James's Rogue One TK Build

[ukswrath[Staff]]

[jamesmillerio]

I got a chance to wear my armor the other day to test everything out. I was able to take some great pictures but did find an issue I'm having problems solving... But first, here are the pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It felt awesome to finally get to wear the whole thing and I was really happy with how well its coming along and how great the pictures turned out. 

 

The one issue I'm having is with my thigh armor. As you can probably tell from the images, its hanging pretty low from my belt. Admittedly, the belt is slipping some so I need to maybe add some velcro to it to keep it snug, but even with it snug I can't get the thigh armor to go much higher.

 

After having my wife look at how it fits in the back, in her words, "there's just too much you in there."

 

Other than looking wrong, it also causes the sniper knee plate and ammo belt to catch on the thigh/shin and it makes walking difficult. It is also damaging the paint on each of the parts unfortunately... Also, because the thigh armor is so low, it causes the drop boxes to catch on the top of the thighs since they should be floating above them.

 

All of that being said, my thighs and calves are fairly large from being a bigger guy (mostly) but also years of playing drums. I'm not sure if trimming them along the inside contour would give me some more room to move up more, or if I need to make some kind of shim for where they close in the back. 

 

Otherwise, I think I'm doing pretty well and I'm pretty close to submitting for approval. If you notice anything else, definitely let me know. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Edited October 22, 2021 by jamesmillerio

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

"Too much you" that's gold 

 

With standard OTTK's of larger size many add some extra material, in this case you would have to add it to both sides so you keep the raised areas central.

 

Here's a few OTTK thigh expansion threads which may help

 

 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looking good James, other than thinning out your legs as Glen mentioned you'll need to shim the back of the armor. That should resolve most if not all of your fitment issue. 

 

Keep up the great work

[Kam_den_Vox[TK]]

I know I’m bringing back an old thread, but I found this when I was looking for something else. Not sure if you’ve fixed your thigh armor issue, but I was having the same problem with the thighs I bought with a used kit. The belt would slip down, allowing the thighs to slip too. So I bought tactical suspenders that have straps with hooks that go around the belt. I tighten those as much as I can while still being comfortable, and the thigh armor stays right in place.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

The addition of suspenders also can help stop belts slipping down  

 

[jamesmillerio]

I know I’m bringing back an old thread, but I found this when I was looking for something else. Not sure if you’ve fixed your thigh armor issue, but I was having the same problem with the thighs I bought with a used kit. The belt would slip down, allowing the thighs to slip too. So I bought tactical suspenders that have straps with hooks that go around the belt. I tighten those as much as I can while still being comfortable, and the thigh armor stays right in place.

Oh that’s awesome, I’ll check that out. I tried just tightening things a lot more and it worked out better but having actual support is probably the way to go.


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[jamesmillerio]

Just got done wearing my armor for Halloween and I think things are improving. I may still need to shim one of the thighs but aside from aligning things and touching up paint I’m fairly happy.

Open to critiques for sure.






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[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work trooper

 

Belt is looking a little low

I would also look at raising your ab as it looks very low, this will also bring up your cod and butt plate which will give you more room at the top of the thighs. 

You can also see your chest plate is being pushed outwards from the top of the add and looks to be angled (big gap at bottom of wings)

 

 

Rear closures need to be level but also should close outside over inside so the openings aren't seen from the outside. Butt plate hanging low

 

 

 

 

Back plate also looks very small

 

 

It's all about final adjustments and fit, a few tweaks here and there

[jamesmillerio]

Thanks! Not sure how I didn’t notice the huge gap on the chest wings. I’ve refrained from trimming my ab armor around the top but I have seen some troopers cut some out of the middle in the top so it’s not pushing out at the center point. I’ll try raising the armor before I do that though since that may bring everything flush. I usually criss-cross my suspenders for the ab armor but it seemed a little high the other day but maybe I was mistaken. I’ll give it another shot. Thanks again!


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[jamesmillerio]

Actually, I just remembered I have a couple pictures from that time. None straight on, but you can see how high the abs were. The sweet spot must be in the middle somewhere. It does seem like that improved the rear gap between the butt and thigh though. Love the lollipop picture with my daughter also.





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[jamesmillerio]

Did I mention I have short legs? Haha.


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[jamesmillerio]

It's update time again. I usually take the week of my birthday off and next week is no exception. I'll be spending my time (mostly) sleeping and working on the fitment details of the armor to hopefully get it into a good shape for paint by the end of the week.

My biggest issue right now, as pointed out by [mention]gmrhodes13 [/mention], is the gap between my chest plate and my abdomen. It's really pretty cavernous... I could probably hide an Ewok back there if I tried. But I digress...

One of the issues I have is the black extension pieces on the sides for this kit have a pretty sharp almost 45° turn inwards, which is pushing the chest armor out on the sides. You can see that in the following pictures:








I've never quite known why they were molded like that when all the other kits and gallery images I've seen has them basically flat against their sides and it acts strictly as a black connection piece between the chest and back armor.

With that in mind, I took my heat gun to them and flattened them out and I think it's helping already. It's not perfect, but it's no longer adding more of a protrusion.



