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Plastic Fury

501st Stormtrooper[TK]
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Everything posted by Plastic Fury

  1. I did this a few months ago and took pics while doing it, figured I'd toss it up for people who may be interested. I have read a lot of tutorials on painting and whatnot but was always worried about how well it would hold up. I have wide feet and finding the proper boots in white have been very difficult for me so I had to go another route. A fellow squad mate has a pair of Amsterdams for his TX and I liked how they fit and looked............................just the wrong color of course. I looked around and decided to go with some TRG color dye/preparer. I stopped by my local Tandy leather with one of my Amsterdam boots to see if they had any advice, they adivsed that I really need to get the shiny finish off of these boots if I wanted any dye to really work. He recommended a product to help with that and I went from there. Tandy recommended some Fiebings deglazer, to remove the glossy finish. I picked up a bottle and while it did remove the top shiny layer, I was not conviced that was enough. After I did the entire boot, I then moved to acetone to remove the finish, thoroughly. --------
  2. You are going to want to "taper" the thighs. I did this with my AM thighs and have done it for other troopers as well. This allows the thigh armor to be both tight at the knee as well as tight on your thigh.
  3. EXACTLY how I do my mesh as well, works great. Accuracy is nice and all but I don't like kids seeing any of me under my costume. As to the padding, I use T-Ball helmets at Wal*Mart for about 10 bucks. I just remove the pads from the helmet and using sticky velcro, install them in the bucket. The velcro leaves you no permanent installation so you can adjust them or remove for cleaning, etc.. Has worked great for me for years now.
  4. Thank you, I appreciate the compliment. Took it to a con yesterday for one of our display helmets and got a lot of compliments on it, really going to have to build one for myself now and put it on the shelf. Swapped out the hovi mics for some more accurate ones and just need to spray the inside black and add the t-ball foam and she's ready to troop. Ryan will be adding to the ranks very soon.
  5. I cut mine a bit longer as Troopermaster suggested but I also add some E6000 in spots, just to make sure. With the heat here in South Florida, things tend to take a beating when trooping lol.
  6. Thanks for the comments. It's not 100% finished at this point, I still need to paint the ear screws as well as painting the inside of the bucket black and installing the foam but other than that, it's basically finished.
  7. Yeah I learned that lesson the hard way a couple of years back, at the expense of a set of ears for a TK bucket. Loctite will destroy abs plastic, it's nasty stuff. You could use rivets for your det.
  8. I had a feeling I knew what it was going to be before I even opened the thread lol. Just par for the course. I remember the first accurate bucket I build I tried to correct that, little did I know. I'll take that bit of wonkyness (you ONLY ever see it if you look directly above anyway) over the insanely huge FX bucket. Good job on that so far, you are on the right track, just keep on going with it!
  9. Hello there FISD. My squad leader is currently working on his ICN and he asked if I would build and paint his bucket, I have done quite a few TK helmets for squad mates, etc... so I was happy to help. I was looking forward to doing something different from the usual TK helmets I build and this was definitely a lot of fun. So much so that I think I will build another one now, just to have on my display shelf lol. He sent me a lot of reference pictures but the main one I used for inspiration was this shot from the video game; I looked around and some other builds and references but a lot seem to be very clean looking. The game images to me look like this one, very scarred, damaged and worn so that is what I went with. I personally really like the battle scarred and worn look. Got the paints ready for the helmet, for the weathering and the masking fluid for the paint damage. First time I have used this masking fluid and it really is good stuff, easy to work with but a pain to rub back off lol. Got a blister for my trouble but it was worth it in the end. Here the helmet is assembled and taped up, ready for the liquid masking fluid to be brushed on for the damaged paint; After paint and with the tape and liquid mask all removed, here it is with the damaged paint and ready for weathering; Here it is pretty much finished. Frown, ears and vocoder painted, vinyls applied and weathering added.
  10. Looks like you are definitely having fun now haha. Really happy you liked the bucket, looks like she is in good hands. I'll definitely be watching this thread and your progress, good luck and remember, measure twice...cut once!!
