Notes from the field: Public reaction to deathtroopers

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

On 20 August, 2011 2 deathtroopers joined the zombie walk at Hampton Beach, Hampton NH.

 

I was interested to see what the crowd reaction would be.

 

 

First off: we got a ton of positive comments from random strangers on the street. "Dude! Zombie stormtroopers! Awesome!"

 

Second: there were 2 people there that called us "deathtroopers" not "zombie stormtroopers". The funny part about that? If you combined their ages, they still wouldn't be old enough for the 501st! They were both around 8 years old. One had on a clone trooper costume from Halloween that had been splattered with fake blood. The other was Shaun from Shaun of the dead.

 

There were some kids that were afraid, obviously. There were 50 zombies shambling along the beach!

 

Overall it was a blast, and something I look forward to doing more of!

 

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Awesome!

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

Wicked Brian!!! It turned out great man!!

[Evolver79[TK]]

Awesome suits! They look great!

[TK-2126_MD[TK]]

???!!!! O.O seriously..... 2 pics, 2 pics thats just mean man. no need to tease us like that.

 

Really cool man!!!! the ( 2 ) look awesome. Plz Load more.

[dashrazor]

what they said

 

looks just horrible,,, oh wait..in this case that is a good thing

[Morphine]

Dude, you've got to got a box for that armor, or stop forgetting to leave it on the roof of your car. There's so many cracks in it now. Haha, That looks bloody (pun intended) great man. I checked out your other thread with the photos during the build and to be honest they did no justice to these photos. I wish I could see that myself.

[ctankep]

Epic awesome

[fett 4 real]

STG u never cease to amaze me, your suits are always top notch

[tk0000[501st]]

Dang, that is pretty cool. I love the darker white color.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

None of the official photographers have posted the pics yet

 

I've still got quite a bit of tweaking to do on mine. The torn out part of the chest armor needs more bandages... it's too open. I want to tweak the paint a bit more too. And then there are the rotting parts of my own skin to deal with, improving the mouth... it goes on and on.

 

My favorite pic so far is this one:

 

[TK-2126_MD[TK]]

10 days and no new pics??

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

nope, still nothing.

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

I had another deathtrooper event this weekend. Rock & Shock, an annual convention focused on heavy metal and horror movies.

 

Tickets were cheap ($15) and it wasn't far from home (45 minute drive) so I figured it would be a fun time to break out the deathtrooper.

 

The response (in an admittedly extremely biased crowd) was awesome! It's been years since I've had that many photo requests at a convention.

 

 

 

First the super cool story of the day.

 

There was a vendor there called Fiona's Fright Shoppe. They sold all sorts of spooky things...

https://www.facebook...ppe/69471949007

 

Fiona is the 6 year old daughter of the store owners. At 6 she's been going to cons for longer than many of my 501st friends, and is already a HUGE horror fan. She absolutely loved the deathtrooper!

 

She followed us around, smiled and said hi every time she saw us, and got a ton of pics.

 

This is Fiona and her dad with me:

 

 

I did make her 1 year old brother cry. By leaving. As we started to walk away he cried. Mom brought him back over, he stopped. She ended up walking with us for a bit to settle him down

 

Other cool pics:

 

Stormtroopers of Death!:

 

A fellow zombie:

 

Junior Freddy:

 

A couple of the WAAF.com Miss Mantown girls:

 

Cool costumes:

 

My friend Sioux who was booth-babing with Zombie Bomb comics. We talk on facebook but haven't seen each other in person for 10+ years:

 

Finally got a photo with Kane "Jason Vorhees" Hodder. Seeing him next to me, it's official. I am NEVER wearing that Jason costume again... I come up to his armpit!!!

 

Year of the Dead zombie pinup up girls. Yes, this was a zombie girls calendar.

 

On the shopping front I ended up picking up a few things, including a custom deathtrooper action figure. The first booth we saw had a collection of custom deathtroopers in various scales. Since space in my displays is at a premium I went with the 3 3/4" rather than the 12". Very nicely done, but I forgot to take a pic of it.

 

A lot of people there knew (and loved) the book. There were as many people calling me deathtrooper as there were zombie stormtrooper. A bunch of people asked if I was in the 501st, so it was cool to be able to say yes. Well, I could have said yes anyway, but not having to explain that I was with other costumes but not that one.

 

We also made a connection to a radio show that does a big annual Toys for Tots toy drive / costume ball in December, which I suspect I'll be going to now. So even the charity work continues while in zombie attire.