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Moin and hello there, my name is Christian Langen and I am a new approved Stormtrooper ANH Stunt since May the 30th 2023 from Northern Germany, Harsefeld. My Squad is Coastal Hammer (NSQ) German Garrison. Ready for Duty! So excited to meet and greet you all :-) Imperial Greetings Christian

Thanks for the tutorial! I made some straps with snaps today and it’s coming along nicely!

Hello there, I'd like to present myself as Paolo Di Michele, currently a civilian constituent of the Galactic Empire residing in Toronto, CA. In all seriousness it's great to be here; I'm a design graduate hailing from York University and it's always been a bucket list item to join the Legion. I'm in the VERY early stages of contacting my GML over at my local Canadian Garrison. I'm hoping to make some armor decisions and get started as soon as I do some more research. Anyone willing to mentor or help me get started would be most appreciated, I tend to take a more personable approach. I am everso eager to join the army of Star Wars fans internationally celebrating the craft and bring glory to our Galactic Empire. Right now I'm not completely sure what I should be doing or where I should be looking, so far I've been reading through this forum and getting familiar with the UX/UI. I'm having trouble deciding between Stormtrooper armors (ANH, ROTJ, ESB) and distinguishing the pro's and con's between "Hero" and "Stunt" armor. Does anyone have any options? Suggestions? IT IS PROBABLY WORTH MENTIONING I AM 6' 2" (not a little short for a Stormtrooper) I'm not sure if this will damper my efforts or aid my progress? Thank you in advance y'all - hail the Galactic Empire (check out some cute baby photos of me meeting the Legion for the first time versus my last encounter at Fan Expo 2022 Signing off for now, P

Update: We are waiting on some feedback from the LMO team who are currently inundated with new CRL requests, so we are in the cue.

Hi Gavin, We are purely the Stormtrooper detachment, however there is indeed a Scout trooper detachment called Pathfinders. here is the link https://www.501stpathfinders.com/ These guys specialize in the Scout Troopers so will be far more helpful for you and your new journey. Best of luck.

So I am looking to buy a RS Prop masters stormtrooper outfit but have some serious questions about the options they offer which is PVC vs ABS. I think I want the ABS as it is been stated to be a more sturdy material but the issue is I've also been told it yellows when exposed to sunlight. Here are my questions. 1. How long before or how quickly does the ABS armor yellow? i.e. will standing outside for a few hours or a day for an event turn it yellow? 2. Can you not wear ABS Armor outside at all because of the yellowing or are you sort of confined to having to stay inside when wearing it? 3. Is there a way to reverse the yellowing of the armor if it does happen? 4. PVC looks really shiny but is it a better investment than ABS?

A little new era trooper pauldron research, mainly for the Mortar and Incinerator troopers, there always seems to be an exception though. So here we go, most of the new era pauldrons are a little different to what we have seen in the past, ANH and other original movies/series the colored sections have no lines (bare in mind these are for Sandtroopers) ANH Orange ANH Black With the exception of 1 white pauldron on a sandtrooper, it did indeed have sewn lines. New era pauldrons have 2 sewn lines/3 panels in the colored section just the same. ANH White NEW ERA 2 sewn lines / 3 panels Mortar - what is different to other new era pauldrons is a silver rivet is on the lower colored panel (arm strap) and also 2 rivets on the closure and the closure is on top of the pauldron not underneath like other new era, identical to the ANH white pauldron (the supplier confirmed it was created ANH style) hence the rivets. Hot toys same silver rivets, closure on top and silver snaps Incinerator - 2 sewn lines / 3 panels, no rivets, closure underneath pauldron, black rivet shoulder strap Black rivet shoulder stap. Can also make out 2 black snaps on closure NEW ERA Sandtroopers 2 lines / 3 panels. Note closures are affixed under the pauldron not on top and no rivets same as Incinerator. Also black rivet for shoulder strap Orange Note 2 black snaps on closure Hot toy black rivet/snaps Also note the white underside of pauldron Black Hot toy black rivet/snaps White (and an exception, some may note the CRL model is wrong for this pauldron, it is the only one that has a colored closure, being white, unless there are other references of course) It's closure is also attached underneath the pauldron and no rivets. White rivet shoulder strap Hot toys same, white rivet & snaps We come to another exception, someone has to be different, it has an ANH style with no lines in the colored panel which does not match other new era pauldrons, also showing 2 rivets on top of the closure and the closure is attached on top of the pauldron ANH style. Mandalorian Season 2 Hot toys same, no lines on color area, silver rivets, closure on top and silver snaps Hot Toys refer to this trooper as a Stormtrooper Commander What does this all mean, well research is the key, the more you research something the more you may learn and for those uber accurate ones make sure you research others research

