troopermaster

Looking good

No it will not. There is nothing more accurate than a full strip of lens material from ear to ear. Have you never seen inside an original helmet?

I have over 100 pieces of 1 1/8" flat aluminium bar that I had cut for my canister clips. PM me if you need some.

Use fabric paint like Dylon for the elastic.

100% screen accurate for me. The rougher, the better I can see why some would want an idealised armour, but that is purely for your own pleasure. Do not blame the public - they know no difference. Do they complain about Sandtroopers covered in dirt? So going screen accurate with weathered and battle scarred armour should be no different. We are Stormtroopers, so whether you go squeaky clean or rough 'n' ready, it is all good fun

Nice touch But I am struggling to identify the other countries on your helmet

Those look a lot like Loake boots which are a good boot to use. I can see they do have a pull tab at the rear of the boot like the Loake boots and the original boots too as seen below. I like the shape of the toe. These will make nice trooper boots

That sounds like a plan. I usually paint the helmets green and then add the ears before painting white. It would be a lot of work trying to do it the way they did back and you would not get the same effect since you are spraying onto ABS instead of PP. Adding the extra paint afterwards sounds good to me

I think the helmets were sprayed white before the ear caps were fitted. You can see traces of white paint or primer still visible where the ears caps were on this helmet. It seems the helmets were given a once over at SDS before the ear caps were fitted and shipped over to the studios where they were given a top coat. This would have been much thicker paint and why it looks like no paint underneath the ear caps because it would not have reached there with the ear caps in place. You can clearly see in this photo that one helmet has no ear caps and it is white all over. Even the rivets are painted white. The rest of the helmets with ear caps show unpainted bolts so they would have been plain white ABS at this stage with no paint.

Check out Steve's TM Luke replica. I believe he is 5'6" or 5'7" tall for reference http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/20077-replica-tm-luke-suit-jorney/

I would rather overlap the sides than trim them. You can see some of the actors in ANH were swimming inside their armour so do not worry. Better get it worn with the belt and see how if feels before cutting anything.

One more...

Here is one... I have more but the new photobucket set up is not allowing me to view all my photos without going though them page by page and I do not have the time for that

Your time will come, Glen

Well done indeed! Congratulations to everyone involved bringing this costume to life. You guys look awesome!!! Next job on the list is making all the different concept helmets to with this fantastic armour, Kevin

The drop box elastics loop over the belt and attach to the back of the box with a cap rivet. You can add some glue too if you wish for extra hold. The looped elastic hangs between the rivet and snap on your belt and you most likely have to trim a curve out of the elastic so it does not foul the snap. Then you glue the elastic in place directly to the canvas belt to stop it moving. In your photo, the fixings are: Yellow = Ammo belt, knee strap, drop boxes. Blue = Helmet Red = Ear caps Light Green = Abdomen - kidney, cod Dark Green = Holster rivets Purple = spare bracket bolts

Knee plate looks good as is. The trimming varied on screen from very little flashing to a lot, so I would offer it up as is and see what you think. You can always trim more off if like. For the body being long, you can make longer loops which will allow the chest to overlap more. But, I would wait until you have assembled the full torso to see how it feels before you make any permanent changes like cutting the neck line.

You should let the guys involved with this project reveal the armour and not snipe them. Seems like you could not wait to be the first to reveal it like I have seen you do in other threads.

Talk about stealing the glory

Karin, People can get on your nerves sometimes but you don't have to leave. Illegitimi non carborundum

I think I would rather buy some black boots and paint them white. Seems like a lot of work to me but you never know, it might work?

That sounds about right. As for adding 2mm to the length, just leave roughly 40mm on the ends and trim close to the tops of the ammo boxes. I am not really one for numbers when it comes to building these kits and go with what looks right compares to the original armour. I would not worry if something is a few mm's out and no one is going to knock you for it. There really are no set measurements for each piece since the originals varied in how they were trimmed or assembled so just go with the flow and you will be fine

I would not use the markings from RS. Their ammo belt was not cast from their original armour so it is a custom sculpt and cannot be compared to any original belt. There are things on the RS armour that are not original cast and those that are have been altered slightly for whatever reason, so do not take everything as truly screen accurate. Any information I post is to help people build their armour like the originals and this information has been gathered over many years. I keep reading about the RS armour and the issues people have with their kits and how that is how it must be because it was cast from an original. The truth is it was cast badly, parts altered and parts custom made, so the majority of it is not a direct, unaltered cast. I am not trying to bash RS but they are not trooper fans who have spent years studying original armour, they are just two guys who make armour. My advice for your belt trimming is to cut off 40mm from the ends of your last ammo blocks and then mark top and bottom corners 10mm from the ends and sides 12mm and cut the ends. They corners are not 45 degrees if you look at any original belt.