MintImperial

Thank you, Joseph!

31st of October 2023 Mini Imperial’s birthday & my deadline! Had a minor setback in that the school didn’t let kids dress up on the day. So we went trick or treating in our neighbourhood that evening. Here are a few photos shared by our wonderful local community:

28th of October 2023: first troop with 501st Legion Hong Kong Garrison Took Mini Imperial on her first troop for the Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Drive

26th of October 2023 Recap of 90%-finished armour and size comparisons to my WTF kit That’s as far as I got before Halloween rolled around. Mini Imperial’s blaster (below) is a Disney Parks repaint from Tokyo Disneyland

26th of October 2023 Comfort modification Forearm padding in elbow recess While most of my comfort fixes and convenience hacks are designed to be invisible, this one is necessarily visible. Mini Imperial repeatedly complained that the forearms were cutting into her elbows, even after I shortened the forearms by one ‘dimple’ and cut the recess progressively deeper. I realised that I would be forever removing meat from the inside curve that would look more and more strange while not increasing comfort. I had to pad the curve. Using off-cuts from my tried-and-trusted butt EVA foam, I created little crescents and glued them into the recesses, creating padding that, close up, looked awful (especially after being worn once or twice and becoming a bit wrinkled) but, from a distance, was barely noticeable. No more complaints! Problem solved!

26th of October Comfort modification Padding I wanted to show you some of the ways I’ve padded the costume for comfort. It also gives more space for Mini Imperial to grow. For now it keeps the forearms, thighs, shins, etc. from wiggling and clattering while sitting snug and centred around her limbs. Later, as she grows, I can reduce, then remove padding to fit her better. I removed the codpiece straps as the snaps were pressing into her hips. I plan to eventually glue some elastic straps to replace the ugly-but-effective gaffer tape. Put foam covers on the shoulder elastic snaps to stop them hurting Tiny Trooper’s shoulders. Shoulder bells spaced and padded (also used a loop of elastic in place of the ABS bicep hook to eliminate any discomfort) Foam padding on snaps on the shoulder-bell-to-bicep elastic Biceps spaced on four sides Forearms padded top and spaced on four sides Thighs padded top & bottom and spaced on four sides inside

Adam & Caleb, thank you. You guys are too kind. Will try to get the rest of the thread up soon. And that TD really is so cute!

23rd of October 2023 Front-opening shins Because my Mini Imperial needed to be able to get the armour on and off by herself I had to rethink the tricky rear closure for the shins. So, I deviated from the CRL and went for front-opening/-closing, snapping shut with a magnet at the top and hinged at the back with an EVA foam cover strip. In order not to damage the EVA foam while glueing it to the shin I placed the original ABS cover strip over the top to even the clamping force. Top of left shin front with strong magnet closure Bottom front of shin with velcro strap inside (hooks facing out, loops facing in!) However: Creating a front opening was all well and good for the right shin but the sniper plate on the left shin presented a complication. I needed to make it removable but secure. Magnets were the obvious solution: And, to make sure the plate never got knocked off during trooping, I secured it with a strip of elastic:

4th of October 2023 Not yoghurt raisins! Created some ABS-coated magnets to keep various armour parts together. The poles are at 90° to the surface of the armour to create a much stronger hold. To do this I basically created a ball with the magnets inside with barely any ABS on the surfaces that will cling together and another flat edge at 90° to this that will sit fixed to the armour with a tiny bit more ABS paste. The reason I created the “raisins” separately instead of sticking the wad directly in place is to avoid excessive ABS paste warping the armour. I’m using these on the right side of the ab-kidney join and to hold my Mini Imperial’s shins together at the front. (Yes, you read that right).

