New Recruit in North Carolina

[CapMcAwesome]

Greetings from North Carolina! 

 

I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan and I'm getting close to realizing my dream of joining the 501st. I've had the pleasure of seeing the 501st on multiple occasions and every time I see them, I recapture the joy of watching Star Wars as a child. I am thrilled at the prospect of bringing that joy to others while having an amazing time myself.

 

To start, I will be getting standard TK trooper armor. This will likely be ANH Stunt armor, although I'm open to other builds if they can be found. I'm still very early in the process and I'm actively researching which kit I'll be purchasing. I'm leaning more towards a nearly complete set of armor. Spare time has been at a premium lately and the cost of paying professional do it will likely be worth it to me. I'm 5'10 and ~220lbs (recently down from 250lbs and hopefully continuing to lose weight). 

 

I'd love any feedback you have to offer about your experiences:

- Dave's Darkside Depot AM armor seems like it might be a good fit. His work seems to be of high quality and I'm interested in the helmet that comes with fans and a voice changer pre-installed. Unfortunately, I have emailed and messaged on facebook without reply so he may not be active at this time. 

-Authentic Props AP offers most of the options I'm looking for and they are a vetted seller. It sounds like their armor can fit my body type. 

-RS Propmasters is another vetted seller I'm considering. They take pride in screen accurate armor. At this point, I'm probably leaning towards a more cleaned up version minus some of the flaws that were part of the original trilogy armor. Their website is currently down but will hopefully be back up soon and I'll gather more info then. 

 

I'm excited to troop with you guys! 

[Sly11[Admin]]

Hi Joe, and welcome to FISD!

AM is a good fit for taller or more solid build of trooper.

In my garrison we have a 6"2 250pound trooper and we built his AM kit to fit him very well.

RS is a small kit generally great for the 5'9 slim fit that the original actors were model off, but most amour can be modified to make it larger if needed.

AP now days offers armour with extra material so yes the parts are larger and suit a wider range then they used to. I'm 150 pounds and the old AP fits me snug, the newer update would give you good room to work with.

 

Great to see you are doing your research and asking for assistants, this is exactly what will get you the best outcome.

[giskard8[Staff]]

Hello Joe, 

Welcome to FISD. 

I will stick to Andrew's advice if I were you (but you seems to be on-top of things, asking the right question before diving in).

I cannot say for a commission set of RS armor but I do troop in a set of self-built Sandtrooper. I say from my experience working on RS is they are a very tight fit for a specific body type (the "idea" in movie, 5'10" / 170 lbs -ish) and there is very little margin to work with if you are a larger individual.   

[Morgi[Staff]]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb CapMcAwesome:

-RS Propmasters is another vetted seller I'm considering. They take pride in screen accurate armor. At this point, I'm probably leaning towards a more cleaned up version minus some of the flaws that were part of the original trilogy armor.

 

Hello and welcome to FISD!

 

I can't speak for AM and AP, but I can tell you that the RS armor is screen accurate with all the flaws. If you truly want a screen accurate armor without a big blob of paint on the helmet, that might not be the best choice for you 

 

Good luck on your journey and keep asking questions! 

[CapMcAwesome]

Thanks for the input, everyone! 

 

Unless I hear back from Dave regarding the AM armor, I'll probably be going with AP. I'd rather not be too snug in the armor and I honestly care about the armor looking more like my mental image of a perfect stormtrooper over having the screen accurate imperfections that come with armor cast from the original molds. 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Hello and welcome aboard, here is a good thread full of helpful info 

 

[CapMcAwesome]

3 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Hello and welcome aboard, here is a good thread full of helpful info 

 

Thanks!

[CapMcAwesome]

I have my under-suit, boots, and neck seal. I officially put my armor deposit down yesterday! 

 

[CapMcAwesome]

Armor has shipped! Big Brown Box Day imminent! This is NOT A DRILL!!!!

[BAZINGA[TK]]

Hi.  I'm new too and also looking at the AP commissioned build.  I'm in the middle of no where so it's hard for me to determine how much use I'm going to get from the armor.  I'd hate for it to be sitting in a box for a year at a time.

 

Bart

[Commander Code[TK]]

Hey Cap! We are in the same boat   My AP armor is in transit and is set to be here in the next week. Also just ordered the under suit, helmet fitment padding, and some other odd/ends for a custom bucket build (helmet electronics). I'm super excited!

