fragarock's TK foam build for even shorter people.....kids

[MMcFett]

Looking good! Can't wait to see it all. Has your kid tried it on yet?

[fragarock[TK]]

Looking good! Can't wait to see it all. Has your kid tried it on yet?

Yes for some test fitting and adjusrments. But hasnt put the whole kit on yet.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[fragarock[TK]]

Let's look at how I finished the belt. I completed this work a while ago with the holster being glued about an hour ago. Keep that in mind, you don't have to work on a single piece at one time. In fact it's somewhat beneficial to jump around a bit as the glue or paint is drying on once piece.

 

Drop boxes are attached using 1" wide white elastic strips hot glued to the back of the boxes and then to the back of the belt.

 

 

 

In this photo you may notice that the belt and the drop boxes have been Plasti-dipped white with a coat of Krylon Fusion white gloss paint. I masked off the elastic straps with painters tape during the paint process.

 

 

Here you can see the sheen.

 

 

To glue the white elastic to the foam belt ammo box I used hot glue. Like the other glue scenarios, I first scribed some lines into the back of the foam and hit them with the heat gun to open them up. This allows the glued to flow into the grooves.

 

 

Once the belt was glued, I hot glued the drop boxes on.

 

 

Then, hot glued the Velcro ends so the belt can be fastened.

 

 

 

Final piece of the belt is the holster. I basically copied my TK holster, scaling it down 50%. Here's the paper pattern and the resulting foam. I used 4mm foam for this piece.

 

 

It will be hot glued to the back of the belt as well. The holster foam was folded over and I used contact cement to glue it, same with the strap. Just heat bend it before you glue it. Makes it hold the shape better.

 

 

 

I Plasti-dip sealed this piece but this time using black. No need to paint it as the black looked pretty good. This likely won't fit the toy E-11 that I bought for my son so it's non-functional.

 

 

 

I'll see if I have time to post more tomorrow night. I need to do some helmet mods to my kit as I have a troop on Saturday. Star Wars night at Comerica Park where the Detroit Tigers play. Should be fun!

 

[StevenBills]

Dang. You're making all of use mere mortal dads look bad!

 

Very cool!

 

SB

[shashachu[TK]]

Awesome work, and thanks for posting such a detailed tutorial.

[fragarock[TK]]

I'm back!! I survived another great troop with the GLG at Star Wars night in Detroit. Super fun, I think I was in 200 photos tonight and got to march around the infield which was super cool. 

 

On his 6th birthday, my son got his TK helmet. He was pretty happy.

 

Then we tried on the pieces I made while he was off on vacation. I trimmed a bit off the sides of the ab & kidney to make a nicer fit.

 

 

Next up was the butt and cod pieces. Here's the rough pattern I made for the butt based on measurements.

 

 

The part that runs underneath and straps to the cod was made a bit long when I cut out the 6mm foam. I figured I better make it longer and cut it back as needed.

 

Here's the piece after I heat bent the sides and bottom.

 

 

Then I added the raised detail on the back. You'll see pencil lines on the bottom, I trimmed more material off once we test fit the pieces.

 

 

The cod was similar. Made a paper pattern, cut it out and did test fits to refine the size, trimming away material to get a good fit.

 

 

Some heat bending.

 

More heat bending,

 

 

Here's the strapping of the cod to the ab.

 

Strapping of the butt to the kidney.

 

 

I added side strap to cinch up the side gaps to the cod.

 

Last main pieces were the thighs. This took some trial and error..a couple errors actually. I took measurements of his thigh height and circumference at the knee and up high. These dimensions were used to make this pattern. 

 

 

Here are the pattern lines. I cut out the origin shape in foam then sketched out a rough line where I thought the piece should be trimmed to create the notch at the top and the taper along the top sides. Then I tried it on him about 3 times, refining it each time. Once I had the shape correct I traced that foam shape onto the original paper pattern as a record of the final shape. That's what you see in the image below. This was used to make both left and right, just flip it over to make the other one.

 

Here the piece is cut out and I'm adding the trim around the bottom. This trim was cut from a single strip of 4mm foam and I pencil drew the shape I wanted, test fitting it over the thigh.

 

 

This got contact cement glue.

 

 

 

Here they both are before I added the cover strips to the front and back. Those were 4mm sheets.

 

 

 

Last thing to make was the knee ammo pack. I used 4mm foam for the back piece and 10mm foam for the ammo blocks. Very similar to the belt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the whole piece glued.

