My long-awaited Anovos/Denuo Novo kit has arrived!

**Sly11[Admin]** · October 15, 2022

So because it states plastoid maybe there is no reason not to have plates on the boots but guessing they are the same as Phasma is the issue.

What may happen is we end up with an incomplete CRL but allows you to troop until more evidence is presented that you are either correct or otherwise.

What that means as per the recent Legion discussions is "if" more details come to light and you are FTL (First to Legion) that means you will be required to update your costume as the CRL is updated.

This is the angle the LMO team has been pushing this term.

basically trooping allowed on an incomplete CRL with high expectation you will modify as required. I think the time frame from any new evidence on a costume is 6 months from the CRL update, or it may become retired.

In reality you are making a guess on the shape and style of plates as well as the colour of the boots.

I believe Phasmas boots in production were impossible to get to a silver colour and not have it peel off or deteriorate so they simply went the rout of black. See that is an assumption as well, not fact based on any information I have received from the prop and costume department. CRL at worst are based on assumptions, hence the problems with one of the officer costumes from IOC.

This is why the LMO's were hamstrung on the boots in the past, and they are hesitantly using the black series as a minor stop gap for the boots only.

As to trooping how you want, that is a decision for your garrison GML, as the detachment, we don't have any say in that, so best to be approved locally trooping in anything not in a given CRL.

I would much prefer a green lit CRL, we want to get this across the line and fully approved, because then if changes occur down the track to it, your costume is only grandfathered not force upon you to update it in a given period of time. It becomes entirely up to you whether you change it or not and you can continue to troop on regardless.

This would have been so much easier if the book clearly stated Black boots and a brief description of the plastoid plates, that is for certain.

Peregrinus · October 15, 2022

I agree with both of you. A personal dream is to have Del work with Jan Dursema and Dark Horse to do a comic adaptation of Phasma. Jan's an amazing artist, and, with Del's consultation, I know whatever ended up on the page would be Del's intention. No ambiguity. As it is, it's frustrating that the creator of the character has so little impact on club standards for said character. It is enough for me that she says his boots and the armor on them are like Phasma's. Since he died in the sequel (spoiler alert), and had left the First Order anyway, I feel like Cardinal's story is as complete as we're ever going to see, and I doubt any new ancillary material will feature him. Probably just the odd erroneous repaint from toy and collectible manufacturers.

I am prepared to be wrong, if we ever get any content on Disney+ or the big screen that fills in the later part of the gap between The Mandalorian and The Force Awakens. If, for some reason, we see the goings-on in the First Order a year or more prior to TFA, but at least a decade past where the post-ROTJ shows currently are, we may see Cardinal, either as Brendol Hux's bodyguard, or in his capacity as the head of Stormtrooper training. I pre-emptively offer myself and my costume for the part, and -- per Del's vision -- they can get Kalani Robb for the close-up, helmet-off shots. :peace:

Speaking of costumes... I'm in Shawn's queue for his rubber gaskets. Thanks again for the lead, @Sly11 . I already have Teresa's rubber-look neckseal. All the armor pieces are at least rough-trimmed and all are now sanded except the forearms. This is a step I'd be doing regardless of character. Because of the pieces that should be seamless and aren't, because of surface defects from the thermoforming process, careful joining and filling and sealing is needed, and it'd be getting painted even if it were going to be a white 'trooper. I am currently opening up all the holes that I am opening up, and doing that without error is slow and tedious work with micro-files at the end. I am only using the stickers supplied for a couple spots. Everything else is going to be movie-accurate or better. The shin and bicep and chest pillholes, and chest center vent are all getting the correct gaffers' tape, thanks to Tony. Other things like the handplate indents and backplate triangles are very soft and rounded at the bottoms, where the originals are very crisp, so those are all getting cut out, sharpened up, and re-backed with new material.

