stormtrooperguy's ATA build

[Madmartigan]

not much progress last night... the ab and kidney plates are sanded and painted, and the thighs have the front seam glued. my thighs are big at the top and really skinny at the bottom, so the backs are going to need odd V shaped shims. i'll have to trim them down at the bottom, but add about 1.25" at the top.

 

not sure how i can blend that in with the proper strip down the back, unless i go clone style seamless with filler and such, then glue the strip. hmmm... something to think about.

 

i've accepted that i'm not going to wear this on the 13th, so i'm going to be taking it a bit slower. too many other projects going on to really blast through this one.

 

Hmm...well, it is HIPS armor, so if you decide to acetone putty the seam then you have that going for you. I think if you want to add the proper width finishing strip, that's probably your best option. But you wouldn't necesarily have to fill the entire gap with putty. You could lay down your v-shaped inner shim, then create a second v-shaped "leveling" shim and glue that into the channel created between the two sides in the back. Make that shim match the channel closely enough and you'd essentially only be puttying and sanding a very small portion of the actual gap. Once you prime and paint over that, chances are you'd never even see it. Would be impossible with an unpainted ABS suit, but again, the HIPS gives you some room to play.

 

I'm sure you will come up with something even more elegant.

 

Good luck!

Edited October 6, 2010 by Madmartigan

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

I think that the best solution is to let the armor stay as close to it's original shape as possible. if you can do that... then I think you've

done your own sculpt that way... and if it fits better for you then you've won on all levels.

 

good job on the build!

 

your holster is really awesome dude, I almost didn't want to let it go!

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

the holster is here, as are the boots! thanks much for the holster, it looks great!

 

for the thighs, i've got one of them almost done.

 

i cut the entire molded in ridge off the back, made a v shaped shim curved it, and glued that in. i'm going to putty the seams, sand it smooth, and glue the "finishing strip" down the center back where it should be.

 

*sigh* i was hoping to get away from seamless construction!

 

i've got the thigh fronts glued, 1 thigh back, both biceps. the ab plate and kidney plate are painted.

 

chugging along!

[Naglium[501st]]

keep up the good work!!

Edited October 12, 2010 by Naglium

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

i'll take a couple of pics of the thigh tonight. it's looking good. shaping the shim to the right curve by hand was "fun", but it's there. the acetone/hips putty should be cured enough to sand when i get home. i'll probably skim that with some bondo to fill dimples, then paint it up.

 

if this thigh works out, the other one should be a breeze.

 

i'd like to have all my parts glued tonight. i just have to do shins, forearms and that other thigh, then attach the shoulder straps to the chest.

 

i need to go out and get some white canvas for the belt. i'm going to bend the belt to curve along with the armor. repeated bending of the plastic always makes me nervous... i'd rather have it follow the right shape.

[pandatrooper[TK]]

Your build sounds like it's coming along nicely. Here's a tip for getting a good bend on your belt armor.

 

http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=8757

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

ooh, nice trick! thanks for the link!

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

So here's the thigh shim with a 1st coat of putty:

 

 

The lines look really obvious but that's misleading. What you are seeing there is the oozed up all purpose cement that's been sanded smooth, with the putty around it. It's actually pretty good looking for a first pass. A quick hit of bondo on top and you'll never know it was added in.

 

WAY more effort than I was expecting, but it worked out pretty well.

 

I do need to adjust the top edge though. There's a hump at the shim, so I'll draw out a smoother transition from side to side and trim it down.

 

On to the next leg!

 

The biceps are all glued and ready for paint.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

I was off at a convention all weekend, but still got a little work done.

 

my helmet decals arrived. i got the dave m style "hand painted" ones and put them on the helmet during breakfast one morning.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

creeping along. the biceps now have their finishing strips glued down and are getting painted today.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

back on the wagon!

 

tonight i did the final filler in the back of thigh #1, cut, shaped and glued in the shim in thigh #2, glued the shin fronts and outer seams on the forearms.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

Finally some pictures! I keep forgetting to bring my iPhone down with me when I'm working on it!