 

 

 

I had painted the thigh before attaching the ammo pack so instead of contact cement, I used the hot-glue gun. Wasn't sure if contact cement would stick to the paint.

 

Here's a random shot of me painting. Wear a glove, makes it easier to paint and not worry about your hand getting covered. For all these pieces I used 2-3 coats of white Plastidip to seal the foam then used 3-4 coats of Krylon Fusion gloss white spray-paint for the finish coat. It dries in 15 minutes and is perfect for plastic.

 

Here's the pile of parts. Tomorrow we try this all on.

 

 

Take care!

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by fragarock

[fragarock[TK]]

My son tried on all the pieces this afternoon and the costume came out better than I thought it would. He looks awesome and was really excited. He insisted we take a picture together and I wasn't going to pass up that idea.

 

Eventually I have to fix the back of the shins, they didn't come together the way I wanted and I really don't feel like fixing them so they'll have to be good enough for this year. Also, need to figure out what I'm gonna do for shoes.

 

Future 501st member???

 

 

 

And here we are, ready to defend our street from Rebel attacks.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by fragarock

[CableGuy[TK]]

Love it!! What an excellent job you've done. :-)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MMcFett]

Holy Cow! Amazing! That's awesome! Looks fantastic!

For the boots, what about shoe covers? Lots of costumes have them, you know the pull over kind you wear over combat boots to make them pirate boots.

Could you make a set of the foam that go over the sneakers? I know the mandos have the boot armor, like Jango. Maybe that kind of idea, just bigger?

You could maybe find some black dress shoes and plastidip/paint the tops white?

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

2 words for this build, Frank... "Lil' Centurion"!  (Like father, like son).   You should both hit Zoo Boo there in Royal Oak this October!

[Gwithian]

Frank, what an amazing build, your son is going to have by far the best costume come Halloween ..... I'm struggling with my build at the moment.... actually I was looking for your build thread (for some more tips) and found this.... one word.... awesome 

[fragarock[TK]]

2 words for this build, Frank... "Lil' Centurion"!  (Like father, like son).   You should both hit Zoo Boo there in Royal Oak this October!

Oh we will be there. But i dont think I'll wear my kit because I want to be able to help him get around plus I dont want to draw attention to myself.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[fragarock[TK]]

Hi Guys!

 

Here's an update on the footware. I looked at lots of options from rain boots to kid sized chelsea style boots and decided to go the cheap route and make some shoes/boots myself.

I took an old pair of shoes that are starting to get small for him and are really beat up. The idea was to form foam around them to sorta replicate real boots. 

 

I started off with a paper template. First step was to make the cover over the toes. This needed to be a separate piece from the back shoe cover so it can flex a bit when he takes a step. I made the paper patter, cut it out of 4mm foam which would be more flexible and less bulky than the 6mm. When cutting these foam pieces I always cut a bit bigger than needed and trimmed off material as I fitted it over the shoe.

 

 

The back portion would have to wrap all the way around, meeting up with the front piece. And it would have to still allow access to velcro the shoe.

 

 

Apply some contact cement, and a lot to the shoe as it soaks in the cement on the first application.

 

 

I applied the back piece first.

 

 

Now this was a good start but I didn't look right. Took me a few tries to determine the best option was to cut another piece and layer it over the ones that I had just glued down. This second piece would allow me to make a cover flap to hide the shoe velcro and allow me to add the side detail which is a design element on the real boots. Again, start off with a paper pattern and refine it as you go.

 

 

Here I'm test fitting.

 

 

 

Once I was happy with the general look I cut out the side area and glued in a scrap piece of white elastic. This was hot glued.

 

 

Here's the back side. I glued all the edges too.

 

Here's the piece contact cemented in place over the original pieces.

 

 

 

Once this was set, I added a bit of detail around this white elastic by scoring some lines with my xacto to simulate a stitching pattern. Then I hit it with the heat gun to open up the score. I replicated the same for the left shoe.

 

 

 

 

Back to the right shoe, I didn't make the elastic on this side as this was the original piece I had glued down...poor planning. So I just scored some lines to replicate the shape. I figure this is the inside of his foot so who's gonna notice anyways.

 

 

Next I added some velcro to close the cover flap.

 

 

Here they are ready for painting.

