Shaggy9342

Decided to take pics before going to work just in case.

Great news! I just finished pepping the helmet and tried it on. It's the absolute perfect size. Just enough room on the sides, face plate is just right, back to front is right and the brow sits right above my eyes, meaning there will be room for padding. And considering I have one of the biggest noggins I know of and plenty of hair besides, this means it should fit practically anyone without a problem. Also, I couldn't be happier with the pepakura work itself. It honestly makes my earlier helmet look like crap in comparison. The lines are cleaner, folds are sharper and it barely needs any tape holding it in place to keep it symmetrical. Going to do a little fiberglass work, let it dry then I should have pictures up tonight.

Thanks! It's really nice to read something like this. As I am now starting my 3rd helmet since deciding the previous one was too large, finding motivation can be difficult. I have a bunch of the wallpapers off of the TOR website as my wallpaper. An epic picture like the one below reminds me why I'm doing this instead of just a clone or something (not that I don't love clones too). So I'm turning up the music and jumping into another day! Sadly, I haven't been able to find my camera since I went to Starfest so there may not be any pic updates for a while. Also, I checked your site out. Who doesn't love it when Master Chief orders some pizza lol? Awesome suit man. Revan is such a bad-um...posterior? What are the rules re. profanity on this forum? Oh well. I'm gonna start holding my saber Shien style like that while trooping.

So I have good news, bad news and...um. News. First off, the bad news. The helmet I made is too large, and I'm unhappy with how practically every other piece has been turning out. I know I'm not going to achieve perfection on a project like this, especially on my first try but I know I can do better than the pieces I have. The good news. After about a week of not working on this project at all, I am now diving back into it headfirst. I just got back from Starfest (Denver, Colorado sci fi convention) and it was just the inspiration I needed to keep going on this project despite the (admittedly self-induced) setbacks. We, the Mountain Garrison, also had our annual dinner where we talked about things such as how much money the Legion and our garrison has raised for charity, the trading cards we're going to be doing soon and a very personal matter involving one our member's father (Santa Bill, please read). All this reminded of why I personally, and many others in the Legion do this. Not just for ourselves, although that is part of it, but for the difference we can make. What could be better than combining a love of Star Wars, costuming and charity work? Everybody wins. So I should be back to regular updates on my progress with this costume. Almost forget about the neutral news. While the helmet I have is too large, it did help me figure out some mechanics of the suit early enough to avoid a lot of stress and extra work down the road. The helmet and neck piece have to be separate. If they were cast together, the costume wouldn't look as good, movement would be unnatural and since the helmet now has to be smaller there would be no way of putting it on save for cutting a slit and pulling it open every time it was put on, which would be stress on the rest of the helmet and likely cause major damage over time. On a slightly happier note, thanks to a facebook status from Allen Amis, I have discovered Rondo and it importance in pepakura projects. It's basically a 1:1 mix of Bondo and fiberglass resin. This is applied to the pepakura piece after the initial coat of fiberglass resin (although I might try using jelly instead) and should drastically cut down on work time and improve the quality of the piece compared to my previous method of resin then straight Bondo. Here's a brief tutorial on Rondo for those who are interested. Expect to see progress Monday night as I'm probably just going to rest tomorrow and recover from hours spent walking around in costume and posing at the con today.

Thanks all! It's somewhat strange in that it's only kind of a perfect fit. There's at least one inch of space between my head and the top of the helmet, but almost no room on the sides. I also found that I can just barely squeeze my head in with the neck piece closed on all sides. As I have a much larger noggin than most and a somewhat ridiculous amount of hair on top of that, I think it's the perfect size. Now I can start working on the collar. Once I have the collar the right size I can fiberglass the helmet and use the collar to make sure the rest of the armor is the right size. It's another beautiful day (I think spring is finally creeping into Colorado...although it did snow last night ) So i'm off to go bondo while I can! Oh, and Darth Emphatic I can show you whatever you need to learn here. It's honestly not too hard. This is my first time doing this and I feel like it's coming out ok. And once I finish this costume, I should hopefully have more than enough experience to tackle Shae Vizla's armor.

After a bit of tape to pull pieces into place, I'm still not perfectly happy, but I'll be able to fix almost everything I don't like with Bondo and sanding. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. Hopefully I'll have access to an actual camera soon so I can take better pics. I know it's hard to see a lot of the detail in these pictures.

Well here it is. It's not perfect, but I can work with it. Also, always try to get other people to take pictures of you as it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get a good shot of your head when you can't see lol.