Advice requested: The long oval indent at the top of the forearm and the two parallelogram stickers on the forearm back. Those are black or off-black on the movie suits (or, I presume, are supposed to be on those costumes missing the stickers in those spots). I am cutting those areas out to sharpen them up, too, but don't know if I should leave them open to see the black rubber gasket through, back them with the same gaffers' tape as the pillholes, or back them with off-black-painted pieces to make a new, clean indent. I'm also not sure of policy with conflicting movie suits. For instance, some forearms have black at the bottoms of the oval indents, some do not. I prefer how it looks with, but even if it's optional, I don't know what the preference is.

Hoping to also get commentary on the other things I brought up on page one.

**Sly11[Admin]** · October 15, 2022

This is as close up as I can get on a screen used asset for you.

The pill holes on the biceps were 100% stickers where the chest plate pills were cut through.

These look like the same tape used on the biceps and shins. You can see the small air bubbles under then.

Peregrinus · November 3, 2022

So everything is now at least rough-trimmed to within an eighth-inch or less of final. There are places where the .060" ABS is helpful, and places where it's a headache. It is definitely a decent kit if one were to want to trim it to the instructions, slap velcro on where they say, and call it done for something to wear for Halloween or to ComicCon. But to get it even marginally close to film-accurate is going to take almost as much work, Tony, as your Alpha suit did. @ukswrath, @gmrhodes13, @Sly11 -- I need eyes-on, here. Experience, familiarity, judgment calls, known parts, and, if possible, measurements...

First of all, thickness. I'm eyeballing the film suits' biceps and thighs and calves as having chonky return edges at the overlaps. 5-6mm or thereabouts:

With the overlapping parts being about half that. From there the edges thin out to the more typical-looking return edge of the same 2.5-3mm that the overlapping tabs have, and that the shoulder bell and codpiece and inner chest all have. From the thickness seen in the "J-cuts" at the top of the bicep...

The lower edge seems to be consistently thick around the front...?

...but thins by the time it gets to the back...

(I note the shoulder bell looks to be more in the 2-3mm thickness range, like the overlappy bits of the biceps, thighs, and calves -- and that that looks to be the same as the gap in the front-bicep seam...)

The tops of the thighs and calves, now, definitely vary in width, getting fatter around the overlaps:

The tops of the calves clearly thin out at front and back, as seen above and here:

I have been able to find no clear angles looking at the bottom edges of the thighs close to straight on, but I presume they're similar to the rest of what's seen here. Meanwhile, I've been straining my eyes at the bottoms of the calves to try and determine how the hell the spats are attached (Is it just that bit of glued-on mesh fabric at the front? What is that fat tab in the back and how is it attached? Just to the inside of the spat as a spacer/guide?)

But I do notice the bottom edges of the calves are the same as the top, and the thighs, with the spats being the thinner thickness all the way round except for where the flap attaches. Looks like the main piece starts widening around the lowest point of the curve up to where the tab is.

And the thigh and calf seams look to be a lot less gapped than the ~3mm of the biceps. More like only about 1-2mm...

So I have to build up a lot of edges and the softness of the pulls (and, in too many places, lack of material to work with before it gets into thermoforming wastage) does not help. Rather than applying filler topically, that can crack or flake out -- even the Poly-Fill -- I'm going to rough up the soft "corners" on the return edges of th ekit pieces and see how ABS paste works. If it fuses well, it'll be essentially one with the piece. Probably also use that to hide the stacking of layers in the reveal edges.

The good news is that the thinness helps with pieces like the knees -- which, surprisingly, match the thick-in-the-middle-to-thin-at-the-ends taper of the originals:

I just have to build that edge up to something more square...

But, because of the space inside, I can make an attachment system more like what you have in yours, Tony.

Lastly for this post, the chest... I won't get into edge thicknesses of outer and inner here -- that'll be later. What I want to know is if anyone has ID'ed the tab and latches used to fasten the outer chest to the inner:

As far as I know, they all had this, including Phasma:

The tabs look like found hardware, not custom-fabricated. And the post-and-grommet friction fasteners remind me of some sort of maritime locker closure, but I don't know what to call these stupid things, so none of my searches have yielded the right thing yet. Does anyone know what was used, or where to find something similar?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Peregrinus
Trimming redundant wording

Peregrinus · November 22, 2022

I've been an annoying combination of sick, giving myself eyestrain peering at reference images, uploading pictures, and busy with life, but a few things have happened. I'll give more of an update tomorrow.