 

I then used white Plasti-dip and finished them off with white Krylon Fusion spray paint. Nice and shiny. I also painted the edge of the sole black along with the toe tip.

 

 

Here's the top flap, still allows access to the main shoe velcro. Nice and simple!

 

 

That wraps up the costume. Next post I'll show how I transformed the Rubies toy E-11 from this.

 

 

Into this.

[68Brick[TK]]

Fantastic Job. I'm sure you'll be asked for commissions! 

[fragarock[TK]]

I bought a Rubies toy E-11 and while I was working on the shoes I decided to experiment with painting techniques on this thing. I went way overboard with the paint job on what is a kids toy but I had my reasons. I wanted it to look cool with his costume but I also wanted to test my painting/weathering on this toy because I have an E-22 being 3D printed for me which should arrive in about a week. I needed to work up my painting skills before the E-22 arrived. So, keep in mind some of what I did here was a bit of an experiment and some things worked while other ideas failed. In the end it came out pretty good though.

 

Here's the blaster as purchased. Plastic in a nice white and orange color scheme...kinda like a push-pop.

 

 

 

Tip: If you want a really nice finish, particularly a metallic finish on anything plastic, you need to really sand it down smooth. Most of this blaster is smooth but i should have sanded off the lettering and there are some bad areas on T-tracks that needed smoothing out.

 

My original paint concept was as follows: Paint a metallic aluminum finish with a dark metal top coat and then use sand paper to wear thru that top coat for a weathered effect. Ultimately this technique didn't work well and I mostly abandoned it halfway thru the paint job. I ended up doing a lot of dry-brush weathering to get the effect. At the end, the product was a bit of distressing and dry-brushing.

 

First I primed it black with Krylon primer. A couple good coats did the trick. It dries pretty fast but i let it sit overnight. I've taken to wearing a glove while I paint to avoid overspray on my hand.

 

 

 

 

Next was to provide a base coat of metallic silver. I used this so that any distress marks would be really shiny. An aluminum paint wouldn't be as bright. I think a key step that I missed here would have been to apply a matte finish clear-coat over the black primer making it more durable and less likely to be damaged by the distressing.

 

 

I painted everything except the grip which I believe on the sterlings was black plastic.

 

 

 

Then I did some masking to paint the scope a brass color. I didn't have brass so I used gold figuring it would be close enough and not much of the color would be visible anyways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now here's where things got complicated and a lot of experimenting occurred. I needed to figure out what paints and colors I would use for the top coats. I wanted a rich, multi-layered look simulating metals. I went to a hobby shop and picked up some metallic paints and I also swung buy an auto paint store to get a metal flake paint. Below are tests on some ABS scraps of (3) metallic paints to see the colors. I new I wanted a couple different tones on the blaster.

 

 

Here are the paints I used. Some were Tamiya spray cans.

 

 

One was a metallic paint.

 

And when I really got crazy I used these ALCLAD metal paints which are amazing...and pricey.

 

 

The pain I ended up using as the main base color was the auto paint. This was an enamel lacquer paint which was Graphite with metallic flakes. This stuff was really nasty and required the organic vapor respirator that I used with the contact cement. I thinned it a bit with medium reducer and sprayed it thru my airbrush. It took several coats to cover. Part of it was learning to airbrush again after 35 years.

 

Here's what i looked like after that base coat. It had a nice metallic look to it but the metal flakes were a bit grainier than I'd hoped.

 

 

 

So I used the Vallejo Gunmetal metallic to add some tone variety as it's a bit darker that the Graphite base coat. This paint isn't as bad as the auto paint but I still used the respirator.

 

 

In this photo you can see that I've painted the back of the blaster with the Gun Metal color which is a lot darker.

 

 

Here the whole thing has been coated except for the grip.

 

 

Next I masked off to paint the grip. I used a Tamiya semi-gloss black that was left over from some other project.

 

 

 

 

Now it was starting to look pretty good.

 

 

 

Next step was to airbush a bit of Tamiya Smoke on to some areas to add more tone and start the weathering process. Basically I darkened the T-tracks and painted in dark areas in the crevices around the blaster. The paint jar is in the photo above. The photos below show the darkened areas.

 

 

 

Next I started the distressing which was basically sandpaper scratching thru the various top coats to reveal the layer below.

