JeepGrrl

Your shoulder bridges look very nice on the chest

Oh my gosh!! My son would totally flip to be a shadow trooper like his momma This is too awesome, Walt!!

I'll echo nice boots!! Your magma's going to be really awesome!! It looks like you have a good gap between the thigh and shin to prevent the knee plate going under, as long as your thighs don't move down as you troop it. Don't know how you're attaching your thighs but mine are snapped/velcroed to a back brace which likes to migrate down just enough while I'm trooping to get my knee stuck. I just got a different brace and I'm going to whip up some non-elastic suspenders to attach to it which will hopefully fix that prob.

Getting close! So exciting!! I see your Imperial Chihuahua matches your armor too

Ok so forgive me for posting white armor on here but his shoulders are just better than mine. He did put heat on his to shape them to the contours of the chest. He prefers the heat gun because he's hardcore, but I like the boiling water method because it's way easier to control. One guy brought a chest to an armor party and I actually teared up a bit for him when I saw - he had put way too much heat on it and the bumps had flattened into a mess. I hope these pictures help (and address your question). Also make sure you have your back on when you attach the bridges - they follow the line from chest to back, they don't just run parallel to each other.

Lol dude I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself So you're talking about the shoulder bridges? Mine are probably not a good example, they're kind of weirdly set because I had to heat the top pieces of my chest to open it up. Let me dig out my man's TK chest (also AM) and take a pic, unless someone else beats me to it

Well, um, you guys certainly seem to have some interesting armor parties For the chest straps, are you talking about the straps at the top that attach to the back, or ones inside the front that hold the chest down to the ab?

Dude I'm loving the gauntlets with the armor

:laugh1: Dude it's gonna look fantastic when you get it finished! Good luck with your armor next week!! I really miss the building part - maybe that's why this is so addictive

Like Toddo said, I think the forearm looks right from here. You can always shove a square of foam up in there too if it feels too loose. I use two squares in each of mine - one on the outside of my arm at the elbow end and one on the inside of my wrist. It gives me good wrist movement and makes them super comfortable.

Yay!!!!!!!!! Hope your approval comes through quickly!! You have put so much work and heart into your armor, you should be super proud

Hey xanthis, glad to see you over here! Good luck with your current submittal! I so can't wait to see how your magma turns out, I've heard really awesome things about Eddie's painting skills. Looking forward to trooping with ya!!

Thanks izzi!!

Thank you, trooper!

Thanks Steve! Yeah I wasn't sure if it was a requirement, but I agreed that it looked nicer so I figured I wouldn't argue.

Thanks, Jim! I'll try!!

Thank you guys very much I'm so psyched!!

Very nice, thanks for posting! I have a gray pauldron hanging around also and it didn't even occur to me to paint it!

Thanks guys! Well it's now official - TX-71131 reporting for duty!!

Hey Trooper! Thanks for the compliments! Well... I submitted my pics this week and just got word from my GML that all I have to do is paint my TD clips black and I'm good to go! Yay!!!! We went to a local con this past weekend where I got to troop her for about 3-4 hours both days and it was flippin awesome! Here's a pic I found of James and I at the con. This was from the first day and my there is an embarassingly ridiculous gap between my thighs and body. I adjusted straps to bring up my thighs and lower the body down some so it looks better. I'm still learning how to wear it. I did have to give the TK parts back but that's ok because now that my armor is done, I realize I definitely I look better in black The shadow armor is HOT! I hope all is going well with your TX build and that you are enjoying trooping your TD!

I was making a dumb face but you can't see the rest of it under the mask!

Awesome tutorial! And right on time for me since I have been thinking all week about how I want to do mine! Thank you for posting

So I've been working on my armor for a couple of months but hadn't posted any progress yet. Here's a little update… Around Thanksgiving, I got to troop a GT buddy's TK (a hybrid of his armor and an extra chest/back that he had laying around). It was incredibly fun, not to mention I learned a ton of little things about how I want to build my armor. The most important thing I learned was that the AM bucket I had would probably not work for me. No matter what I do, the chest will always sit totally differently on me than it would on a skinny guy. We opened up the extra TK chest piece a bit, fit it to me and I wore his AM bucket. The bucket was so large and the chest rode so high that the bucket rested on the chest and kept trying to lift off my head if I moved. I spent the whole 4 hours tilting my head back to try to see, even then I could barely see through the eyes, and certainly couldn't turn my head at all. It's so pronounced, you can tell in the pics like the one below. I thought I looked downright awful standing next to James' picture-perfect TK lol. Here is he & I: And this is me "looking down" at these kids... you can see what I mean! I am so glad I got that opportunity! After the troop, I immediately ordered an ATA bucket, and it turned out that a guy in my garrison was looking for a display bucket as a Christmas present so it worked out nicely. Here it is with the lenses just being held in it (they came in today): For my color scheme, I've decided to go with silver mirror lenses, silver frown and flat black traps, tears, vocoder and stripes. So also... biceps & forearms closed, back and kidney attached with elastic, ab and kidney/back fitted and closed with velcro'd shims. Thighs & shins closed, thighs hung. Eventually I want a shiny belt, but for now I made it from black canvas like a TK belt. Chest and back opened up and fitted. James built my bucket before we fitted the chest, and so far I'm happy with the way it all fits. I would post pics of the pieces, but I haven't been taking them lol. For the boots - to start with, I ordered Amsterdams. When they got here, they were entirely too big. I was on the fence about Amsterdams vs the Shires Woodstocks, and I decided instead of ordering a smaller size of the Amsterdams, I'd replace them with Woodstocks instead. I put some insoles in the Woodstocks and they fit really well. I'm still deciding on how I want to try to keep my shins from turning - I read a really great post about that today. Anyway just wanted to stop in and say hi. I'm getting really close to being finished and I absolutely can't wait to troop it! Hope you are all doing well

Looking good dude! I'm a fan of Plastruct, I use it at work as well on ABS models. I helped build a white AM kit and now am building my black AM, and I've noticed that the black requires a good bit more plastruct than the white to achieve the same result. I learned a neat little trick from a guy in my garrison – he uses a plastic syringe fitted with a flexible taper tip, like a capillary tip, to apply the plastruct. It goes on much faster than the brush in the bottle. This comes with a warning however – you need to use a very fine tip to control it, but the tip can get clogged with melted ABS as you touch it to the piece. To dislodge a clog, make sure you pull back the syringe to reduce the pressure before you squeeze the tip to get the clog out. At an armor party, one of our guys shot himself straight in the eyeball with a decent amount of plastruct that way. He quickly got his eye under running water and there is no lasting injury, except for the fact that he will never live it down. Can't wait to see your finished rig!

Hey guys, so I'm one step away from making that first cut, and the only thing holding me back is the question of, do I want to do overlap or butt joint construction? My bf just finished his AM TK and used butt joints which looks awesome on him, but he's a skinny dude and had a lot to trim. I also have AM and I won't have as much to trim, nor will I have as much extra abs for cover strips as he did. My biggest concern is probably the Specialist program, and I know it's undergoing changes at the moment. Any idea if I could still achieve specialist with overlap? What do you guys think of overlap?