybe George got the THX for his film from this, and it's all one big, mutually-reinforcing circle...? --Jonah

I don't find it that odd, personally. *heh* The "11-series" are Testors' ¼-ounce bottles of hobby enamels for model-building. Testors has been around since 1929, and I don't know if George ever built models, but it's entirely possible he subconsciously imprinted on the flow of that particular number. Here's the whole list, because I'm pedantic: 1103 -- Gloss Red 1104 -- Gloss Dark Red 1108 -- Gloss Light Blue 1110 -- Gloss Bright Blue 1111 -- Gloss Dark Blue 1112 -- Gloss Light Yellow 1114 -- Gloss Yellow 1116 -- Gloss Cream 1124 -- Gloss Green 1127 -- Gloss Orange 1133 -- Gloss Light Brown 1134 -- Gloss Purple 1138 -- Gloss Gray 1140 -- Gloss Brown 1141 -- Gloss Wood 1144 -- Gloss Gold 1145 -- Gloss White 1146 -- Gloss Silver 1147 -- Gloss Black 1148 -- Enamel Thinner & Brush Cleaner 1149 -- Flat Black 1150 -- Flat Red 1151 -- Gloss Copper 1152 -- Gloss Metallic Red 1162 -- Flat Sky Blue 1163 -- Flat Battle Gray 1164 -- Flat OD Green 1165 -- Flat Olive Drab 1166 -- Flat Military Brown 1167 -- Flat Tan 1168 -- Flat White 1169 -- Flat Yellow 1170 -- Flat Light Tan 1171 -- Flat Beret Green 1172 -- Flat Sea Blue 1180 -- Flat Steel 1181 -- Flat Aluminum 1182 -- Flat Brass 1183 -- Flat Rubber 1184 -- Flat Zinc Chromate 1185 -- Flat Rust The missing numbers are from colours that have been discontinued or only exist in other forms. "XX01" for example is "Champagne Gold", which now only exists in the 12-series of 3-ounce spray cans. Add to that, I agree that the original paint for the Stormtrooper helmets was more likely the darker Humbrol No. 2 "Gloss Ad Grey". Testors No. 1138 looks too light. Now that I've told everyone more about Testors than they probably ever wanted to know, I'm off to go be a wet blanket somewhere else. --Jonah

Hm... I may have to pack everything carefully and check it through special-handling luggage. I know how to transport firarms -- real or replica -- but all the power cells and wiring in my bucket are going to be built in and not easily removable. *sigh* --Jonah

Not just frayed -- note the tape on it. *lol* --Jonah

Nope. *lol* I've got other, directly-costume-related things a spare hundred or two would be better spent on. I am taking WIP photos on film, though. I'm so old-fashioned. -__- --Jonah

The Sandtroopers, some of the Death Star Stormtroopers, and most especially Han and Luke after they got out of the garbage masher have stained/dirty/off-white canvas belts that contrast noticably with the white hard armour pieces. Other Death Star Stormtroopers, and Han and Luke before diving into the garbage chute, have white-white canvas underbelts that only barely differ (if that) from the white of the hard armour pieces. The current Elite standards don't say anything about what colour the canvas belt should be. I notice the peopel currently offering ready-made canvas belts use natrual off-white canvas for their wares, and I was wondering if pure-white underbelts would do just as well. --Jonah

I'm still in assembly phase on these helmets, but I have some small (40x40x10mm) quiet computer fans, and am accumulating shielded wiring, omnidirectional microphone elements, headphones, voice amps, speakers, and radios to go in them. As I go, the better it all falls into place. I love these buckets -- if you know what you're doing around electronics, there's a lot of workroom in there. My end aim is to have fans to keep air moving past the face; internal mic that splits input to 1) the voice amp and from there to the p/a speaker, and 2) the radio (push-to-talk); external mics for binaural outside sound going into stereo earphones, with the right one also having output from the radio. All self-contained to the helmet. I'm leaving some space around the goggles to one day maybe even trick out a full filtered-optical system, but that's a veeeeeery long-range project. --Jonah

I think this is where we come back to individual preference. --Jonah