I used 400 grit but that seemed to chew all the way down to the white plastic. Could have been to low a grit or I didn't have the technique down. So I used 800 with various passes. I tried to knock down the finish at the corners and where regular hand holding would have naturally worn away the finish, also at moving parts.

 

 

 

 

 

Many of the effects came out well. There was a lot of subtly now in the finish on various parts of the blaster. But I wasn't in any way successful replicating scratches that exposed the bare aluminum below. So I tried another paint experiment. I went out and got  ALCLAD metallic paints which can create some amazing finishes. Again this was a bit of experimenting.

 

I sanded down the folding stock area to be really smooth then primed it with the ALCLAD primer/filler. Then painted it with ALCLAD gloss black which is the recommended base coat for their metallic top coats.

 

 

 

I then used ALCLAD Duraluminum to paint this area with some darker spots in Gun Metal. I was super happy with these ALCLAD paints. The finish on this area is much more realistic than the rest of the blaster. I'll be using ALCLAD on my E-22.

 

I did a terrible job documenting the ALCLAD painting steps and weathering so I'll explain as best I can. The ALCLAD finish was great but needed to be distressed. I used a bit of sanding  but then I decided to do dry-brushing to create most of the distressed/worn look on the folding stock. First I added dark grimy areas around the blaster with the Tamiya smoke color mixed with some matte black to darken it. I dry-brushed this into the grooves and joints all around the blaster. Then I dry-brushed Tamiya metallic silver spray paint to simulate scratches and heavily worn areas all over the blaster. This gave those nice bright and shiny pops around the piece. I also dry-brushed the gold color and the semi-gloss black over the scope to get the worn look. That part wasn't too succesful but I learned how not to do it I guess.

 

Here's the final product. My Hyperfirm E-11 is in the background for reference.

 

 

The photo below most accurately shows the color. It's not as black as my E-11 but I was trying for a more realistic metal look. Some of the other photos you'll see make it look much lighter or darker...all depends on the lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well that's the end of the build. I hope you find it useful. On to the next project!

 

 

For reference. Here are some of the reference photos i used when researching the finish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2017 by fragarock

[MMcFett]

I bought a Rubies toy E-11 and while I was working on the shoes I decided to experiment with painting techniques on this thing. I went way overboard with the paint job on what is a kids toy but I had my reasons. I wanted it to look cool with his costume but I also wanted to test my painting/weathering on this toy because I have an E-22 being 3D printed for me which should arrive in about a week. I needed to work up my painting skills before the E-22 arrived. So, keep in mind some of what I did here was a bit of an experiment and some things worked while other ideas failed. In the end it came out pretty good though.
 
Here's the blaster as purchased. Plastic in a nice white and orange color scheme...kinda like a push-pop.
 

 

 
Tip: If you want a really nice finish, particularly a metallic finish on anything plastic, you need to really sand it down smooth. Most of this blaster is smooth but i should have sanded off the lettering and there are some bad areas on T-tracks that needed smoothing out.
 
My original paint concept was as follows: Paint a metallic aluminum finish with a dark metal top coat and then use sand paper to wear thru that top coat for a weathered effect. Ultimately this technique didn't work well and I mostly abandoned it halfway thru the paint job. I ended up doing a lot of dry-brush weathering to get the effect. At the end, the product was a bit of distressing and dry-brushing.
 
First I primed it black with Krylon primer. A couple good coats did the trick. It dries pretty fast but i let it sit overnight. I've taken to wearing a glove while I paint to avoid overspray on my hand.
 

 

 

 
Next was to provide a base coat of metallic silver. I used this so that any distress marks would be really shiny. An aluminum paint wouldn't be as bright. I think a key step that I missed here would have been to apply a matte finish clear-coat over the black primer making it more durable and less likely to be damaged by the distressing.
 

 
I painted everything except the grip which I believe on the sterlings was black plastic.
 

 

 
Then I did some masking to paint the scope a brass color. I didn't have brass so I used gold figuring it would be close enough and not much of the color would be visible anyways.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Now here's where things got complicated and a lot of experimenting occurred. I needed to figure out what paints and colors I would use for the top coats. I wanted a rich, multi-layered look simulating metals. I went to a hobby shop and picked up some metallic paints and I also swung buy an auto paint store to get a metal flake paint. Below are tests on some ABS scraps of (3) metallic paints to see the colors. I new I wanted a couple different tones on the blaster.
 

 
Here are the paints I used. Some were Tamiya spray cans.
 

