Darth Emphatic

I 100% agree on sanding. I had to do this for areas of my shadow stormtrooper years ago. Obviously, if it's been painted, then you'd need to strip that and see how the plastic, but since I was working with black ABS, sanding worked great. You want to sanding pads that essentially run up to like 12000 grit. Others may have recommendations for where to start, meaning you don't have to start at the lowest grit necessarily and work your way up. You may be able to start in the middle. What I would do is find a spot that you can sand the inside of the armor or a spare piece and go through stepping up the grit until you get to that gloss finish. I will also wax mine periodically with Maguire's. Worst case scenario is you can go the paint route in the end, but it can be tough to get it even. I had an auto body shop do a different set of armor pieces to get it right.

Hey man, I remember when you started this. Congrats on the approval! So glad to see it come together into its final form!

Just curious, do you have access to extremely high grit sandpaper there? I have a wet pad pack that goes up to 12,000 and they polish just like using wax. Otherwise, I have used Meguiars car wax, but not sure what your access will be for that.

Unfortunately, action figures can't be official sources without other supporting sources. There are a couple exception, but those have a bit of a suspect past.

the blaster is an E-11and the rifle a DLT-19x. These are both more common builds with resources out there for them (especially the E-11). This thread is pretty useful, but I search on the forums by the weapon names will also help.

The LMO can approve a specific costume and trooper without a finalized CRL. That happened a lot more in the past had not at much now. Ty is correct when he states his costume is 501st approved. Ty, I thought the crl was waiting on updated photos before being finalized. That's my recollection, but I could be way out of date on that.

Have you gone to a local bod shop? I did that for a helmet one and it came out great. I had to visit a few to find one that would do it.

Your gml is applying stormtrooper logic to the shadow stormtrooper. The shadow doesn't have an on screen reference and there are sources that have shiney belts. You can't get that from canvas. If your gml isn't willing to follow the crl, is reach out to the LMO. You can also ask your gml to reach out to the DL and XO.

If something isn't stated explicitedly the general rule is typically to make it look like the picture. In this case, Leather or leather-like is what they should be. No canvas.

I know it's been a huge ordeal (hearing from others). I am glad things are getting somewhat back to normal. Good luck with the rest and glad to see you back.

Woot! Can't wait to see this come together.

Stirrups are the way to go. I've been using them for years on my calf armor to keep it down and over my boot tab.

Welcome back, Mark!

Very nice. This is motivating me to crack out my weir bandolier and start working on it.

I'd love to see it. I wouldn't be opposed to exploring it and would be happy to talk to the command staff about it. It wasn't deliberately ommited to my knowledge, but just needs the sources to confirm.