But this is significant, and I think goes back to when it was still Anovos' kit. The instructions are unchanged. There are no specific callouts for which clip greeblies go on which armor pieces. The instructions say -- and my kit came with (as you can see in the layout pic) -- six large and six small latch clips. I just noticed when I went onto the Denuo Novo site to take a look at the subassembly sets that each leg subassembly comes with one large latch, called out for the thigh, and two small latches, called out for the shin and spat. Similarly, each arm set comes with one large latch, called out for the bicep, and two small latches, called out for the forearm.

Not only does this not match what comes in the full kit, but they're all wrong. The thighs and calves get the large clips (total four), while the biceps, forearms, and spats all get the small ones (total eight). I've pointed this out to them and I'll let you know what they say. Hopefully, there'll be a correction, and those of us with too few of the small clips will be sent a couple more. [ETA: Partial never mind. I'm an idiot. All the time I've been looking at the spats and it never clicked that they get the larger clip greeblie, too. So it's three large per leg and three small per arm. The fill kit is correct, but their parts sets do need to have the greeblies adjusted still -- just differently than I had originally figured it. I have sent an emended e-mail.]

Meanwhile, I've gotten frustrated at the chest-to-back overlap seam, as well as the inner thigh and inner calf overlap seams. They don't fit the rest of the æsthetic, and obviously are a concession to variable fitment of different-sized extras. I feel more and more strongly that they should be butted seams like the outside seams on the thighs and calves, and both seams on each bicep. They're also not terribly visible. Part of the eyestrain was trying to get clear looks at them, from either screen-grabs or in-person photos. Getting things aligned where they should be, it just makes sense to me to make those seams match the rest. Since the TFA suit doesn't have the more blatant "one-size-fits-most" overlaps of the TLJ suit's biceps, thighs, and calves.

I had already asked Denuo Novo if I could get spare parts, when they told me they'd be listing parts sets soon. Now I'm looking at getting not only additional pieces to help with heavily-formed parts like bulking up the thickness of the shoulder bells and spats, but also getting a second upper-torso set and another pair of legs, that I can build up movie-accurate, for approval, but keep going on what I already have to idealize those annoying seams. 99% of people running into me won't see or won't know any different, and it'll both look better/more consistent and not snag.

I know this'll piss off the purists, but I want this costume to look the best it can. To me, that means not slavishly replicating filmmaking expediency. I'm already having to make calls like how to tackle the spats, where the film suits had badly-lined-up back pieces, with sloppy velcro -- that half the time wasn't even fastened. Or the forearms, where so often they're visibly gapping. Seeing how often the velcro on the chest-to-back join came loose (freeze-frame through the assault on Jakku at the beginning of TFA -- many of those troopers already look like they're falling apart and we're only a minute in), I just have to do something better than velcro.

So I'm making all the latches functional, in one form or another.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Peregrinus
Fixed my oops

**buccaneer[TK]** · October 19, 2023

On 10/14/2022 at 5:08 AM, gmrhodes13 said:

Cod is definitely different to the TFA, you can make out two lines/ridges with the TLJ and they are a little wider, also wrap around under the crown jewels (cod)

Forearms

TFA

TLJ/TROS

This is a good thread to read through, has a lot of the TLJ/TROS details

Some (if not all) clips were different

TLJ TD pipe is a separate piece and has the control panel and top recess cut out. TFA it's molded.

TFA

Here you can see the separation on the chest stops at the top ridge so its not a complete cut

TFA gallery is here https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/category/27-tfa-tk-reference/

Here's a good reference of the TFA closure of the bicep, recess (butt join)

TLJ/TROS curved overlap

Thigh overlap TFA (with tape in this image)

Thigh curve overlap TLJ/TROS

Shins they used velcro

Also on spat clip. Note the extra notch of material under the clip

Personally I think you will have to keep the inner seams as they are there on screen references