 
One was a metallic paint.

 
And when I really got crazy I used these ALCLAD metal paints which are amazing...and pricey.
 

 
The pain I ended up using as the main base color was the auto paint. This was an enamel lacquer paint which was Graphite with metallic flakes. This stuff was really nasty and required the organic vapor respirator that I used with the contact cement. I thinned it a bit with medium reducer and sprayed it thru my airbrush. It took several coats to cover. Part of it was learning to airbrush again after 35 years.
 
Here's what i looked like after that base coat. It had a nice metallic look to it but the metal flakes were a bit grainier than I'd hoped.
 

 

 
So I used the Vallejo Gunmetal metallic to add some tone variety as it's a bit darker that the Graphite base coat. This paint isn't as bad as the auto paint but I still used the respirator.
 

 
In this photo you can see that I've painted the back of the blaster with the Gun Metal color which is a lot darker.
 

 
Here the whole thing has been coated except for the grip.
 

 
Next I masked off to paint the grip. I used a Tamiya semi-gloss black that was left over from some other project.
 

 

 

 
Now it was starting to look pretty good.
 

 

 
Next step was to airbush a bit of Tamiya Smoke on to some areas to add more tone and start the weathering process. Basically I darkened the T-tracks and painted in dark areas in the crevices around the blaster. The paint jar is in the photo above. The photos below show the darkened areas.
 

 

 
Next I started the distressing which was basically sandpaper scratching thru the various top coats to reveal the layer below.
I used 400 grit but that seemed to chew all the way down to the white plastic. Could have been to low a grit or I didn't have the technique down. So I used 800 with various passes. I tried to knock down the finish at the corners and where regular hand holding would have naturally worn away the finish, also at moving parts.
 

 

 

 

 
Many of the effects came out well. There was a lot of subtly now in the finish on various parts of the blaster. But I wasn't in any way successful replicating scratches that exposed the bare aluminum below. So I tried another paint experiment. I went out and got  ALCLAD metallic paints which can create some amazing finishes. Again this was a bit of experimenting.
 
I sanded down the folding stock area to be really smooth then primed it with the ALCLAD primer/filler. Then painted it with ALCLAD gloss black which is the recommended base coat for their metallic top coats.
 

 

 
I then used ALCLAD Duraluminum to paint this area with some darker spots in Gun Metal. I was super happy with these ALCLAD paints. The finish on this area is much more realistic than the rest of the blaster. I'll be using ALCLAD on my E-22.
 
I did a terrible job documenting the ALCLAD painting steps and weathering so I'll explain as best I can. The ALCLAD finish was great but needed to be distressed. I used a bit of sanding  but then I decided to do dry-brushing to create most of the distressed/worn look on the folding stock. First I added dark grimy areas around the blaster with the Tamiya smoke color mixed with some matte black to darken it. I dry-brushed this into the grooves and joints all around the blaster. Then I dry-brushed Tamiya metallic silver spray paint to simulate scratches and heavily worn areas all over the blaster. This gave those nice bright and shiny pops around the piece. I also dry-brushed the gold color and the semi-gloss black over the scope to get the worn look. That part wasn't too succesful but I learned how not to do it I guess.
 
Here's the final product. My Hyperfirm E-11 is in the background for reference.
 

 
The photo below most accurately shows the color. It's not as black as my E-11 but I was trying for a more realistic metal look. Some of the other photos you'll see make it look much lighter or darker...all depends on the lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Well that's the end of the build. I hope you find it useful. On to the next project!
 
 
For reference. Here are some of the reference photos i used when researching the finish.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

This all looks incredible! I hope you post a pic of him in full suit with boots and blaster now! I've been toying with the idea of doing something similar to a rubies. Maybe have to pull the trigger now! Great job!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Gwithian]

Fantastic Frank, the transformation is amazing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fragarock[TK]]

This all looks incredible! I hope you post a pic of him in full suit with boots and blaster now! I've been toying with the idea of doing something similar to a rubies. Maybe have to pull the trigger now! Great job!

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

He'll get to wear it all in a couple weeks which will be really fun to see. Im still debating if I wear mine out with him for double the trooper fun.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[Gwithian]

He'll get to wear it all in a couple weeks which will be really fun to see. Im still debating if I wear mine out with him for double the trooper fun.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

I think that’s a great idea and I’m sure your son will enjoy trooping with his stormtrooper dad


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk