Zel's Anovos Stunt Build for the Mini and Vertically Challenged

[Zel]

Helloo fellow amazing plastic space people,

 

 I will try to keep this thread up to date as I attempt to build an Anovos kits to fit my small and disproportionate (xD) 5'4" frame. I've been loving this forum and community and look forward to start this journey of building a new kit!

 

My introduction to Star Wars costuming have been deciding build a "mandalorian" kit one week before the first convention I have ever attended (Fan Expo 2015). I honestly looked pretty rough, with foam "armour" cut from kid's playing mats and a paper mache helmet (I'm the one of the right).   

After a year of working on my mando kit, I was approved as an official merc! Since then, I have been trooping fairly frequently with the mercs as well as when I am invited by the local 501st garrison to their troops (Shoutout tp Outer Rim Garrison! you guys rock!) I absolutely love trooping, and the feeling of being in armour. I looooove the way kids' face light up when then see you and I can really let my inner cheeky self shine when I'm in armour!

(At a recent 501st troop benefiting children with special needs)

 

For our anniversary, my tk bf decided to put in on the list for a ATA kit (how sweet!) but the shipping time meant that I would have to wait until at least November before the kit would be ready. Being very impatient and excited, opportunity struck about a week ago, when a local garrison member expressed that he was trying to sell his un built anovos kit. This is my chance! I can start building now! being very excited, I decided to try on my bf's kit (tk-21887 also anovos, but he is 6'2" and definitely not mini sized.)

My legs are tree trunks and everything is too loose, but it looks alright! I can make an anovos kit work! So I took the plunge and bought the kit! The box it came in is huge! I can actually fit inside the box with plenty on room!             

 

Soo I have tk boots in order, armour pieces all trimmed to the trim line when I bought it ( Thanks Patrick!) and ready to get this show started!!!

 

 

 

               

 

 

Contents: 

 

1. Sizing Forearms

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=563394

 

2. Sizing Biceps

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=563397

 

3. Finishing Sizing Forearms and Biceps

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=563600

 

4. Finishing Arms and Ready for Strapping

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=564182

 

5. Sizing and gluing the front of my Thighs and Shins

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=565270

 

6. Torso shaping (using a heat gun)

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=565282

 

7. Cutting off the cod 

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?p=565343

 

8. Strapping... Part one: Zel's guide to making snap plates

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?do=findComment&comment=565661

 

9. Strapping Part 2: Ab Width Sizing for Curvy People, Split rivets, Han Snap and Other Particularities. 

https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/42043-zels-anovos-stunt-build-for-the-mini-and-vertically-challenged/?do=findComment&comment=566134

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Zel

[Zel]

1. Sizing Forearms.

 

Since the armour came pretrimmed (Thanks Patrick), I can start right away on sizing and building! Faced with a mountain of oversized white plastic, I wasn't very sure where to start. I have decided to start on the biceps and forearms as they are rumoured to be the easiest pieces to build. This also gave me an opportunity to practice sizing and gluing on relatively more simple pieces rather than starting with the daunting task that is miniaturizing the torso.

 

Side Note: I got too excited during this process to take many pictures, sorrrry! I will work on this!!

 

For the forearms, I started by attaching the "flat" butt joints of the forearms together with masking tape. As this joint would be facing up from my respective forearm, I'm not going to take any materials out here to accommodate for the width. This helps maintain the shape and look o the armour while effectively miniaturizing it. With one side of the forearms joint, I measured the forearm piece on my respective forearm (left and right) and left 0.5 inches (what I heard is a good space, according to Cricket's RS build thread)  of space between me and the plastic armour, overlapping the excess plastic. I then measured the overlap on the top, middle and bottom of my forearm. Which is 3-2.5-2.5inches for my right forearm and 2.5-2-2 inches for my left. Holy moly thats a lot more than I expected.....

 

Side note on anovos armour: The left forarm it together fairly well, with little issues. However, the right forearm halves are VERY different to each other, with the butt seams not matching well as well has having a different length.   This drove me a bit crazy, but ukswarth guide on anovos is amazing and of great help.

