Tachyon

Very nice armour mate! Looks awesome, DW2011 is going to have some sweet new costumes about!

Cheers mate, slow and steady wins the race Hoping to have the helmet and backpack ready to show off at the big Dreamworld Troop next month. I want to have the rest of the costume done my October for a big convention in another state, but we'll see how I go. Fingers crossed I get it done well before October

Yeah, it was annoying, but I'm looking into an easier alternative at the moment. Sculpting the taper to be the exact depth at each point was getting tiresome and very tricky, so I figure just shoving a chunk of wood on a lathe might be the easier option in this situation. Just need to get me access to a lathe, and a chunk of wood.

More progress from yesterday. Took one step forward and two back. The good news, Got my helmet molded and it's now ready to have the prototype pulled. The bad news, I left the tapered shin in my car and ended up with a piece of PVC pipe and a puddle of melted plasticine in a plastic bag So back to the drawing board on that one. The other piece of bad news, I'm not making headway with the pelvis armor, so I'm going to have to scrap it and start again with a lifecast for the base. Newspaper under a duct tape cast just moves too much and won't let me get the shape right. So the helmet was a pretty big win, hoping to have it finished off and painted for a big troop at the end of Feb. Might even have the backpack to go with it. While it was annoying to have to start the shin and pelvis again, I'm not overly concerned, because neither was working properly and I felt I was putting too much effort into something that I might have had to re-do anyway. Onto the chest and back while I decide what to do with these two pieces.

Thanks mate, I'd love to make a trip over to the states one day for trooping and a holiday, need some cash though. Maybe Dragoncon or Comic con in 2012 or C6?

All that is missing are the Knife and it's sheath (going to be one solid piece, no need for a real knife ) a round greeblie on each side at the lower cutout, and the thruster. Left shin is almost complete, pending getting the taper correct on the top half.

Our local armorer is having trouble sourcing black ABS and he said it would be the same with any other special colored ABS, you can only buy it from the manufacturer's by the tonne, which is reeeealllly pricey and unless you have a use for a tonne of plastic, there isn't much of a point to buying it. Usually these guys contact the people who purchase off of the manufacturer to see if they have some plastic to spare, which is usually the case, but the initial outlay for the tonne of ABS makes it unjustifiable, not to mention finding someone who's bought red ABS is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Just need someone with alot of cash to join the detachment

Thanks mate, I'm a little concerned about the widths of each band as well as the gaps. The back of both is also continuing to be a pain, due to the mismatch between pics of the front and back. It's gotta look good when it's finished, hopefully that day will be soon

Progress! Yay! Finished rough sculpting the other shin today. I like it more than the left shin, might resculpt that. Let me know what you think, the left has a taper while the right dosn't appear to in the reference pics. Right is just missing the knife on the front and the thruster on the back. (Right shin is left in the pics and Left is right in the pics)

Cool. I'll try and rough sculpt the other shin today if time permits. Expect piccys soon

Putting on and taking off are another kettle of fish I am looking at either flexible fiberglass, hiding the seam behind the thruster, or working out some way of making the recessed panels at the back removable, kinda like clone shins. These options may not work, but I've gotta sculpt the shins before I can play with that. It kinda makes sense to me to have asymmetrical shins, it's easier, it kinda makes sense if you think different shins might house different sensors, and also the shins on a TX are different because one has a sniper plate and the other doesn't (bit obscure that last one). Do you think I've gotten the shape roughly right and the placement of the cut-outs correct for this shin?

Ok, need some feed back. This is just a very rough sculpt of the left shin (greeve). There are noticable differences between the two shins and when you look at the tiny trooper in the top left of the colour pic you can see that there are 2 styles of the back. So this shin is the left of the front trooper. It has 2 flat sections separated by a groove with two cut out sections on the front. I mirrored the lower cut out as well. The back corresponds to the back of the right greeve on the tiny trooper (seems to be reversed for some reason) as the back of his left shin seems more consistent with the 'E' shape on the bigger troopers right shin. There are 2 bands along the back of the top portion, the groove runs right around and the lower portion is removed. The two raised bits below the 2 main bands are going to be half the height as the pic seems to have a bit of a step before going down to the base of the armour (the pipe in my sculpt). I hope this makes sense to you, It is still a rough sculpt, I'm going to add a flare to the top part so it comes down to be of equal thickness to the lower portion. The lower portion is also going to be thinner than it currently is. I hope this helps you imagine how it's going to look completed. I have to wait till I'm back at the workshop to get the sculpting tools I need to make these modifications. If you like it, tell me why. If you don't like it, tell me why. I need different peoples opinions and reasoning. The shins are by far the hardest part of this costume for me to do, due to the differences between each of the shins. I also contemplated putting the 'E' on the inside of both shins, but that makes the bands at the back inaccurate, hence why I'm doing two separate styles of shin, Left and Right. -Edit- I should also mention that these are missing the thruster greeblies. I am adding those once they are made. They will be removable though to allow putting on and taking off, as well as more compact storage. -Edit 2- The other way I could potentially do this, is just ignore the 2 Band backed shin and put the 'E' on the inside of both shins and have a smoother outside of both shins. This however would also require an alteration to the bottom portion of both shins due to differences in the heights of each lower portion.... I'm not liking these shins...

