StarTrooper's TFA/TROS FOTK Build Thread (KB Props)

[Sly11[Admin]]

Making some good progress, keep it up.


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[ukswrath[Staff]]

9 hours ago, StarTrooper said:

Hey! Good to hear another new FOTK! For the gaskets, I managed to pick some up at a local Joann’s which happened to have some in stock from this link:

https://www.joann.com/cosplay-ribbed-pleather-fabric-black/16228017.html
 

I’m not sure if there are any near you, but it’s definitely worth a check. Unfortunately you can’t order it online, it seems like they are no longer making it.

If not, it might be a good idea to message jimmiroquai on the RPF (Replica Props Forum) or Geeky Pink here on whitearmor.net.

Hope you find a solution!

Hey Jayke we would love to see your gasket process 

[StarTrooper]

2 hours ago, Sly11 said:

Making some good progress, keep it up.


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Thanks

2 hours ago, ukswrath said:

Hey Jayke we would love to see your gasket process 

For sure! At the moment, I haven’t done anything at all yet with the material, and I unfortunately won’t be able to start on the gasket templates, as I’m going to be out of town this weekend. But once I start I’ll definitely show the process

[StarTrooper]

Hey everyone!

I apologize for the lack of updates, I injured my arm and it had to be splinted for the past few days, so I didn't get much work done, but here are the updates from before.

 

Back/Yoke

 

Here's the back/yoke, glued at the top.

 

 

TIP: make sure to put lots of glue here, as this place WILL take a lot of stress. Also be sure to clamp it all down as well.

 

 

Question: should the sides be glued or are they okay as it is?

 

Shoulder Bells

 

Glued in the connector pieces, looks pretty accurate in my opinion.

I just eyeballed it, you can measure if you like as well.

Gaskets

 

I did pick up some gasket material, no templates yet, but I'm hoping to start working on them soon.

 

And that is pretty much it.

 

Until next time

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by StarTrooper

[JAFO[TK]]

Hi Jayke. Sorry to hear about your injury. Here’s to a speedy recovery.

Good work on the progress.

Don’t worry about gluing the sides of the ‘tee’. Better to use Velcro if you want to join.

It’s always hard to tell in online pics but is the rubber material black with a shiny appearance? It looks a little flat and the colour temp more grey. I’m sure it’s just the pic.


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[StarTrooper]

10 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Hi Jayke. Sorry to hear about your injury. Here’s to a speedy recovery.

Good work on the progress.

Don’t worry about gluing the sides of the ‘tee’. Better to use Velcro if you want to join.

It’s always hard to tell in online pics but is the rubber material black with a shiny appearance? It looks a little flat and the colour temp more grey. I’m sure it’s just the pic.


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Thank you very much, I think I’ll use velcro then, maybe it’ll allow me to keep that front edge as well, since it is screen accurate.

 

For the gaskets, the material is quite shiny, and the color is fairly dark, but if it is an issue, maybe I’ll give it a coat of black dye.

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

looking good. !!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work, looks like you could take off a little more of the return edge though form the bell

 

[StarTrooper]

1 hour ago, TKSpartan said:

looking good. !!

Thanks!

19 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Nice work, looks like you could take off a little more of the return edge though form the bell

 

I’ll get right on it, thank you for the tip!

[StarTrooper]

Hey everyone!

Back after a bit of a break, I should be able to get much more work done now, as life is starting to calm down.

 

Helmet

 

So I decided to take the plunge and get an Anovos TLJ Standard Helmet, as I got a great deal on it. I don't think this means that this build will change from the initial plan, but I do plan to switch between TFA and TLJ for trooping. I have also noted the differences of the two armors, so we'll see if extra parts are needed for approval.

 

Chest

 

For the chest, I did stick some Velcro on the Back/Yoke to be able to connect the pieces.

 

The only problem is, there is too much edge on the chest, so I can't get the Velcro to touch the Yoke.

I will fix this issue soon.

 

Test Fit

 

I also decided I'd do a little test fit, with a few of the pieces, and it's starting to look quite good.

I do have a question: the ab section is too large for me, should I trim some more off, or should I maybe overlap the back sections when putting the armor on?

 

And that is pretty much it.

Until next time

[Sly11[Admin]]

Considering the Thermal det plate will conceal part of the back, you could do either but most I have seen have trimmed each side evenly and used a Velcro patch to keep the two sides closed and fitting nicely. This is how the screen used assets were done for TFA.  An overlap might create an uneven effect if you are also using Velcro as a closure medium when the TD is in place so I would tend to avoid doing it that way.

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I would also suggest a full kit up before doing any trimming, you don't want to look out of proportion, it's easy to take off but a little more difficult to put back on  

 

Adjusting the ab circumference can also adjust how the chest and back sit and may change the angle of pieces so keep an eye on that too. 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Movie armor had raised round tabs an a hook to secure it to the inner chest. Either you recreate that or remove some return edge on the outer chest of your armor bringing it closer to the inner chest making it possible to use velco or similar.

 

As for the ab section, echoing above assemble the armor first. You can always trim more from the center back if you need to later. As Glen mentioned the entire rear seam is covered regardless.

 

Keep up the great work. 

[StarTrooper]

19 hours ago, Sly11 said:

Considering the Thermal det plate will conceal part of the back, you could do either but most I have seen have trimmed each side evenly and used a Velcro patch to keep the two sides closed and fitting nicely. This is how the screen used assets were done for TFA.  An overlap might create an uneven effect if you are also using Velcro as a closure medium when the TD is in place so I would tend to avoid doing it that way.

 

Okay thank you, I was wondering if that uneven thing would happen if I overlapped the back, so I won’t do that.