 

Religiously following the golden "Measure Twice, Cut Once" advice, I proceeded to cut the armour to my size. I first practiced by cutting spare abs with the score and snap method with a metal ruler as I'm not very good at using sharp objects (bit of a hazard, really, but I've gotta learn) During this process, I've been lucky to have Jay (Coastertrooper) of the Outer Rim Garrison helping me with his expert advice and expert cutting techniques.

 

I decided to trim half of the amount I need to trim on each half of the armour, therefore still maintaining the shape and position of the notches while miniaturizing the armour. 

 

So.. here come problem #1 of my build, once I trimmed the amount of widths that I needed, I realized that my armour piece are really "flat". I would definitely need to do some shaping of the plastic in the future. I've then decided to first glue the inner cover strips on my forearms, then assessing how much shaping I would need to do.

 

wow thats a big gap.... hopefully the gluing and shaping will hold it together.....

 

 

....to be continued. 

Edited June 10, 2017 by Zel

[CaliMatt]

Looking good! Can't wait to see the final result!

 

That merc picture pains me, specifically the blue one (me)  I guess we all start somewhere... for those who are wondering, the blue merc ended up like this:

 

 

Now back onto topic, it's going to be great having a too tall tk, and a too short tk under one roof! 

Edited June 10, 2017 by CaliMatt

[Zel]

2. Sizing Biceps

 

After sizing the forearms, I started sizing the biceps to me. During this process I realized that biceps are totally easier to miniaturize than forearms. Darn it! Should've started there... Oh well. 

 

As with the forearms, I taped the butt joint on the outside of the biceps closed, and then fitted the armour to my arm, leaving 0.5 inch of room. I over lapped the excess and measured the amount of overlap. Due to the lack of climbing, my biceps are sadly tiny.. I have 3 whole inches of overlap on both of my biceps.       (Taping together the butt joints for sizing on my arm)

 

Unlike the forearms, for each of the biceps I evened the cut length to both sides of the butt joints, to 1.5 inch per side. I am cutting only the "square" back half of each bicep, in order to preserve the "U" shape of the plastic on the other half. I cut the bicep after measuring what seemed to be 10000000 times.  Better be safe than sorry I guess.  (don't stress about the crooked line, this photo was taken before I did my final measures. But you can see how much plastic I trimmed on each side xD)

 

The bicep shapes after the cut was much, much better than the forearms, and the joints fit together nicely. Other than the fact that the  top front "U" is higher than the "square" in the back. I easily trimmed them to be equal, I did loose the return edge on the "U" piece. But since this area of the armour is hidden by the shoulder bell anyway, I'm not going to stress about it. 

 

I cut out the inner cover strips from some spare abs that Pandatrooper gave to me (Thanks!!)  to the same dimensions of the outer cover strips. Then I easily glued those on. Easy peasy! at least the biceps are going according to plan!

 

 

 

 

Continued.....This will be

Edited June 10, 2017 by Zel

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Looking great so far, and glad to see you are using inside cover strips.  Be sure to save enough material for the calves, though, as these will get the most stress from opening and closing them.  Glad to see that that you are doing lots of measuring before cutting... you can always take a little more off if needed, but putting it back, well.. that's a different animal.

Keep up the great work, and looking forward to seeing your progress!!

[AngryEwok[501st]]

I'm 5'6 with an Anovos build incoming, so I'll have to add this to my references. Looking good so far!

[Zel]

Looking great so far, and glad to see you are using inside cover strips. Be sure to save enough material for the calves, though, as these will get the most stress from opening and closing them. Glad to see that that you are doing lots of measuring before cutting... you can always take a little more off if needed, but putting it back, well.. that's a different animal.

Keep up the great work, and looking forward to seeing your progress!!

Thanks! I'm trying to be careful no cutting too much material! I am actually using inside coverstrips for all areas with an outside cover. Better be stronger bond than not, especially with me needing to bend the plastic to fit me! I have shins and thighs gluing inside strips on the front butt joint right now. Update soon!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looking good Mandy, keep up the good work 

[Cricket[TK]]

Following along, Mandy!  Very excited to see another petite TK build.    Looks good so far, keep it up!

