New Magma Trooper for the Star Garrison and Special Ops(picture heavy)

[TK6294]

(since this is special ops i thought it best fit here)

 

Hey Troops,

I wanted to share pictures of my new costume that I just finished. It is one of the ultra rare Magma Troopers (part of special ops).

 

I bought this kit off of ebay from a 501st member about a year ago. I got a great deal on it. I have been working on it for a long time. the kit had been hastily thrown together to make a Georgia bulldog trooper. The prior owner had riveted EVERYTHING together. To add to the problems, many of the rivets had caused cracks in the armor. So i had my work cut out for me.

 

Red armor is tough to work with. it is translucent and turns orange when it is stressed. Fortunately any stressed or orange spots can be removed with a little heat from a heat gun. I started out by drilling out all of the rivets and removing all of the Georgia decals.

 

I immediately had a challenge of patching all of the rivet holes. that is where i got a little bit creative. I took a hole punch and punched out red filler rounds from spare pieces. I then put one of the rounds into the hole. Next i used a soldering iron to melt the plastic round into the surrounding hole area. that did a good job of bonding things together but it made for an ugly surface. I then took sand paper from 300 grit to polishing grad of 20,000 grit and wet sanded out the spots until they were totally smooth. I had about 30 of these holes to fix. I then finished up with novis polish and finally car wax.

 

The hole repairs are tough to spot but i can see every one of them since i have the most critical eye. Nobody notice them at the first troop unless i pointed them out. I am please with how they turned out.

 

The rest of the armor was pretty straight forward. I took my time to make it very wearable. I also spent a great deal of time polishing out all the scratches from the previous owner. My boots are from TKboots. i used red high performance gloss enamel spray paint from rustuleum. the paint worked very well and is very flexible which was surprising. They are still in good shape after 4 hours of trooping and a very busy Dallas Comic Con.

 

Here are some photos taken by a Jeff Brownlee, a local recruit. He did an awesome job. I know the Texas Flag Pauldrin is non-cannon but it really adds to the look and was extremely popular at the Comic Con.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[v7sg[TK]]

Very nice, a rare costume indeed. Do you have plans to replace the bucket? I know it's not gonna be easy, but it would really add to the look if you decide to go for a more size accurate helmet.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

You can always replace it with a Bucky head

[bluehickey]

That turned out great, and that was a very creative solution for filling the holes!

[TK6294]

I wanted to do a different helmet but settled for the FX style that came with the kit. What made up my mind was the paint matching. It would be very difficult to achieve the same color and look unless i spent a fortune on a professional paint job. The other option would have been to repaint the whole kit. Which I also did not want to do. I was able to get a close enough match on the shoes but it would not look right on the helmet.

 

It is nice to have a roomy helmet for once, lol....

[SuperTrooper]

Auto paint stores can match and make a spray paint can for you for about $12 so you can get the exact shade of red.

 

Just an idea.

[tkrestonva[TK]]

That turned out great, and that was a very creative solution for filling the holes!

 

Agreed. I was trying to figure out a way to smooth out some filled-in rivet holes on my armor, now I know how to do it.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Get a new bucket and we'll figure out a way to get Magma EI

[TrooperTim]

Creativity and ingenuity are part of every build, and re-build. Great work on this Jim. I'm sure in the future I'll get to troop with the Magma!