17 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

I would also suggest a full kit up before doing any trimming, you don't want to look out of proportion, it's easy to take off but a little more difficult to put back on  

 

Adjusting the ab circumference can also adjust how the chest and back sit and may change the angle of pieces so keep an eye on that too. 

Ok will do, I’ll try to do a full suit up later today.

14 hours ago, ukswrath said:

Movie armor had raised round tabs an a hook to secure it to the inner chest. Either you recreate that or remove some return edge on the outer chest of your armor bringing it closer to the inner chest making it possible to use velco or similar.

 

As for the ab section, echoing above assemble the armor first. You can always trim more from the center back if you need to later. As Glen mentioned the entire rear seam is covered regardless.

 

Keep up the great work. 

Thanks for the tip, I will probably then leave the sides, and will trim more off the center back if I need it to be smaller.

[StarTrooper]

Here's a pic of the test fit.

 

Boy does it look rough. Oh well, lots of stuff I'm happy with(shins, forearms, upper chest)

Also forgot to tape up shoulders

 

[StarTrooper]

Hey everyone!

Back again, wasn't happy with my last test fit, so I tried again.

Much better!

Just upper body this time as that will be my focus for the time being.

My arms do look quite skinny, but that should be remedied by the gaskets, which I will hopefully be starting soon.

 

Stay tuned!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Lookin good, what I did do with the shoulder bells is have two pieces of elastic holding them, the front being a little shorter so when ever moved your arms the bells would always come back in the front. 

 

Gaskets will make a lot of difference to the look.

 

Keep up the great work.

[JAFO[TK]]

Hey everyone!
Back again, wasn't happy with my last test fit, so I tried again.

Much better!
Just upper body this time as that will be my focus for the time being.
My arms do look quite skinny, but that should be remedied by the gaskets, which I will hopefully be starting soon.
 
Stay tuned!

Looking good Jayke. You should try that shoulder bell mod I shared the other month. It would work well on your kit.


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[StarTrooper]

52 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Lookin good, what I did do with the shoulder bells is have two pieces of elastic holding them, the front being a little shorter so when ever moved your arms the bells would always come back in the front. 

 

Gaskets will make a lot of difference to the look.

 

Keep up the great work.

Thank you, I should hopefully start working on the strapping system soon!

11 minutes ago, JAFO said:

 

Looking good Jayke. You should try that shoulder bell mod I shared the other month. It would work well on your kit.


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Thanks Darren, although I can’t seem to find the mod. If you could share it again that would be great

[Sly11[Admin]]

Looking good Jayke, like Glen mentioned, once you have gaskets on the alignment will be quite different and make a huge difference to appearance and where parts will tend to fall naturally. Also adding the shoulder bars to hold the bells up and in line with the shoulder section is going to make a big difference.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

6 hours ago, JAFO said:

 

Looking good Jayke. You should try that shoulder bell mod I shared the other month. It would work well on your kit.


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Shoulder bell mod?

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Coming along nice Jayke

[StarTrooper]

5 hours ago, Sly11 said:

Looking good Jayke, like Glen mentioned, once you have gaskets on the alignment will be quite different and make a huge difference to appearance and where parts will tend to fall naturally. Also adding the shoulder bars to hold the bells up and in line with the shoulder section is going to make a big difference.

Thanks, gaskets are a bit daunting as I’m not experienced in fabrics, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out

51 minutes ago, ukswrath said:

Coming along nice Jayke

Thanks!  Your thread has been very helpful for this build

[StarTrooper]

Hey everyone!

Back with a very big update, as for the past while I've been stuck inside because of COVID-19, which is although frightening, I've used the time that I have staying at home to build some armor. Here we go!

 

Gaskets

 

Finally progress has started on the gaskets! I started with the elbow gaskets, as I figured they would be a great place to start.

 

First I started by measuring my arm's circumference using a crude paper mock up.

 

 

Then I sized them up a bit to ensure they would fill in the area.

Checked to make sure they would fit inside the armor pieces as well.

 

 

Then I measured and cut out a rectangle of my gasket material.

 

 

Next I stitched in some elastic which is the size of my arm, so that they stay up. I may add some Velcro later.

 

 

And finally I stitched it all together.

Here it is!

 

I will work on the leg gaskets later today

 

 

Shoulder Tabs

 

For the shoulder tabs, I went with @gmrhodes13 idea, and made a sort of V tab, which holds the shoulders in place.

They were about 10cm long and with 1.5cm bends.

I put the two strips in some warm water and then I could shape them to my desired shape.

And done!

 

Heres how it looks with the bell resting on the tab.

 

Biceps

 

Guess I forgot to take progress pics, they were pretty simple, with a 2cm strip down the seam.

 

Thighs

 

For the thighs, they were tricky. 

For starters, make sure they fit your leg well as the thighs come huge!

I then started off by eyeballing the shape of the thighs, as they come as a half cylinder of plastic. No shape or cutlines, so you have to do this yourself. Make sure when drawing the curve at the back, line it up with the front half as seen here.

Cut out the extra plastic from the back of the thighs.

Here's a side by side of how the before and after look.

Then I wanted to make the curve on the side of the leg, seen of the screen used suits, so I again eyeballed a curve along the side, cut it out, and then traced that curve onto the back part and cut it out.

I then cut a 1 inch strip and glued it to the thighs.

And done!

 

That's pretty much it for this update.

 

Stay safe(and wash your hands)

 

 

 

 

[JAFO[TK]]

Great work mate! The build is coming along very nicely.

I’ve seen many attempt the gaskets and many fail, so kudos to you


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