[Zel]

3. Finishing Sizing Biceps and Forearms.

 

After gluing the inner cover strips on the biceps and forearms, I glued on the outer cover strips. The outer covers are provided by anovos and roughly pretrimmed for size so it was really easy to tell where each strip would go. I trimmed my outer cover strips to the exact lengths that I needed and rounded the edges with some sandpaper. I then gentle sanded the armour, taking care not to have any scratch any areas that would not be covered by the outer strips. I also criss-cross sanded the back on the cover strips. it was easy to tell which side is the front and back of the anovos cover strips as the fronts have a protective flim on it.

 

3-a Right Forearm

 

This is what my right forearm looked like after the gluing. the strips have a bit over overflow e6000 that I will need to clean up. The armour may look dirty, mostly from the lighting of the protective cover. 

^bottom

^Top

^The forearm passes the standing test! I have also removed all the return edges on the edge facing my wrist. This forearm (right) is the "problem" forearm, I had to do a bit of trimming on the wrist section to make it stand up. 

 

3-b. Left Forearm

 

My left forearm is the more symmetrical forearm and caused me much less issues with gluing. The left forearms is also a bit shorter than the right forearm. The right forearm have a more defined ridge on the top butt joint. The anovos forearms are quite different and asymmetrical. 

 

^bottom, I've been able to get cleaner glue lines on the left forearm. I forgot to get  picture of the top butt joint. but the glue job is very similar.

 

Also passes the stand up test! Very little trimming was required to achieve this. 

Inside view, not as perfect on the inside as I would like....

 

3-c. Right bicep

 

The bicep is much easier than the the forearms in the trimming and gluing. My left bicep is still gluing so these are pictures of the right bicep. 

 

^and...inside

 

 

To be continued.....

[Artshot]

Nice build, it's coming along nicely

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Great to see another build like this. What a great start!

[Zel]

4. Finishing Arms and Ready for Strapping!

 

After finishing with gluing my forearms and biceps, I took a pair of abs scissors and did some trimming on the return edges. I removed all return edges on the wrist portions of the forearms and took off most of the return edge on the "U" portion of the forearms facing my elbow to allow for better movement. I then evened out all other return edges on my forearms and biceps to a little under half of a centimeter. Then I took some 120 grit sandpaper to all the edges to smooth everything out then finishing with 320 grit then 400 grit. Nice and smooth edges! YAY! 

 

I then took off the protected plastic covers that came with the Anovos armour on the forearms and biceps, and cleaned up some of the excess e6000 around the glued cover strips. I'm pretty happy with how the forearm and bicep pieces turned out.

 

^left forearm

^right forearm. You can see the much less pronounced top "edge" on the top of thee right forearm as compared to the left. 

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy about how the forarms turned out, considering the 3+ in Iches I have had to reduce on the width and the gap that I had to overcome. (See post 1) I did not end up needing to heatgun/ hot water bath my forearms, as careful lining up and gluing was sufficient and made the forearms round. 

 

Here's a picture of my finished forearms and biceps together. 

 

Then, I decided to try on the arms pre strapping along with the should bell. held together with some blue tape. I put on the anovos undershirt, it is the smallest size they come in, but still a bit too bit for my liking. I think I will just be wearing my black underarmour base layer instead. 

 

^Please do not show this to Lord Vader, I heard he doesn't approve of happy tks.       

 

To be continued.... 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Zel

[shashachu[TK]]

Nice work! I'll be following this build as I'm 5' 3" and have a WTF kit that should be arriving any day now.

[rwbowri[TK]]

great work, keep it going. 

[Zel]

Nice work! I'll be following this build as I'm 5' 3" and have a WTF kit that should be arriving any day now.

Hello Sha Sha!

 

I saw your BBB post on the A little short for a storm trooper fb group!, I'm very excited for your build!

 

Zel

[Zel]

5. Sizing and gluing the front of my Thighs and Shins

 

First, I would like to apologize for my lack of post in the last two weeks. I have been busy! I have been working on my tk too, as it needs to be done in 5 days before the July 2^nd Canada Day parade!

