troopermaster

Come to an end? Are you joking? You paid good money for a finished helmet, waited over a year and for what.....a damaged, half finished helmet? I would ask for either a new helmet (like the one that you paid for) or a partial refund (if you are happy to accept the helmet you have) to make up for the cost of the missing parts and labour to finish it off. I can't believe Matt is getting away with kind of behavior

It's SDS.

No news unfortunately

The blasters from sci-fire are excellent. Best blasters for trooping in my opinion I have an E-11 and a DLT-19 and the details are fantastic. They're lightweight and virtually indestructable but......hard to get into the UK now unfortunately. There's a couple of Corellian arms smugglers on this forum if you can catch them between one of the space ports

Is makerofthings a member on here or on any of the other prop/costuming forums?

I just wanted to add that he states the cracks in the helmet which were a result of vacuum forming are in fact the result of a bad craftsman. Anyone who pulls a helmet (or anything) and damages the plastic on mould removal obviously has no skills in mould making or vacuum forming.

Got mine too this morning. Can't wait to get stuck into it

I believe your right and even think he is in this thread!

Payment sent

It would be awesome if they would actually recast a real ANH suit but I just can't see LFL letting them rip apart the only few suits they have. Even if they did, the moulds would be cleaned up and sanitised, the plastic and strapping would not be the same either. Remember that the original suits were literally thrown together and to say the assembly was rough is an understatement. There is no way that any company is going to produce anything like that to sell on a large scale. They will be pristine and idealised. I honestly don't think we will ever see an exact replica come from any licence holders unfortunately. You will find better suits available here on the forums.

That's the one!

Is it a guy called Ian by any chance?

Just thought I'd show one of my sets of armour that I scuffed up and weathered. I have to say that rough armour is the best. My shiny 1mm flex suit will soon be getting some rough treatment too

That's a gap between his shoulder and shoulder bell strap so your seeing straight through the armour, no reflections. The torso armour is strapped in such a way that it is all one unit and sit's higher on shorter guys like the trooper in question. They are not so form fitting and adjustable like what replica armour is strapped like, it's one size fits all

Absolutely

Definately silk screened, but I thought they were paper not vinyl, or was that just ESB decals?

Where did you get the hand plates from?

Looks home made to me. It is ROTJ esque, definately not from any of the movies but closer to ROTJ.

Yeah I'd say silk was an assumption.

I think you might have problems with the stitching ripping the rubber. I have never really studied ESB gloves so I couldn't say if rubber gloves were used or not. Cotton lyrca or spandex would be a better choice to sew on IMO. The only hand plates that I have noticed that don't have the stitching on is the ROTJ style armour in the freezing chamber when the troopers are trying to cuff Chewie. Those hand plates would have been attached to the forearm and had a loop of elastic across the palm.

Vern, the AP is designed to be overlapped since it is essentially ROTJ armour. Most people choose to butt seam the arms and legs to resemble ANH or ESB, though they are designed to be overlapped originally (since that is how the original it was cast from was). I think you need to sit back and relax mate. Sounds like you have a bee in your bonnet about your AP kit. If you were unsure about any part of the assembly then you should have just asked on here. Everyone has different ways of assembling their kit. No-one to my knowledge has built their armour exactly like the original ANH so don't beat yourself up if you think some parts on your kit are not perfect. It sounds as though you have got the wrong end of the stick here with some info that is not correct from whoever. Just remember that the AP is not a 100% direct recast from an original armour, so don't expect to see the same lines on it as an original LFL suit because they just ain't there. The AP is someones interpritation of an ANH suit and by no means screen accurate, just a 4th gen screen cast derivative. Please take this as an FYI, not a bash Stukatroopers tutorial is fantastic and his armour is the best AP I have seen, so it seems strange to me that you would think otherwise Each to their own I guess. Show us some photos of your kit and tell us where you think you went wrong. Maybe it isn't as bad as you think?

But they didn't have the 'real thing'. They had 3rd generation modified recasts. The AP arms have the overlap because they are ROTJ, same as the rest of it, just some parts have been modified to look like ANH. I have comparison shots of an early TM vs SDS. Any particular piece of armour you'd like to see?

AP armour is NOT cast from an ESB suit. It was made by GF who recast a TE ROTJ and converted those moulds to what he thought at the time was accurate ANH. From what I know, AP made new moulds and made some slight changes further reducing it's original screen used lineage. The moulds are like 4th generation and the original shapes and sizes have been altered. I am sure AP who is a member here will/can confirm this. I am not knocking AP at all, just saying what I know about it's history. The forearms...again, no ANH armour to my knowledge has been recast and all replicas (except DL) have the same doubled right arm or incorrect tour suit parts. I agree with you that it would be great if there was a way that all major replica armour could be lined up together and compared against the LFL screen used ANH armour. I've been trying for years now to get my moulds as close as possible to the original armour and that's my goal at the end of the day. My hobby is sculpting and mould making, and also finding out everything there is to know about screen used ANH armour and helmets. I try and put all these things together to make armour as accurate as possible. When I read comments like yours I hold back and wait to see what evidence is put forward, but have yet to see anything that makes AP more screen accurate than TM.

The joining strip is not moulded into the armour. It's the white adhesive that makes it look that way. Want to compare that pic to your AP thigh? Screen grabs don't really show you what you need to see to make good comparisons. You say things about AP that are just not true. I know you think you see things from screen grabs that look like your AP and you make some pretty wild statements about it's accuracy, but if you had the reference material I have then you thik twice about what you are saying. Can you get the comparisons up to show where you think AP better matches LFL than TM? I really am interested to see where you are coming from Vern.

No problem Mark I'm just waiting to see the comparison pics with LFL/AP/TM armour. Unfortunately I don't have photoshop anymore so I can't do them myself, so waiting patiently for the ones from Vern or whoever else wants to do them.