You're gonna love the Halloween Troop Keep up the good work Future Trooper!

Nice work

Looking GREAT!

Thanks for the info. I also think the PVC Looks too shiny and perfect and I heard it cracks easier. I think I will be going with the ABS then. I appreciate taking the time to answer.

About two weeks ago I found out that my ABS RS TK had yellowed, so I hope some of my infos regarding this matter help you. It took about 400 troop hours (estimation!) for my armor to yellow. About 200-250 (another estimation) of these should have been with indirect and direct sunlight exposure. You can wear it outside. The more you stay out of the sunlight the longer it should take until it yellows though. As of right now we know that UV light is one of the main contributors to yellowing, but proper armor care should also help keep your armor shiny. There is! You can find a few resources in this resource thread. I'll be using this method hopefully some time within the next few weeks to reverse my own yellowing, I'll update you with the results once I get it done. It is said that your armor might yellow more easily if it happened before, so that might become a procedure you need to do every now and then. For me it is too shiny. Where I troop most armors are made out of ABS and wearing PVC just sticks out. However, RS ABS armor is pretty creamy, so if you live in a region where many troopers have a brighter plastic, ABS is just as likely to look as if your armor has already yellowed. So I can't really help with that one. Maybe some of the troopers near you can help out!

Thanks, The helmets I believe have been previously approved back in the day, it is one of the Kevin Weir ones!

Congratulations Trooper, Welcome to the Legion.

Congratulations TK 21698!

Congratulations Christian and welcome to FISD!

Congrats Christian and yes, think about the levels 2 and 3.

Thanks, Glen. [mention]justjoseph63 [/mention], here’s a photo. In certain light the difference is a bit more apparent. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Congratulations trooper and welcome to the ranks

Welcome to the FISD, Christian, and SUPER nice set of armor there! I'm sure you can't wait to get out there and show it off, and it looks like you should have an easy path to make it to Expert Infantry approval (and perhaps Centurion) level if you choose to do so (wink wink, nudge nudge) .

Welcome to the ranks trooper. Great looking costume

Congratulations Trooper !! Great looking armor by the way. Perhaps you may want to consider to apply for our higher levels

Hi all, I’ve hit a bit of an issue. When RS sent my build kit, unbeknownst at the time, the ab buttons were vacformed from a whiter shade of ABS (a lot whiter in fact). I have only come to realize this when I’ve come to stick these to my ad armour. I’ve been back to RS today and they have provided me with a new set but these are now a shade darker. This is really going to bug me and I’m hoping this is a common enough issue that there is a solution. I’ve read online various ways of whitening ABS so I’m hoping there is a process I can follow to gradually match up the shade until they’re near enough the same. I’m hoping of course so any advice is welcome. Thanks, Tim Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Printing lines have been sanded down, bondo-ed, and repainted.