 

My local garrison (Outer Rim Garrison) have been amazing at providing me with help, support and supplies with my tk build. Thank you to CoasterTK (TK-73427) for lending me your time, expertise and tools, you have been amazing and the reason why I have been able to build at such a speedy pace. Thank you to Pandatrooper (TK-2886) for giving me amazing tips and some spare abs and Stvd201 (TK-42200) for your tips as well as magnets. Last but not the last thank you to CaliMatt (TK-21887) for everything

 

When CoasterTK and I sized and glued my forearms and biceps, some of the seams were quite tricky to get perfect as the armour was reduced a lot in width (around 3 inches per piece!). So for the legs, we’ve decided to glued the front my thigh and shin armour before sizing. For any length adjustment, we would remove material from the top of the thighs and bottom of the shins. For that too we’ve decided to do after gluing together the front seam.

 

For my leg armours, like my arm armours, I am using both inside and outside coverstrips. I highly recommend this method as it really helps to strengthen the armour, especially important if you are as accident prone as I am. For my inside coverstrips, I made them mostly identical to my outside covers, mostly for a cleaner look inside of the armour.

Here we go with some pictures.

 

Right Thigh

 

 

Left Thigh

 

 

Mistake!!! It was only after the e6000 cured that I noticed that the outside coverstrips on the thighs are only supposed to reach the ridge, but not anymore. As my coverstrips are too long, the ammo pack would not attach well on my right thigh and I would need to shorten my left as well for higher certifications. CoasterTK said that this is also one of the adjustments he had to make on his centurion app, and that he knows of an easy fix… He will come over and help me build tomorrow, so hopefully we can resolve that then.

Also, I’m not sure if this is specific to the Anovos kit, but at the bottom of the inner left thigh piece, the ridge goes all the way to the trimline, requiring me to use a smaller inside coverstrip to achieve better strength.

 

 

The Shins are easy to glue together and problem free after I read ukwrath’s guide on his anovos kit. Anovos mislabeled the shin pieces, so please refer to his tutorial as to which piece goes with which.

 

As there is debate over which anovos shin is which leg, I’ve decided to use the shin that fits the sniper plate the best as my left and the other shin as my right J

 

Inside and outside of my left Shin, forgot to get pics of the right, but the look is similar.

 

 

 

To be Continued.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Zel

[Zel]

6. Torso shaping (using a heat gun)

 

The Torso really is the scariest part of the build for me, as I know I need to make quite a bit of size and shape adjustments to the torso. I taped together the torso as it came out of the box on me… well nothing fits. Everything was too wide.

 

After reading on this forum as well as asking around, generally people shaped their armour using either a hot water bath or using a heatgun.  The idea of a heat gun scared me as I have seen horror stories of warped armour and the anovos it is already quite a bit thinner than many other kits. So I’ve decided to start by try using the hot water technique first on some spare abs from the trimming process.

 

Personally, I found the hot water method only works when it is right after boiling, any cooler and the abs wouldn’t budge. While it worked with smaller pieces, I realized that I couldn’t boil enough water to get it hot enough to us on large pieces such as the chest and abs… so on to heat gun I go.

 

Heat gunning my armour:

 

The best method I’ve found with using the heat gun without warping armour can be summed in two words…GO SLOW! I would put the heat gun on low, and move it in sweeping motions around the area that I want shape with one hand, while bending the armour to the desired shape with my other hand, usually with the help of my legs holding the armour in place. As soon as I felt the armour that I am bending is loosing a little bit of “spring” I immediately remove the heat. Then I use both hands on the heated area to keep the plastic at the desired shape as it cools. The plastic should never be too hot to touch, as that I find is too hot. The plastic may not bend enough the first time, but go slow and repeat.

 

The key I find is to never hold to heat gun in one place, as well as to remove the heat as soon as the plastic starts to give. According to abs expert Pandatrooper, abs only have a few second in the workable range, between not bending to being too hot and warping. Think twice heat once!