After that what I think is happening now is the top center of my abdomen armor is pushing the bottom of my chest armor out some. I trimmed a little gap out of there, but I think I may have to trim a lot more. For obvious reasons I'm somewhat hesitant to do that for fear of cutting too much off, but I'm not sure there's a better option but I'm open to suggestions.

Hopefully I’ll have a productive week coming up!

[TerribleBen[TK]]

My solution to the thigh straps was too attach then to the ab section. That way they are supported by the ab suspenders. Then an adjustable snap clip....simple! Just my thought.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

On 11/6/2022 at 12:02 PM, jamesmillerio said:

After that what I think is happening now is the top center of my abdomen armor is pushing the bottom of my chest armor out some. I trimmed a little gap out of there, but I think I may have to trim a lot more. For obvious reasons I'm somewhat hesitant to do that for fear of cutting too much off, but I'm not sure there's a better option but I'm open to suggestions.
 

I wouldn't trim anymore off until you have your legs and cod attached, to me your ab plate looks a little high which may be the issue, best to try with everything else on to check for position and gaps.

 

Nice work getting those wings to come in 

 

 

[jamesmillerio]

I've had a lot of home projects that have kept me from working on my armor but I'm back in business now and making great progress.

I put the armor on today after all of the adjustments I'd made. Here is a summary of adjustments since my last post:

- Adjusted how and where the chest attaches to the abdomen in order to pull it into the right place.
- Changed where the side black pieces attach to the chest.
- Changed where my thighs attach. They used to hang off of a belt, now they are attached to the bottom of the abdomen. This feels much more secure and doesn't feel like it's drooping like it did with the belt.
- Brought the butt up higher to align with the belt.

I had my wife take some pictures while I had it on to figure out what needs further adjustment. Here is the list of things I know are wrong as well as things that need minor adjustments.

- I did a lot of sanding so it needs paint bad.
- I'm missing a cover strip on my thigh. I'll be printing one of those.
- My back plate was misaligned. I just need a helper for that, it stayed in place fine.
- I think my thighs need to drop an inch or two. They are being pulled up into the cod piece. Just need new straps here.
- Need to fix my belt. It keeps detaching in the front.

Over all though, I think I'm pretty close. I'm getting really excited to cross the finish line. Going to make some adjustments tonight and hopefully take some more pictures tomorrow.

[jamesmillerio]

Looking back at the pictures, one of the side black wings looks strange. I think I need to adjust how they attach to bring them in more and prevent them from overlapping the chest armor.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

It's all about the final tweaks, a few suggestions:

Drop box straps almost look blue/grey? could be wider too: There are 2 (one left and one right) drop boxes suspended by black webbing approximately 2" (50mm) wide

 

Belt closure

 

 

 

 

 

Your biceps appear to have quite a large gap, you may need to reduce them or add some padding to the inside so they sit middle of bicep

Chest needs to come up quite a bit, it would then decrease the closure angle on the side view.

 

Rotate detonator 180deg. 

 

 

You can see from this image the thigh strapping on the sides, that would help to hold them away from the cod.

  

 

 

Shins appear open on the rear and from the side, these are normally glued on the outside with velcro on the inside.

Belt closure on the sides should be back a little more to the sides

 

 

Thighs can sit quite low

 

 

[jamesmillerio]

Oh interesting! I was under the impression the shins were open in the back and velcro'd shut. That's an easy fix.

 

The blue you saw on the belt is actually painters tape I forgot to remove after prepping for paint, hah! Nice catch. I'll swap out the straps for 2" ones once I paint it.

 

 

[jamesmillerio]

@gmrhodes13 You mentioned the belt closure; in one of the pictures above it looks like it doesn't overlap at all (and only slightly in other pictures) but the CRL calls for the rear belt to overlap the front. 

 

I'm not sure how literal to be about that, just curious your opinion.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

49 minutes ago, jamesmillerio said:

@gmrhodes13 You mentioned the belt closure; in one of the pictures above it looks like it doesn't overlap at all (and only slightly in other pictures) but the CRL calls for the rear belt to overlap the front. 

 

I'm not sure how literal to be about that, just curious your opinion.

They normally overlap on the sides not right in the front, which way they can overlap depends on references, I've seen both ways in most of the new era content. If you provide photo references with your approval I'm sure your GML would be ok, may be good to double check though  CRL's are periodically updated when new reference material is available, I would think either way of overlapping would be added to the CRL at some stage, but all have side closing overlaps 

 

Yours is overlapping all the way to the front of the belt

 

Front over back, side closeure

 

Tape residue, I gather this was back over front, lots of tape used in the later series  

 

Front over back, side closure trooper on left

 

Front overlap back

 

 

[TerribleBen[TK]]

This is how I did mine...

[jamesmillerio]

Oh nice, that helps actually @TerribleBen.

 

If I can ask, how did you attach your side wings and were they also ABS or something else? They look so uniform and well placed.

[TerribleBen[TK]]

Side wings?  Um clarify please...yes all ABS parts....

Edited November 21, 2023 by TerribleBen

[jamesmillerio]

Sorry, the lower black strip between your chest and back armor.