This weekends trooping was my 2nd time attending a Wedding. The Big Day took place in Beith at the Roebank Hotel. Where we were invited to escort the Groom down the aisle to his Groom to the sounds of the Imperial March! All the guests were unaware we were attending, so it was a huge surprise when we entered the ceremony. We were well received and lots of photo opportunities proceeded afterwards. This is the cupboard we hid from the guests

Two troops in a day keeps the Emperor away! Please welcome TK 88222 to the Stormtrooper Hall of Fame, May 2023! @tdurden Troop log can be found here. Well done trooper and congratulations! Two in a day is quite something! Keep this up and you'll have earned that badge in no time! With Unquestioned Loyalty Jonatan Östling TK-23592 "Nairy" Curator Hall Of Fame

Some pics of my 3. troop and 2 photos of my 4. troop

I wanted to save this for after my first troop. It didn't seem real before that. Perhaps still surreal. In 2012 at the Calgary Expo I first encountered the 501st "live" and of course I got in line for a photo. At the time I was in love with their costumes and the detail and thought that it must be so much fun for them and maybe one day I could do the same. I had a couple false starts when I was ready to pull the trigger. I was given some contact information for a local TK which was exciting as where I live there is not a lot of members and it is a very large garrison so vast distance between most of us. Well, long story short, he shut me down before I even got out the gate. I'm told he is no longer a member, but at the time he did manage to sour me on the idea. I had a hard time trying to make further contacts and life events always got in the way. I didn't know at the time that I was suffering from depression and anxiety and that was putting the brakes on a lot of things that I wanted to do but just couldn't. Once I got help with those I made advancements in my life and the 501st still was coming up in my mind. In the summer of 2022 I woke up one morning and told myself that now was the time to either do this or forget about it for good. This time it was much easier to connect with the right people and finally get the information I needed. @wook1138 must have answered a thousand questions and with each answer I got closer to the final decision which was, of course, to just do it! There were still a couple stumbling blocks along the way. I knew I didn't have the skills or resources to do the build myself so I did go for the commissioned build then just worked with the strapping and fitting adjustments to tune it for me. While that was still stressful it was still much easier to tackle those kinds of jobs over a scratch build. @revlimiter and @justjoseph63 got me through some stressful times which may have ended up in bailing if they hadn't stepped in and sorted me out. Revlimiter still puts up with me when I need to evaluate what I'm doing. I got things fitting well within acceptable parameters and submitted my final photos on January 8, 2023 (TK23108) then sweated it out for at least 3 years (well maybe 10 days) until the approval email came down the pipe and the Garrison public FB page posted this: Then there was another big event. Only a couple days after approval I had a sudden retina detachment in my left eye and emergency surgery to save the eye. That laid me up for a number of weeks and it didn't heal as well as hoped so I ended up with complications, which are ongoing, and very imbalanced vision between the eyes. I couldn't do any close up work without hours of struggling but there were things I wanted to do to advance the armor further so I worked in short stints and by feel a lot of the time and wondered the whole time if my journey was going to be over before it started. After struggling getting darker lenses in the bucket and fans I couldn't fit my head in with my glasses so trooping would have to be almost done blind. That was a stressful reality as sight lines are already bad enough without that added complication. I was finally able to get new glasses which helped correct some of the every day vision problems but I wasn't all the there yet with the sight clarity and the first opportunity to troop was getting closer and closer. I flip-flopped on the first troop a dozen times in the week leading up but forced myself to go. It was a three day event and much larger than I thought I'd want to do for the first one. Luckily @GilesWoodward saw that there might be a way I could still wear my glasses with the bucket and YES, it worked with some bucket juggling so after the first troop, basically blind, on the first night I was able to see for the remainder of the event! The nerves were going strong on night one and I almost had to be forced into the armor and by day 3 I could hardly wait to get into that armor and troop! The deep end of the pool was exactly what I needed and so was the welcome and all the fuzzy feels that negated that very negative shut-down years ago. Now I still feel like a guy with a plastic pail on my head and it amazes me that others see a Stormtrooper but damn it sure felt right and good! I think that now after a troop that I really earned my TK number and really am a 501st member. Thank you again to all those that got me here! As for the side story from that photo taken in 2012 (left above). I didn't know it at the time but the trooper in that photo was @Starscream3247and I met him last November at a 501st meet and greet but I didn't know that it was him in the photo. Turns out my trip to Calgary got me a photo with one of the troopers who I'll now regularly troop with out of Saskatoon! So at my first troop it seemed fitting to do a full circle and another picture with him but this time I'm in the armor! Bart

Looking smart trooper