4th of October 2023 Test fitting with EVA cod & butt

18th to 26th of September Comfort modification EVA foam codpiece and butt plate Although I’d already separated the codpiece from the ab plate for increased mobility, it still hurt Tiny Trooper when she sat down. So I decided to replicate the front and back in EVA foam instead. I used the heat gun to help shape the pieces as well as treat the surface as I wanted to paint them later with acrylic. Used a Dremel to round off the edges. Used 2 coats of this flexible acrylic gloss paint: followed by 3 coats of this flexible gloss varnish: Not the smoothest paint job ever. But from a distance it looks good enough and the colour match is pretty close. After 2 coats of acrylic: After 3 coats of varnish:

15th of September 2023 Safety modification The cutest tiny thermal detonator you ever saw I really wanted to avoid metal edges and anything that could hurt the Mini Imperial. Plus, I don’t have the tools to bend and shape metal. So for the TD brackets, I used ABS, scaled to sized and bent with a heat gun. Then covered the surfaces with adhesive foil tape. I cut them down to remove the portion that is normally hidden behind the belt. These do not need to be functional as I will bolt the TD directly onto the canvas belt itself.

9th of September 2023 Sniper plate Accuracy modification Full-sized sniper plates are hard enough already. But I was particularly disappointed with the kid sized one as it just wouldn’t sit right at all. In the end I decided to slice and splice it to get a more user-friendly shape. Glued it back together with a lot of ABS paste on the back.

8th of September Cover strips & limb details

7th of September 2023 Comparing helmet sizes (helmet painting WIP)

Thanks Glen. I used that trick when I painted my own helmet using a stencil. Instead, for this one, I just very carefully etched back into the blue with a toothpick soaked in alcohol. It’s by no means perfect. But match better than what you see above. Will post more photos later.

6th & 7th of September 2023 E-11 Holster Comfort Modification This needed to be as flexible as possible, so I chose to make it in EVA foam rather than leather. I ended up using my prototype despite there being an extra mark left from penciling the measuring lines. Hopefully it’s not too noticeable. To create the different front & back leather effects, I first treated the front side with a heat gun to create a shinier surface. Then I blotted the surface sparingly with an acrylic gloss sealant. I may still go back and add more for an increased shine. For the rougher back side of the ‘leather’, I used my thumb to smooth the EVA surface and it gave it a kind of suede look. Rivets, etc. were just superglued on. Snap closure (scaled down to ligne 20) is a dummy. There's actually a magnet on the back with another one inside the holster itself. Tan straps are painted strips off the same black EVA foam. Everything is scaled to just under 80% of the accepted measurements.

5th of September 2023 Comparing armour: rough-cut vs radically re-sized for Mini Imp! Helmet proportions look strange but what do you expect?!

5th of September 2023 Adding ABS belt squares

2nd of September 2023 Helmet painting time again Nope. Left is even worse this time!

2nd of September 2023 Big comfort modification: My most significant change and the one I’m most keen to share in case it’s useful. The plan was for my Mini Imperial to wear her TK armour to school on Halloween. It needed to be easy to put on and take off by herself. No messing about with belts and thermal detonators and impossible arm reaches. So I did this: Split the belt in two and fixed the ABS portion to the ab plate and the canvas portion to the kidney plate. Front: The ABS belt uses Chicago screws in the traditional three places but they go straight through the ab plate. There’s no canvas in between. BUT THERE IS A DELIBERATE GAP! Later you’ll see how I attached the ammo drop boxes directly to the back of the ABS belt. Back: The canvas portion was made from a cannibalised B-grade belt. It’s actually two separate halves hot glued together where the canvas belt ends would normally overlap on the raised back panel. Each half has plastic support running along inside from end to end. Using hot glue to seal the canvas ends to prevent fraying, I cut notches to fit around the Chicago screws and hold the belt roughly in place. The whole thing is attached with Velcro onto the kidney plate. When it closes, it’s indistinguishable from the traditional closure method:

1st of September 2023 Tube stripe painting continues Yup. Not my proudest work. I think my paint was too thick. Found it very hard to control the brush stroke width. Never mind. This isn’t the last time I’ll attempt this. Will clean this off and make another pig’s ear of it again at a later date.

31st of August 2023 Helmet painting continues: tube stripes I dreaded doing this. Didn’t want to use decals so I had to hand paint every stripe. Judge the results for yourself later!

31st of August 2023 Trimming limbs And keeping the offcuts, bagged and tagged, in case I need to reattach with ABS paste sometime in the future. Think I went through three different rounds of trimming before all the arm & leg parts stopped hurting my tiny trooper. I didn’t document every cut and I’m sure you don’t need to see them.

30th of August 2023 Thinking about upper level details as I go along. Ab plate buttons WIP.