 

Thigh with the shim all blended in and painted. See what I meant in an older post about my thighs being really wide at the top and really skinny at the bottom? What a pain!

 

 

And the other one still looking all ugly...

 

 

Speaking of ugly, I overtrimmed my ears a bit, so I built it back up with apoxie sculpt:

 

 

As of now I've got the chest, back, ab, kidney, butt, shoulders, shoulder straps, 1 thigh, 1 bicep, thigh boxes, belt boxes, knee plate and handplates painted and ready to go.

 

The other thigh is a work in progress. The forearms, shins, bicep and belt are ready for paint, but my workshop is a mess and the paint booth is full of crap that's leaving me not enough room to actually paint. So, I'm left waiting for stuff to dry and cycle out. There SHOULD be enough space in there for a full suit but I still have yet to clean up from a big clone armor run in September.

 

Anyway, target for completion / trooping is 11/15, so I've got plenty of time.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

Did a test fit, and found that I *bleeped* up on the right thigh... When I glued in the shim, the pieces slipped a bit and I didn't notice... resulting in it having a 3/4" overlap on one side rather than the 3/8" I had measured for.

 

So I had to cut it apart and redo it.

 

*sigh*

 

Other than that, the pieces all worked well. I have to trim the length of the thighs a bit, but nothing huge. Same with the shins.

 

The belt still needs to be sewn, and I need permanent straps, rather than stealing them out of one of my clone suits.

 

Getting warmer!!

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

putting the finishing touches on...

 

ab details painted:

 

knee connected:

 

shoulder straps glued (front only!):

 

shins fit (this was before the knee went on)

 

i repainted the thigh that i messed up (the shim slipped when i glued it and i didn't notice, so it was too tight still. i had to cut the shim and do it again).

 

last bits to do: sew the belt, and sew the various straps. then put it on and send in the pics.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

i hate you stormtrooper thigh!

 

after all that fuss, it turns out that i really just misjudged the size of the shim. i need another 1/2" diameter.

 

so at this point i'm just cheating it by making the finishing strip down the middle wider. reglued, ready to paint tonight.

 

i put a bunch of the strapping together. there's a bit more strapping to do tonight... i got frustrated at the thigh last night and didn't finish fitting it. so close!

[SuperTrooper]

Looks like build is getting there. Keep the modification pictures coming, we all love pictures of chopped armor.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

First fitting. Not quite to EIB spec yet, but good enough for basics.

 

 

Things still to do:

 

My neck seal isn't ribbed... it's recycled from my clone costume.

I need to adjust the fit on the back of the knees a bit... can't bend my legs quite as much as I'd like.

The butt can is too heavy on the cloth belt and makes the belt sag. Gotta reinforce / support that a bit.

 

Overall it's fitting pretty well. I'll break it in tomorrow night at the One Man Star Wars Show.

[Trooperman]

Brian, looking good , just one thing check the position of your drop boxes.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Trooperman

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

Brian, looking good , just one thing check the position of your drop boxes.

 

how so? too high up, too close in?

 

i was thinking they should come down a little bit.

[Madmartigan]

how so? too high up, too close in?

 

i was thinking they should come down a little bit.

 

Farther out to the sides. The elastic strap should sit more or less between where the last box is on the belt and the plastic covered rivet.

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Agreed. The goal is to have the drop box outer edge aligned with the outer edge of the plastic utility belt.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

ah, somehow i had it in my head that they should be aligned with the last row of boxes. easy fix

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

Tonight was my first troop as a stormy since Sept 2007 (which was technically a sandtrooper. For clean stormtrooper I go way back to feb 2006!!).

 

Gotta fix the belt boxes and shorten up the straps on the thighs. Other than that it was a success! Nothing fell apart!

[Ripcode[501st]]

Obviously late to the party....

 

Looking good Brian!

[Darth Voorhees[501st]]

also late to the party....looks great brian! Another question...how did ya lose all that weight! i need to drop about 50lbs myself