shashachu

It's adorable. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Hey Steph! I'm 5' 3" and nearing finishing a WTF stunt kit. I haven't gotten it together to start a build thread here, but I've made a number of posts on the A Little Short for a Trooper Facebook group. I didn't have to do a ton of trimming for length (split the ab/cod, cut the first dimple off both forearms, cut the top of the ab and shortened the kidney, heat bent the shoulder tabs on the back to bring it higher) but I have had to do a ton of trimming for width. The forearms especially were a pain, but I think I could have left them bigger than I did; I was just worried about Popeye arms. The hardest part about them is that they have a back ridge that flares out and I had a really hard time getting them to fit back together once I'd trimmed them for width. Here's a few pics for reference: http://imgur.com/a/j4z0x (The whole arm one shown is before I trimmed the forearm length, but it gives a good idea how much I trimmed for width.) Otherwise, I took quite a bit of width off the ab and kidney, and have used the heat gun liberally on almost all parts of the armor: to bend the ab and kidney so they wrap around me better, shape the butt piece, bring in the width of the chest and back, etc. Zel and Fragarock have good tips about how to safely heat bend using the heat gun. Zel's tip especially about heating just up to the point the plastic loses its springiness was invaluable. Anyway, feel free to reach out over PM or I'll keep an eye on your thread.

Love it!! Thanks for sharing.

I've been a Star Wars fan essentially since birth and had thought about joining the 501st on and off over the years, but what tipped me over the edge was having my own son in the ICU for about 6 months of his first year due to a congenital brain cyst and the ensuing complications after 17 surgeries. I even met a member of the GGG at the same hospital who also had a son in the ICU and I never got his name, so I hope to reconnect after I get approved. The idea that I can bring some smiles to kids like our sons is all the motivation I need. (My son is 3 and is doing great now.) Edit: Just saw the bit about including a photo. I've been working on my kit for about 3 months and just did my first full suit up (minus the helmet which you can see on the ground behind me) a couple nights ago and I was honestly giddy to see the photos. I decided to try to build to Centurion from the beginning and I hope I've done a good job.

Looks awesome! You should test this on some scrap, but I *think* if you go over the pieces with a heat gun it will harden up the foam a bit. But be aware that it will also shrink he foam slightly, so some details might open up. (the foamsmith book does this deliberately to create detail in armor.)

Awesome! Glad you're finding it useful.

Nice work!

Amazing! The folks on this forum will never cease to impress me.

Awesome! Can't wait until my kids are old enough to have their own kits. And re EVA foam, if you haven't already, sign up for The RPF, where you can see a bunch of EVA foam builds. Also, Punished Props has a book called Foamsmith all about making foam armor.

Did you end up trimming both pieces? Or just the one with the pencil line in your picture? I had a lot of trouble with the forearms because of their size and hacked a ton off them. It's fine now but I'm curious what other folks are doing.

Helmet looks awesome! I'm leaving mine for last because I'm scared...

As WTF is a somewhat newer maker, there aren't too many build threads yet. MoSc0ut is the only WTF kit I know of to reach higher levels of approval, and I see you've found his thread already. Rob is shooting for EIB and Centurion as well, although he hasn't applied yet. (There's also a discussion on his thread about the proper pairing of the shins in a WTF kit.) If you're smaller, I'd highly recommend Diana and Cricket's builds for advice on fitting a kit to a smaller person. They both have RS, but the same general principles apply. In looking at build threads, the arm pieces of WTF seem very similar to ATA kits, so I've been looking at those build threads as well.

In the last pic your left shin seems to be riding high, so maybe add stirrups if you haven't already.

I haven't even completed my kit, so take my feedback with a grain of salt, but I have read through *a lot* of EIB and Centurion submission threads. I think for sure yours should be good to go for EIB. For Centurion, I am guessing they'll ask you to tighten up the kidney/ab gap, and possibly the bicep/forearm gap and shoulder bell gap. Maaaaybe your TD is sitting a bit high. But overall everything really does look great (again, to my unexpert eye.)

Paul - are you going by the shape of the pieces? The slope of the ridges? Both? Just curious.

Ah interesting. So you're suggesting that we've all paired them up completely incorrectly? That would be worth a try. That would also explain why my right outer looks like a left inner.

I figure if we're debating this much about the shins, then it probably doesn't make a visual difference, so I vote for just assembling them in a way that fits. For me, this is what Christine recommends - the long sides on the outside. TBH, though, looking at my shins, I feel as if the WTF shins are made up of mixed up pieces - although the right shin fits me much better with the longer side on the outside, I also feel the shape of that longer piece (with the curve higher up) makes it looks like a left inside shin. Here's a pic of my shins to illustrate. I've now trimmed the longer sides but they are on the outside.

The bicep and forearm ridges gave me hell, too, but I did like you did and just cut them off. I believe ATA armor also has those ridges but I couldn't find any ATA builds by smaller people to see how they handled it. I particularly had some struggles with the forearms because taking off so much material meant that the swoop on the inner forearms would have gotten really uneven. Are you planning on recutting it? Or perhaps you don't have the same issue. In general, so far I feel that WTF armor is friendly for smaller people in length, but not as much in width.

Welcome! Glad to see more WTF kits popping up here. I'll be following your build!

Ooh. I have a WTF kit and also got one big and one small cap. Didn't think about contacting him for a replacement...

I'm in love with this thread! So am I correct in reading that your ab/kidney does taper in slightly? ie the top circumference is smaller than the bottom?

Glad to see you updating this thread! I'm interested to see what you do with the forearms, because they were just MASSIVE on me, especially the right. WTF forearms seem very similar to ATA from what I can tell from ATA build threads, and they have an interesting flare out shape that made it really hard for me to size down. I actually ended up cutting off the ridges on the front *and *back and doing a ton of hot water reshaping. I don't know if I just had too high expectations of how small the forearms pieces should be compared to my own forearms, but I couldn't think of another way to make them fit. If I had to do it again I don't think I'd remove the front ridges (like you said, they should be fixed) and just deal with the forearms being large. I think it'll look OK once I install the cover strips, but I realize now that what I did is highly unusual.

Nice work, Rob! Did you get two sets of ears? Some folks who ordered wtf got two sets but I only got one. Better not mess it up! Also I noticed that the cover strip abs is twice and thick - a nice detail.

Nice work! I'll be following this build as I'm 5' 3" and have a WTF kit that should be arriving any day now.

This thread has convinced me I never want to build a FOTK.