[CapMcAwesome]

21 hours ago, Commander Code said:

Hey Cap! We are in the same boat   My AP armor is in transit and is set to be here in the next week. Also just ordered the under suit, helmet fitment padding, and some other odd/ends for a custom bucket build (helmet electronics). I'm super excited!

Nice! I have most of the under-suit and soft parts. What helmet mods are you getting? I haven't looked into anything for that yet, but I'm interested in doing that once I recover from buying the armor. 

[CapMcAwesome]

On 8/15/2022 at 8:41 AM, Bartman said:

Hi.  I'm new too and also looking at the AP commissioned build.  I'm in the middle of no where so it's hard for me to determine how much use I'm going to get from the armor.  I'd hate for it to be sitting in a box for a year at a time.

 

Bart

I hear you. It's not cheap, but I'm expecting to have oh so much fun with it. 

[Commander Code[TK]]

4 hours ago, CapMcAwesome said:

Nice! I have most of the under-suit and soft parts. What helmet mods are you getting? I haven't looked into anything for that yet, but I'm interested in doing that once I recover from buying the armor. 

Same. Two-piece under suit arrives tomorrow along with the helmet fitment padding and neoprene stripping I will use to line the interior of the bucket. You gotta check out Kamikaze's YT and forum post. (link below)  I plan on doing almost the same as he did with some minor adjustments [depending on how my head fits inside (giggity) prior to all the extra stuff] . I reached out to him and he has provided some great insight. It is nice to have his background in the helmet mod dept. as to not make the same mistakes (which are few). 

 

 

 

[CapMcAwesome]

1 hour ago, Commander Code said:

Same. Two-piece under suit arrives tomorrow along with the helmet fitment padding and neoprene stripping I will use to line the interior of the bucket. You gotta check out Kamikaze's YT and forum post. (link below)  I plan on doing almost the same as he did with some minor adjustments [depending on how my head fits inside (giggity) prior to all the extra stuff] . I reached out to him and he has provided some great insight. It is nice to have his background in the helmet mod dept. as to not make the same mistakes (which are few). 

 

 

 

Thanks!

[CapMcAwesome]

It's here! It's Here!

 

 

It came mostly ready-to-wear, but it's going to need some tweaks, my build thread is here:

 

[Commander Code[TK]]

Woot Woot!! Looks awesome! I am getting nervously impatient LOL. 

[stell001[TK]]

joe look foward to seeing you trooping , Dave is working on my Armor now.. just ordered my E11 ,so hopfully it will be here for next year.. Cant wait to troop in NC

 

[Nairy[Staff]]

Hello there Joe!  How's that 501st approval coming along? Your kit looks very awesome! 

[TK-42134[TK]]

On 8/15/2022 at 5:41 AM, Bartman said:

Hi.  I'm new too and also looking at the AP commissioned build.  I'm in the middle of no where so it's hard for me to determine how much use I'm going to get from the armor.  I'd hate for it to be sitting in a box for a year at a time.

 

Bart

Not to hijack the original posters thread, but perhaps if you get a set of armor you should attempt to assemble it yourself. Look up the Garrison that would be in your area and ask for help. It not only would save you money, but it would be an icebreaker to get to know future fellow garrison members as well. That is if you are looking to join the 501st. It is a fun experience. I just finished my second stormtrooper, doing 99% of the work by myself. On my first one, I had help from various sources, both virtually and physically, and that is what helped me build my second. I still needed guidance but I was more comfortable doing it on my own this time around. 

[BAZINGA[TK]]

6 hours ago, TK-42134 said:

Not to hijack the original posters thread, but perhaps if you get a set of armor you should attempt to assemble it yourself. Look up the Garrison that would be in your area and ask for help. It not only would save you money, but it would be an icebreaker to get to know future fellow garrison members as well. That is if you are looking to join the 501st. It is a fun experience. I just finished my second stormtrooper, doing 99% of the work by myself. On my first one, I had help from various sources, both virtually and physically, and that is what helped me build my second. I still needed guidance but I was more comfortable doing it on my own this time around. 

In an ideal world I would build it myself but I have no skills in that area and no local help so it would just end up sitting unfinished in a box somewhere.  I have about another 2 months to wait for the AP ready to wear commission to arrive.  I realize I will need to do some adjusting for the final fit and have reached out to the nearest 501st member to me to help with that.  He's 2.5 hours away but none closer are interested in even letting me see their armor so this is the alternative plan.  Bart