Didn't get nearly as much done so far today as what I thought I was going to get done. I made the mistake of watching Religulous and Jesus Camp and kept getting distracted and didn't do any work. Also, I've been planning on doing Shae Vizla as my next armor costume project (not for me obviously) but then I found this picture. TOR Bounty Hunter So now I'm definitely thinking of doing both a male and female version. Too many costumes, not enough time! Fortunately, tonight is DnD so I won't have the computer to distract me while working.

Second half of the helmet is about 30% done. No work tomorrow so I'll probably stay up and work on it. I've started bondo work on the elbow, hand and shoulder pieces. Still lots of sanding to be done so no pics yet, but hopefully tomorrow. I've never worked with this much bondo, I've just filled in seams in armor. Anyone have any tips?

Haha, that thread will be on the Flagship Eclipse forums. But I'm just researching everything right now, so you're gonna have to keep that responsible DL face on for a while longer lol. In other news, it's an absolutely beautiful day to go do some bondo work!

Didn't do much today. But I did start a painting Of a costume I'll be making (hopefully) soon for my girlfriend. Believe it or not, she actually chose this costume. No persuasion needed!.

Haha, I remember your other post Rottcole. If I get to the point of doing runs, and you buy one, yours will be first out.

Well due to snow and cold I'm not going to try any fiberglass or bondo today. I printed out the left half of the helmet but honestly, I just don't have it in me to do any more pepping right now. I did do a little bit earlier, trying to figure out the correct collar size. Back to the first one too big, second too small routine until I get it figured out. Fortunately, the weather for tomorrow and the following days is predicted to be in the 70's. Even if it doesn't get that high, I'll be able to start fiberglassing the helmet and doing bondo work on the arm.

Alright, finished the right half of the helmet. Actually managed to get the size right on only the second try. It's still a bit floppy, especially as it's only half the helmet. But it came out way better than the first one. I'm fairly pleased with it

Haha, yeah I've already watched all of Firefly. And the movie. I'm caught up on all the shows I watch. I'm pretty much constrained to whatever is on Netflix instant stream though. And whatever else I can find online. I just started watching One Piece. Seems good so far, if different from most other anime I watch. I wish there were more episodes of The Walking Dead!

Our current campaign is 4th edition, but there's been a strong push from everyone to go back to playing 3.5. The only problem with that is finding rulebooks for everyone as we don't have enough to share and they're hard to come by since 4e came out. We might just switch to playing the Pathfinder RPG. And I'll have to check out the Incredible Hulk

Yeah, it's pretty freaking tedious. Unfortunately, I have almost no patience either. But I've found that if I watch a movie or build the paper pieces while playing Dungeons and Dragons, it's not too bad. But now I'm running into the problem of running out of stuff to watch lol. In only the past few days I've watched all three Ong Bak movies and various television and anime shows. Any suggestions?

Still working on the new helmet. I have a feeling already that it might be a tad too large but I'm gonna finish it all the way to be certain. I would've had a lot of time to work on it today but a squadmate and I drove up to the Far Away Creations studio (hurray for 4 hours of driving lol). Totally worth the time and gas though. Seeing all of the molds, armor kits and other costuming bits and bobs lying around was definitely worth the trip. Didn't get anything as I'm focusing on this (and another secret project from TOR ) but it was fun. Hopefully I'll post with a complete half helmet soon! Hmmm. Odd contradiction in that statement.

Alright, clearly I haven't been posting enough actual work as this is my 5th post in a row lol. So don't hesitate to comment now! Setting up for fiberglassing First coat of fiberglass resin (I've done 2 now but I only took pictures after the first coat. I'm thinking I'll do 3 or 4 coats total) And finally, I worked all during my DnD session tonight on this I didn't finish it as it's too small but it's given me some good practice and a good idea of how the pieces fit together.

Just found a very interesting picture Now besides a few differences in the armor, this is clearly a Sith Trooper from Revan's time. But no face mask.

Should have some updates soon, I've been a bit distracted by my new Darth Revan costume

Also, I've decided to sell the pep files for the Sith Trooper. Apparently, fiberglass, resin and mold-making materials are expensive. Who knew lol? I'm roughly basing prices off SPC's prices for his pepakura costume files. $4 for a piece or $30 for the whole thing. The pieces are: -abdomen plate -back plate -calf -chest -collar -head -arm -shoulder -thigh PM me if interested.

Left arm all done. On to the calf! Or helmet. I'll probably go back and forth.

It's called Pepakura Designer. And yes, slogging is definitely what I'm doing lol. But on the plus side, I've finally made time to watch all of Firefly.

Figuring out the right size to print these out is becoming a bit of a pain...