Peregrinus

<GIR>Okay, okay... Jeez...</GIR> I've just seen a different side to the costuming and prop-making community over the years. Each new piece of information that gets tossed up on the boards immediately... There's a nice flicker of revelation regardless of whether you find that information yourself or read the revelation on an online forum. The real joy for me has been actually finding the item, regardless of how I find out about it. I mean, having a name to put to it was nice, but I'm still tearing apart the entire West Coast of the US and a goodly portion of the Internet in hopes of finding some Sierra Sneakers. No joy so far. Ditto the right style of radiation dosimeter. Knowing that an old Navy APH-6B flight helmet was used for both Rebel and Imperial pilots was handy, but the real glee came when I actually found and bought one. And I'm still hunting for brand and model for things like the Imperial officers' belt boxes (also used for Chewie's bandolier), the deep sea fishing pole (probably) used for the original force pikes... and the first thing I'll do is post about it on the relevent Detachment boards if and when I ever find out. It doesn't really matter, cuz everyone will still have to find the bloody things. Unless someone decides to make it easier and make replicas based on an actual item, such as Stomper's mic tips or FOD's RotJ white armour trim. If and when I might ever find a pair of those original boots myself, I'm quite likely to send them to CAboots and say "use this as the model for your Stormtrooper boots, and make me a pair in 10½ or 11" so that all may benefit from my hard work. That's my philosophy and attitude toward costuming and I'm gonna stick with it. In the meantime, I now recognize everyone's got a different approach to this hobby, so I'll just keep my sense of costuming morality to myself... --Jonah P.S. (so it isn't part of the whinging above) That really is an awesome score, Paul. Don't let my feelings about the rest of this detract from that. Excellent detective work.

Wait... Isn't that kind of counter to the purpose of groups like this? Sharing information and sources for things we've found to get that much more accurate? I've been searching determinedly and enthusiastically. For years. That's how I eventually found a maker in Australia who makes the nearest thing to the originals that I've found so far, which I posted above (well, not entirely -- they also make versions with smooth natural-leather soles, but they're pricier and I prefer these because they have textured soles and I don't want to slip). I'm not seeing how it harms you to share what you know. Otherwise, the 501st would still be people making their own Stormtrooper armour from scratch in their basements, with only still photos for reference, and the FX kit would still be considered totally screen-accurate. I just don't understand that comment at all... --Jonah

I don't know if the boots Paul found are still made or findable (pending Paul actually giving us more info ), but the boots I've decided to go with are these: I like them muchly. --Jonah

Jeez, I go away for a little while... Tony, your full-time job now is to get yourself well again. Don't even think about fiddling with plastic -- not even your own. Watch movies, play video games, and entertain happy Star Wars-y thoughts about how it should have gone down. "There's one. Set for stun." Now, I know I have some leftover oxycodone around here somewhere... *rummages through accumulated medical stuff* --Jonah

And I don't even think about post count... Sorry, Paul. I'm not trying to be cryptic. It's just that there are one or two ways most people on here do things, and most of the descriptions are for those. I have a technique that differs significantly from those, and I don't want to confuse anyone who's new to the whole idea of how to keep the pieces in place. So I ask before just tossing it out there. I almost posted a quick follow-up last night but was too tired to string coherent thoughts together. That recently got me in trouble over on the Biker Scout boards, so I held off until this morning when I could tackle it fresh. But here goes, with the caveat that this is still in trial-and-error phase. I came up with this to take full advantage of a two-piece bodysuit to make pit stops easier. •Cut two notches each on the ab and kidney plates, about an inch deep and the width of your chosen strapping material. These should be lined up with where the strapping material will be anchored to the butt and cod pieces. •Now, then. Once the strapping material is anchored to the butt and cod pieces, there should be about two inches left sticking up. Fold that down toward the outside of the armour one inch, and then again. Put the canvas underbelt in its position over the ab and kidney plates and mark where the notches are. Sew the doubled-over strapping material to the inside of the underbelt. Adjust positioning slightly to allow for the visible gap above the butt plate, but to hide the gap above the cod plate. The folding will compensate for the thickness of the ab and kidney plates. •Line up the belt with the ab and kidney plates. The folded strapping should fit in the notches cut for it. Use snaps or velcro to fasten the belt to the torso armour. Connect the butt and cod pieces through the crotch as laid out in many other threads. This way, one puts on the cod/butt/belt assemply as one pulls on a pair of shorts, more or less. When Nature calls, one undoes the belt, detaches it from the torso armour, pulls down the cod and butt plates, hitches up the torso armour to find the waistband of one's bodysuit leggings, pulls them down, and sees to business. You'll still have to be a little careful, but at least you don't have to completely unarmour if you have to go Number Two during a troop. Oh, and I didn't mention thighs in there because I plan to have them attach directly to the bodysuit. --Jonah

