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OUT FOR DELIVERY!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not going to get much done at work today, am I?

It doesn't list weathering as an option in the CRL however if you can provide references of weathering present I'm sure your GML would take that into account. As always if you are unsure have a chat with your GML about adding scuffs/weathering. There are so many ways to do weathering depending on the look you are after, I find with scuffs to use a dry brush and waterbased acrylic paints, can rub off easily if you apply too much but does dry nicely.

The armor is not quite complete yet, because I still need to attach the lower leg and kneecap armor to the strapping, but I am at the point where I can do an almost full test fitting! I just did so, and I am absolutely amazed at how great my armor looks on me!!! Here's another bathroom mirror selfie to show how far I have progressed (and you all get a partial face reveal as an added bonus). Just remember, the full costume is not complete until I also put on my makeup and wig! The arm strapping has just a bit more slack in it than planned, but fortunately, that does not adversely affect how the arm armor sits on me! The belt was difficult to properly fit, and the accessories did not help things. Nevertheless, I was able to get the belt to sit in a decent position. Another problem with the belt is some paint transfer has occurred from the black belt on to the white armor. I'll have to correct this before the con, and it appears the clear coat on the belt was not as sufficient as I thought (I probably missed spots, resulting in the paint transfer). Seeing myself in the armor I have worked so hard on is absolutely fantastic! Now, on to attaching the remaining pieces to the strapping.

High time i start my build thread! I had ordered from Imperial Surplus a little while ago. Big shoutout to Kevin for offering superb customer support even though my order was placed very close to an unfortunate incident. Hope everything is back on track. That being said, the two boxes arrived earlier than i had assumed. Impressive how all of that fit inside the box! I spent plenty of evenings rough trimming all the piece after giving them a good cleaning with rubbing alcohol. Most of the supplies were bought in advance while i waited for the box to arrive. Research is key, i am using a lovely guide/blog called "My Descent Into Nerdness" and a bunch of tutorials that were linked. Like setting snaps and so forth. Taped the vambraces just to see how it would look, pushing some excitement to speedrun this. Can't have enough clamps. (Yea, the odd one out was for the girly touch ;P) First butt joint Getting some magnets ready to not scratch the armor too much.. ... aaand put them to good use! Progress went on, sanded shoulder bells and assembled the biceps armor. Just held stuff in place for a first look. Noticed that the vambraces sadly could not perfectly overlap on the raised edge, unless i fancied lubing up my hand to barely squeeze through the opening. Seems i got big hands! So we had to give a bit more space there. Bicep still needs touching up, as everything else. Taped a shin and tried with my placeholder boots - which then went to someone to take some of the excess material away around the ankle. Should make the shin armor sit a bit lower afterwards, as closing the shin caused the leather around the tongue to bunch up. The curse of EU size ~43 / 44 or i believe 12 in US size. Shin assembly afterwards While most things were curing (Using E6000 that was a bit harder to find here in Germany. Hope it wasn't one of the fake versions, fingers crossed), i used the time to finally stop being scared of messing up the helmet and went at it with an exacto knife. Don't be like me, do use gloves for anything. Even if it is just 'testing the waters a little'. Tackling the belt boxes currently, took the entire afternoon today but i think they turned out alright. Always wear protection! And don't forget to take a break here and there. If i can do it, anyone else that tries their hand at it will also manage. A dremel/rotary tool is a wonderful little helper and there is plenty of spare ABS to get a feel for it. If you are unsure, try to take little steps. Always easier to take a bit more away than to try putting something back after you took too much away. Last but not least - question time! Do i trim up to this line at the eyes? I could not find a helmet that was flipped upside down to check. I do know that i could take a bit more away around the teeth area, judging by other pictures i saw of FemTK buckets. But i am not sure regarding the eyes on mine.

I noticed that was a little low in the picture. The shiny plastic plays tricks on the eyes.it looked spot on when I did it. And yes, the back is close. But it is right a pencil height. Thank you again! Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

A little better?

I would if you are thinking of going for higher level approval, it's really only the first one you have to move. I had to do this on a recruits helmet once, I used clear tape and pressed hard on the front tube stripe, gently lifted the tap and used a blade to start lifting the corner then lifted the rest off. Easy to reposition with using clear tape

Yay, happy dance, then the panic when you realise you have to start cutting Remember the golden rules, measure twice and cut once, don't be afraid to ask questions, there is no silly questions only silly mistakes from not asking Good luck with the build

Looking good. One thing to watch especially for higher levels is the fall of the tube stripes L2: Fall of tube stripe tops ideally lean toward the front.

Hi again Christian. I'll be making your review and I'll need you to make a Basic Level fix to your Thermal Det. CRL Basic Level: "The white control panel raised ribbed pad faces the rear,..." As seen in the reference images below, the plate on your TD needs to come down in the back. The ribbed area should face toward the rear, and it should go aligned with the canvas belt.. REFERENCES Thank you Trooper.

Congrats!

YEAH BUDDY!!! And no, no work to be done this afternoon... other than TK work.

It looks awesome! Can't wait for the final result Brian!

Appreciate all the links and suggestions. I've definitely made use of them. I hit up Dave and am awaiting a response currently. I also reached out to Walt but he also directed me to Dave so sounds like the right track.

Those are fantastic! Thanks so much @TKSpartan

Do you mean between the posterior and kidney or between the abdomen and kidney? The V tabs I came up with some years ago to stop the posterior pushing away from the kidney. Normally you only need one at each end of the kidney/posterior. Some add extra ones The tabs between abdomen and kidney help them to stay in alignment and not put sidesways when closed. There are many ways to do this.

Hi, perhaps this image can help And this one I found

That's awesome! Thanks!!! I appreciate you always jumping in!!! Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

Late to this party because I kept putting off finding the link in my amazon history that I'm sharing below. A DEBURRING TOOL. I didn't discover this until about 2 years into my build. LOL. Basically it's a blade with a slight bend in it that can be used to deburr (smooth) the edges of plastic. Essentially a beveling tool if you press with it hard enough. It works wonders for smoothing the edges of armor you've cut/trimmed, including curved pieces or straight cover strips. If I ever have the pleasure of constructing another suit from kit-form again, I'm even tempted to try using a deburring tool exclusive, with no sand paper, just to see if I can! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JY7LXI

UGH. TIP #3 - make sure I double check everything against the CRL. Thanks for calling that out. Back to the drawing board! Thank you!

once the paste has set you can file/sand into shape might take one or two go's then totally cleanup the shins and add the velco at the back As you can see once you have been through all this the shims still look like they should and the raised portion stays nicely inline with the thighs

use the templates to make shims out of ABS and then glue (E6000) in place once you are happy with the shims mix up a batch of ABS slurry (there plenty of references to this on the forum) and start to fill in the joins Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

step1 assemble the shins as normal and check what you've got to work with if the shin sits nice around the ankle as in the above pic reduce the return edge to minimal size (i.e just showing the top radius) just to help then carefully cut done either side of the raised areas thill you get them to join up and sit straight as with the pic above. once you have achieved this you can make triangular templates from card to cover the now visible areas do the templates for both shins Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk