Time to go ROTJ

[TK-J]

I been wanting to start a ROTJ TK for a while now, and the original plan was to convert my AP armor. BUT, I managed to score a cheap TE2 lite kit a week ago so...it begins.

I don't have pics of the trimming process, 'cause lets face it, it's just way to exciting getting a box of plastic and ripping into it with the shears, to be too worried about the damn camera. So here it is all assembled, no edging yet, working on that.

 

 

Ab section with belt rivitted at each end, 2.5" canvas belt, black and blue buttons.

 

I have rejoined the kidney/butt plates and reinforced the inside with the ol' superglue and T-shirt method

 

TE ROTJ helmet from one of his latest runs

 

 

TM hand-backs and trimmed down shoulder straps

 

My home made ROTJ E-11 made from aluminium pipe, aluminium .5mm sheet and an older Doopy's resin kit.

 

Any and all constructive critisism welcomed

[SuperTrooper]

Looks like your off to a great start. Keep the pictures coming.

[TKCaleb]

NIce! Looks good man. Nice blaster too, top notch my friend.

 

Caleb

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

Nice ...Very nice, can wait to see more pic.

 

 

[Nassik]

Looking good. I'm glad to see another RoTJ In Australia. I thought I might be the only one.

 

Question... where did you get the U-track on the blaster? It's one of the only bits that I don't have yet and I have been looking (I'm in WA).

 

The ab plate buttons... three of them are supposed to be dark blue. You can read about it in this thread: RoTJ ab plate button color scheme

[TK-J]

Hey Shawn, the U-track is .5mm alu sheet strips bent around a .5" dowel, rivitted on then hand bent into position. The 3 bottom buttons are dark blue, they just don't show up very well.

 

If anyone sees anything that just aint right, be sure to let me know, I consist entirely of ears

[troopermaster]

Good to see you have the belt attached correctly J, but poly webbing was used for the ROTJ belts, not canvas.

 

You'll need totally remove all the return edges on the torso and add the rubber trim. Use white velcro to attach the shoulder straps like they did on the movie suits.

[TK-J]

Thanks Paul. I haven't removed all the return yet, waiting to see what the trim I'm waiting on looks like. Was the return at the top of the ab removed as well?

And the poly webbing, should it be 2" or 2.5" wide? I've never seen 2.5" wide stuff anywhere here, and even the 2" is hard to get smaller quantities of. Thats the only reason I have used canvas.

[cobra[TK]]

looking good Jason

[troopermaster]

It looks like 2" poly webbing. I have only seen it available in 2" and 3" but it may be available in 2.5", not sure.

 

You'll need to remove all the return edges on the torso in order to get the trim on correctly.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Holy smokes - you did all this in 2 weeks? ::whistles::

 

Looking super tight so far, will be awesome to see this completed. There are few ROTJ TK's in the Legion - showing pix of the deltas to ANH will be helfpful to many.

[TKCaleb]

From what i have looked at, it appears to be 2 inches. My ABS armor has a 2 inch webbed belt.

[TK-J]

From what i have looked at, it appears to be 2 inches. My ABS armor has a 2 inch webbed belt.

 

I thought from all the pics I've seen, it looked like 2", but the EIB requirement states 2.5", so that's what I did. I will track some 2" poly webbing down post haste .

 

 

Holy smokes - you did all this in 2 weeks? ::whistles::

 

Looking super tight so far, will be awesome to see this completed. There are few ROTJ TK's in the Legion - showing pix of the deltas to ANH will be helfpful to many.

 

TK assembled in 2 weeks is nothin'. My animated clone went from this:

 

to this:

 

in 5 days. It would have been 3 days if I didn't have to wait over the weekend for the paint

 

I'll take some more pics of the modded TK parts, and how they got there when I get home. There really aren't that many mods to do.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

That's insane - the standard I've been hearing is 108 hours from start to finish from a clone. You have some mad skills there.

 

As for 2.5" vs. 2.0", this can be revisited. 2.5" was the best info we had at the time - any supporting evidence for 2" would be great to have presented.

[ThayNerd[TK]]

Looking forward to watching this build.

[davej[TK]]

J, Nice work!!!!

 

 

 

Holy smokes - you did all this in 2 weeks? ::whistles::

2 weeks? C'mon J, are you slowing up in your dotage?

[TK-J]

J, Nice work!!!!

 

 

 

 

2 weeks? C'mon J, are you slowing up in your dotage?

 

 

Umm. Yes

 

The problem with the OT costumes is that they're not perfect, like the clones etc. With a clone it's just a matter of making them fit properly and getting them to look proportional. The hardest part is painting and weathering.

A screen accurate TK is so much more of a challenge I think, especially if you are replicating the look one particular trooper.

Some of the screen caps I took yesterday are showing a few inconsistencies. How many ab buttons were painted seems to be the most frequent.

Also, by taking a few measurements off the screen, it seems the belts were definately 50mm and certainly no more than 55mm, assuming that the front of their belts are the same width as what we use now.

[JSmails[501st]]

Where do you get Poly Webbing for the belt? I have been hoping to find this for quite some time.

 

GREAT BUILD BTW!

 

The bottom blue buttons come from Bernard's exchanges with John who owns the actual suit you can see on StarWarsHelmets.

 

I have been through every frame of ROTJ and there simply isn't a frame that shows the color scheme clearly. There are frames of TK's with no colors on the buttons at all, but they are the exception.

 

WORSE, the TK's lined up on the Death Star have their belts so high they are COVERING the bottom buttons. I have VaderDave's buttons on mine and they are simply too nice to cover up IMO.

 

Most of the Endor TK's you can see all the buttons, but there is never a good closeup that I can find.

 

Again, great build!

[TK-J]

I just got hold of some 2" webbing. Unfortunately it has some sort of coating. It's stuff they use to join the curtains used on semi-trailers over here. The only non coated stuff I've found so far was from ebay and $60 for a 50m roll.

 

This pic shows my button colours better (before I moved the belt up)

 

 

Here it is with the belt moved up with the new belt.

 

 

The only belt that I found that was low enough to see the bottom row of buttons is on the trooper on the right.

 

 

All the others seem to have the belt covering the bottom rows.

 

 

If you look hard enough in the above pics you can also see 3 different button paint patterns. I'm not suggesting that we allow random button paint patterns, but it's just nice to know they're there.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Wow - 2" instead of 2.5" - is that just from judgiing scale or also in coversation with someone who has the original? We can certianly change our standards to allow 2" - I just want to see where that comes from. I think 2.5" may have been a visual guess looking at screen shots.

 

Awesome news on the details gents

[JSmails[501st]]

Jason,

 

You are absolutely correct in the placement of the belt in ROTJ. Almost every one of the TK's cover the blue buttons. Which is a shame, as they are so pretty.

 

But for accuracy sake, it is best I believe.

 

Great caps with the TK's holding Luke. No buttons at all. There are PLENTY of exceptions in ROTJ as I think they were just trying to get the series finished.

 

Do you have a link of some sort for the webbing? Amazon or something?

 

If anyone is any good with photoshop, and judging sizes etc. with a "known size" for the belt boxes, finding the belt size shouldn't be hard.

 

Or if someone were to contact John and ask him to measure his belt, that'd be easiest I think. LOL!

 

I think I have a few screen caps of the sides where one could measure the belt box, then the belt in photoshop. Will it yield an accuracy closer than the .5" discrepancy we have now? I don't know.

[TK-J]

I used this scene and measured it up on the big high def TV.

 

 

The front of the belt to belt ratio from this pic is about 1.7:1 So using my AP belt as reference, and allowing that the ROTJ belt fronts were cut right back with no return, it measures about 90mm. The belt therefore should be around 50-55mm. If you're going to measure it yourself, be sure not to include the shadow beneath either belt piece.

 

As for the webbing, you can get it off ebay for sure.

[TK-J]

Just finished making my holster. Made from 2mm thick black dyed pigskin, it's very light and supple.

 

 

Along with the one I made for my ESB blaster.

 

 

Also looking at making the touchpad details for the det a little more proportionate. The ones in this pics are much bigger than on the ANH/ESB dets.

 

 

So I made these up out of MDF and dowel. Just waiting on the silicone to arrive.

 

[Nassik]

It's all looking pretty good. The holster came out particularly well.

[TK-J]

Here is my attempt at a larger det.

 

 

I used my old FX end caps and a 65mm peice of pvc, with the touchplate made from resin casts of the scratch built parts above.

 

Here it is mocked up

 

 

Here is my ANH det on the same kit

 

 

Which looks closer to the correct scale according to these pics do you think?