I have my own ideas, but they differ from the more common methods, so I don't know if you're interested in hearing them... --Jonah

*lol* This is not a hobby for the impatient. --Jonah

That's because it's easy. The pointy end goes into the tool. Find the tip (several come with the tool) that's the right size for the shaft of the rivet. Put the other end through the hole you've drilled for it in the plastic. Put the backing washer over the bit that sticks through on the inside of the armour. Squeeze handle. Release. Slide the tool down flush with the plastic again. Squeeze again. There will be an abrupt PING! as the shaft reaches its tension point and pops off (hence "pop rivets"), so be ready for it and don't jump. Release and let the popped-off shaft of the rivet drop out of the tool into an appropriate waste receptacle. --Jonah

Who said anything about driving? Go ----- --Jonah

I have to pop back in here to say how grateful I am for this walkthrough, now that I'm building this helmet myself. Some things are blatantly intuitive after years of modelling and converting. Some things I keep having to refer back here. Some things I'm following your lead to the letter. Other things I'm deviating quite on purpose to see how things come out differently. *heh* Thank you again for doing this for the community. --Jonah

Try a Femme Mando instead, then. --Jonah

Try the first cut into the faceplate. *chuckle* --Jonah

I want access to someone with a full-on editing rig and mix together my "Ultimate Edition". *heh* I liked a lot of the "cleanups" in the Special Editions -- the redone sandcrawler and Obi-Wan's hut, the new Falcon launch, the vistas outside the Cloud City windows, etc. A lot of things you can tell were half-finished, and I'm surprised George didn't bother to complete them for the DVD editions -- the new CG Battle of Yavin needed more work on the Rebel ships (accurate wing markings, droids, and helmets). And a lot f things needed to have not been done at all -- no rontos, no extra shots of the search for the Death Sar plans, no Jabba/docking bay scene, Han shoots first/only, no extra Wampa scenes, no Hayden ghost, no celebration scenes on other planets, no redone Jabba's palace song, etc. I'd also like to restore and reintegrate the Anchorhead scene, the rest of the Rebel Hangar scene, the rest of the training on Dagobah, and the rest of the Tatooine scenes in Jedi. Even if they slow things down. Have two versions -- theatrical and extended, like Lord of the Rings. I maily just wish I could keep the good elements and ditch the bad from the Special and DVD Editions. :/ --Jonah

Not getting into all the other costumes in the works, I am doing three ANH TKs and a TD for me, my sweetie Jen, my friend Todd, and my friend Matt, respectively. They are going to be variously involved in the construction of their suits, but I'm spearheading the project. Besides all the paints and glues and supplies I've accumulated, I have just taken the first big step. Two TE2 stunt helmet kits arrived last week to my extreme giddiness. I asked about my desire to "correct" the orignal imperfections to the helmet sculpt, and if that would interfere with achieving Elite status (it won't ). I have no digicam yet (luddite, I know), and I'm going to get this film turned around and the pics scanned as soon as I can. In the meantime, I've begun my oh-my-gods-you're-insane mods. The basic cleanup has been taken care of -- eyeholes opened, vac-table flashing removed, faceplate and cap lined up and overlap minimised, earpieces fitted. Mike? Your tutorial is heaven-sent. Thank you so much. I want to have your babies. Now I'm on to the scary stuff. Lower face cut off, teeth removed, traps and tears removed. I'm starting the detail-reshaping, pit-filling, subtle tweaks, and otherwise prepping the upper faceplate and cap'n'back for painting. While they spend the following week curing, I'll turn my attention to the chin grilles and earpiece greeblies. More on that as it develops, too. For now, though... I think I'll be pretty well documenting the process, but if there are any specific things y'all want to see, let me know now so I can make sure I get shots of it. --Jonah

I know, I know. Pictures help everything. I need a good digicam. I've tried taking shots with my cell phone camera, but the contrast is awful. No matter how I hold it, it just ends up looking like a white blob. --Jonah

Don't cloud the issue with facts, Bernard. --Jonah

Duct tape? Bite your tongue, man. --Jonah

Hey, Mike, your inbox is full. *heh* --Jonah

First off, acknowledge the 501st basic standards require stripes, and unless and until that changes, this is moot. That said, they had every opportunity to put a helmet with stripes on the "She'll be all right..." trooper before they rolled cameras. They didn't. That says something to me, if only "it wasn't important enough to delay filming for one minute". I never thought they were ventilation. They were blue. I could see that in my Storybook and poster magazines. And in addition to Mr. No-Stripes, there were also how many with less than the "standard" number of stripes, or different numbers on each tube? But since we don't know what they actually signify, going with the balanced maximum number seen as the standard makes good sense. GO ahead and make a second bucket with no stripes and wear it to casual events. And keep pushing for a revision to the 501st standards, or maybe a specific optional exception in the ANH Elite standards. But don't expect it to happen for at least another year. *heh* --Jonah