  11. I wear a 7 7/8 hat size (considered XXL and one size larger than 7 3/8 so I know what you mean lol. I would avoid the FX at all costs if you can help it, it is a large helmet but there is no reason to use it for a trooper with a big head, the helmet itself is just waaay too large and just looks off. I can get my head into an ATA, with padding but it is a tight fit. I personally use a CAP with padding and it fits me just fine. Just like the ATA, you have to corkscrew it on a bit but that is how the accurate helmets were anyway. I would recommend the CAP but finding one now is a big tough for sure. Provost Marshal brings up some good points as well, how they are built makes a difference. I built two ATA abs helmets recently for two different troopers and both fit differently. On one, I left the neck opening smaller as per the request of the owner, it was tight getting on my head but fit him just fine, on the other the opening was made much larger. You can't tell by looking at the helmet except when you are holding them upside down, in your hands.
  12. I use fans to simply avoid the lens fogging when I am doing indoor air conditioned trooping, outdoors I have no problem here in South Florida but I don't worry about the bucket being cool lol. I don't think that is really possible unless you install some air conditioning
  13. I think that would be a very cool project and idea IF it was made with real carbon fiber. I realize the cost on something like that and the logistics involved would be insane lol. Just being a big car guy and modder, I don't like any of the "carbon fiber look" material out there. But that's just my opinion, I am sure most would love it.
  14. Looking at past auctions, you can see he often makes "extras" of runs he does, then sells them on Ebay. I have seen his name before on auctions with 501st stuff so not really surprised, his name on there is not an easy one to forget. It's a shame to see a really special coin like this up for sale and I hate to see how much it's going to cost to get it back in the community.
  15. Looks good man, nice work. I too will be following his tutorial and build my own T21, my current Lewis has seen a lot of action and take quite a beating as it was pretty fragile to begin with.
  16. Haha you just gotta work on them, one at at time. Since I became an Everglades Squad member, I have been on a quest to rid my squad of ALL FX buckets, I have only ONE left after almost two years of work. They buy 'em and i'll build and paint 'em, it's worked really well and the squad looks so much better for it. Jealous of all you guys for that troop, three of the guys from my squad went up for it but no TD's so I was unable to go. Gotta get that TK finished so I can do the cool troops like this one!!
  17. As they said, that picture shows your shins up over your boots. If they were down on your boots, that would help you some. As for the helmet, not much that can be done. Picking up a more accurate bucket is the best way to solve those issues and they are much lighter to boot.
  18. Yeah no worries that is perfectly normal. I have built a few ATA helmets and that is how they are. It will all tighten up together, when you bolt the face/cap and ears all up, no problem.
  19. Since somebody asked, I have actually had luck finding them at my local Michael's craft stores. Two different locations near me, carry the silver rare earth type. They only have two sizes but it was cool to see them, I stocked up on some. I may go online to order up some of the larger ones for the future.
  20. Just posting this for fun. I am currently working on an ATA for a fellow trooper here on the FISD and an ATA (seconds) as well as an AP (my first time with an AP) for two different brothers in my squad. I really enjoy building and painting (when necessary) TK/TD helmets for sure. Nothing groundbreaking or anything, just like posting pics of projects and what not, figured I would update these as they go along. I almost always forget to get a pic before starting work, I had just started when I remember to snap this lol. ATA(seconds) - ATA - AP
  21. Here here!! lol. For a TK, just a good and natural "trooped in" weathering looks really good. At first, I used to polish it constantly but then realized that just keeping it cleaned up was enough, natural scuffs and marks make it look more realistic.
  22. That is a really amazing job you did on that weapon man, it looks great and love the sound/light setup in it. My T-21 is jealous haha.
  23. I did something similar to Terry. I used one of Slaveonepilot's TD knee plates, the laser etched one that is in layers. I had to build up a few pieces under it or it would be right in my knee. I angled it out a bit toward the top and used E6000 for the whole thing, been through countless troops over the last year and have had no problems.
  24. Well as I said on the MEPD, looks great bro, you did an awesome job!!
  25. Looks like you are well on your way, great job so far. As others said, come on over to the MEPD and we'll get you all squared away.
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