 

After practicing on the few spare abs pieces, I found the technique quite easy, as was able to get all my torso shaping done in around a hour.

Here’s what I did.

 

Chest:

 

-Slightly bring down the shoulder tabs to shorten top of the chest piece.

-bring in the “wing” on the side to reduce width

 

Back:

 

-Slightly straighten the shoulder tabs.

 

^I found that the back armour is the only piece that I had to LENGTHEN. For whatever reason, the Anovos kit comes with the back shoulder tabs pretty much at a 90 degree angle. This would leave around a half of inch of gap between my back and kidney armour. I slightly straightened my shoulder tabs to around 60 degree angle.

 

Kidney:

 

-bring in the sides

 

Ab+cod:

 

-bring in the sides

 

Posterior (butt J):

 

-bring in the sides

-bring up the bottom

^brining up the bottom helped me to shorten the length of the butt armour, as well as to help shape it to my more “rounded” shaped butt.

 

To be continued. 

Edited June 26, 2017 by Zel

[Daetrin[Admin]]

This is way too valuable to not pin. Pinned!!

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

GREAT job so far, Mandy!  Glad to hear that Jay and other local TKs are helping you out.  Heat guns can be scary to use, and you absolutely did the right thing.  They can reach temperatures of over 1100 degrees fahrenheit and taking it slow like you did was the best way to go.  You should post up a few photos of the finished pieces for those who are in the same boat.  It may help to reduce (but not eliminate) the return edges on the back, kidney and cod pieces.

[Zel]

Wow!! Thank you so much for pinning this post! I'm currently bouncing in excitement! I am so honoured!!! I will try to make this build as informative as possible!!

 

-Zel

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Zel]

GREAT job so far, Mandy! Glad to hear that Jay and other local TKs are helping you out. Heat guns can be scary to use, and you absolutely did the right thing. They can reach temperatures of over 1100 degrees fahrenheit and taking it slow like you did was the best way to go. You should post up a few photos of the finished pieces for those who are in the same boat. It may help to reduce (but not eliminate) the return edges on the back, kidney and cod pieces.

Thank you!

 

I will take pictures and make that post as soon as I get home! Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take any before pictures, but the shaping and changes are pretty obvious

 

-Zel

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TheSwede[TK]]

This is way too valuable to not pin. Pinned!!

I totally agree! And if I may make a suggestion Sir   this thread should also get pinned -crickets-rs-stunt-build-for-the-vertically-challenged  

 

Sorry for the interruption Mandy - keep up your excellent work  

[Zel]

I totally agree! And if I may make a suggestion Sir   this thread should also get pinned -crickets-rs-stunt-build-for-the-vertically-challenged

 

Sorry for the interruption Mandy - keep up your excellent work

Agreed! love Cricket's build! its of great help!

[Zel]

7. Cutting off the cod

 

This is the part of the build that scared me the most from the second I owned my big brown box... are we ready?

The ab and cod “complex” was too long for my torso. Out of the box, when the bottom is “where it’s supposed to be” the top of the piece fits above my chest… while this may be the right size for a Rouge One tk, it is much much too tall for me. Therefore, I will need to take the plunge and cut my codpiece off my abs.

 

*deep breath*

 

I took some scissors to cut along the return edge between the cod itself and the abs. (note: I have not yet shaped my armour  with heat gun in this picture.)

 

After the cod separated, I used the scissors again to clean up the cut edges themselves and then used some sandpaper to make everything nice and smooth.

 

Then I fitted the armour where it is supposed to be on my body.... wow.... big difference but much much better! (hi Bith!    )

 

Originally, I was planning to re-glue cod back on to the ab piece on the inside. However, once I cut off my cod, I realized that the pieces would look good strapped; especially as the joint between the ab and cod piece will be covered by my belt. No one will know! Strapping will also give me a lot more movement, and make my kit a lot more comfortable. 

 

Overall, while cutting off the cod felt scary, it wasn't difficult to do. Wow, what it different it did to the fit! So, my recommendation is to just do it if your ab piece is too long! Remember to measure twice cut once!!       

 

To be continued!

Edited June 27, 2017 by Zel