Enh. I can do an addendum about the traps and tears. I'm carefully cutting out what will be the grey parts, cleaning up, straightening, and reinforcing the walls on the helmet parts, and extending the edges of the cut-out pieces. Those will get painted Ad Grey, get the black edging done, and the black pinstripes overlaid. Then they get glued back in place. Also, the exterior of the upper and lower faceplate pieces are painted white after all the cutting is done. After they cure for a week (while I build the new teeth fram and paint it), then the additions go in. Forgot to mention that. The Plasti-Dip goes on after all the mods are done for the completed faceplate adn it's reassembled and masked off. And I'm going to be doing all the test-fitting and cleaning up of parts before any of this starts. --Jonah

Well, preliminary description... The whole area South of the frown? I'm cutting that off straight across. I have some small noiseless computer fans that -- with the mounting corners rounded off -- will fit easily into the area behind the aerators. I'm opening up four pie wedges around the aerator screw hole, and reinforcing the crossarms and hole. I already opened up two "D" holes in the aerators themselves. That's going to be my inflow. I'm going to open up the chin grilles and mount a speaker behind them. The fans and speaker are all going to be vibrationally isolated from the helmet shell and covered over (except for the airflow openings of the fans). I'm going to remove the teeth, back them with plumbers' epoxy putty (also extending them a bit to replace removed portions and give some anchoring acreage, and scratch-build an upper and lower bridge to join them all together in the right configuration, and that will hook into the upper and lower parts of the faceplate the frown joins together. Things get masked off and the teeth get painted Ad Grey. Then black panty-hose nylon gets glued to the backs of the teeth and frame. Regular epoxy putty will be used to build up facings behind the teeth and around the border. I am going to fill in around the eyeholes with more plumbers' epoxy putty so the lenses have a flat surface to be glued to, and then the edges of the lenses will be covered over with more epoxy and blended into the substrate. The side tubes will get styrene shims where the aerator shrouds were cut off so they can be glued back together securely. And the left side (from the wearer's perspective) of the frown will be adjusted to eliminate the fifth opening and match the right side. Doing work with the tears, too, that is a whole thread in itself. Traps, as well, but that's a different piece. The teeth get glued into the upper faceplate. The lower faceplate gets glued back on to the teeth and side tubes. Lenses, nylon, and airflow openings get masked off, wires get isolated. Inside of faceplate gets several coats of black Plasti-Dip spray-on grip material. Then I go to work on the rest of the helmet. --Jonah

*chuckle* Fortunately for me, he parts things out if he's able. I got the helmet kits first, as they'll need the most TLC. The armour will come later. As well as, hopefully, a spare breastplate and shoulder straps. I don't mind paying more in total, if it's broken down into more managable chunks. Pictures will be coming. I don't have a quality digicam yet. I'm getting 12-exposure film rolls so turnaround time is shorter. So we'll see... --Jonah

*nods* Thanks for the clarification. This is one of those things that only übergeeks of our calibre would ever notice the difference, but I'd see it every time I looked at my bucket. Word of warning on the photo-documenting -- I'll be doing things that will make a lot of people on here cringe, faint, or freak out. I'm also doing an interior, sound system, etc. And the amount of butchery I'm contemplating is not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach. --Jonah

Hokeh, so... I am doing TE2 for armour and bucket. I have insane modding skillz. I have a potentially dangerous costuming philosophy that I describe as "more accurate than the film version". This means I go the extra step -- or twenty -- to atone for the time and budget crunches endemic to making a movie or TV show. I know how to tailor, so my uniforms are made like real-world uniforms, and can take punishment and stand up to scrutiny. With the 501st, I'll do things and add layers that will never be seen by most people. *heh* I'm something of a costuming masochist. In the case of the TK, I don't want to change anything, but I do want to fix the little asymmetries in the helmet. Specifically the frown and the aerator shrouds. My desire to attain accuracy to one or another film version doesn't extend to reproducing all the flaws, and I want to know if that will keep me -- and anyone else whose helmets I do this with -- from meeting the Elite standards, as I didn't see this directly addressed in the list of standards. --Jonah

I've been wanting to say this all day... Alex? Your icon freaks me the hell out. o_O --Jonah