Umm, not at the moment, I was talking about it with my mate, but it really depends on the price of silicone at the time and how many kits we can get/sell from the run. It will more than likely be a pretty inclusive kit, covering all the custom parts, armor, belt pouches (or template for you to cut your own belt pouches), neckseal, so on and so forth. But that's just what I'd like to send out in the kit, I can't make any promises till we get to that stage. It first needs to be approved for 501st use and the CRL approved

Sorry Izzi, I already tried transporting this to the post office once before, and it only squashed the back of it. They also said it was too heavy, it weighs a tonne. I am saving money for silicone to do a run though. As soon as I pull the second bucket (first one is mine ) I'll let you know The final pieces of all the armor parts are going to be done in fiberglass, of a similar weighting to 0.60 ABS (from memory, I could be wrong, but the thickness was comparable to thinner ABS) I was assured that it won't be heavier than an ABS TX bucket. Easier to do it in fiberglass than vac forming, too many overhangs for the vacform to handle. I can't wait to pull mine, I'm going to have alot of fun kitting this out.

Mmm sweet. Red and black is awesome. Home Garrison colours FTW! Maybe I'll do one of these too when I get in black . Eventually.

After some more sculpting work today, I have but one awesome photo to show. I did however take a full series of approval style pics with a KS biker scout helmet for reference. (Sorry for the size of the pic). Molding for the prototype is the next step Edit; On second thought, I'm going to put this one up as well. Gives another awesome view of the bucket, and a KS Scout bucket for comparison!

Well, the undersuit I plan on using is just a stock standard TK undersuit, with a zipper up the front instead of the back. As for the gloves, this is very similar to what I have; They're black wedding gloves, only thing is, they're a female glove so they're half a size to small for my man hands. This isn't much of an issue though, as I wanted tight, form fitting gloves with a length where the lip (where the glove ends and the undersuit continues) could be hidden and they'll do the job. If I find something more manlier I'll grab them though. They're a satin/lycra blend, so they look very similar to my lycra undersuit.

Picked up some black unbranded, elbow length gloves today, should look good over the top of the under suit. They end roughly where the forearm armour sits, so the lip should be covered. That's pretty much all the soft armour done, just need to finish the boots and design the neckseal, but that'll need to wait until after I finish the chest, because I need the skirt of it to cover the front zipper on my under suit.

Back on target; Did some more work on the helmet today, finished the details on the faceplate, just smoothing and fixing up the divets and flat surfaces remains. Also gotta put the detail on the 'wings' on each side. Looks like a line with a rectangle in front. Decided to make these slightly raised as they are in place of the ears on the normal bikerscout. But only ever so slightly raised. No pics tonight, but getting close to the prototype helmet now. Decided to do these as a single piece in fiberglass. Too many issues involved in vac forming the helmet (will need to be made seamless due to several pieces being needed), but the fiberglass ones should still be light. That and in-universe, it would need to be a single piece helmet to retain its watertight-ness. Probably have some pics next week, there isn't a huge amount of difference between it now and the last pics.

But if you sell it, how would you get to the Not-So-Secret-But-Incredibly-Stealthy Antarctic Base? I assume it will have to be underwater, otherwise any snowie could get in. I shall keep you posted.

@ Izzi - You betcha @Hoppy - Still thinking of using modded TK bells, found the MC bells to still be a little round and short for my liking, TK have more of a point to the top of them. After having more than a few people ask me about it, I'll be talking to the guys who have been helping me with the moulding and vac forming about doing a run once the legion has given the build an approved status. But only once it is approved will I do an interest thread for a run. No sense in doing a run on unapproved armour. After all, can't have only one of the seatrooper in the legion. It's just too awesome. Please don't ask me about this until it's approved, but it is in the cards.

Thanks guys , I'm going to see if I can get the rest of the visor constructed if I get some spare time today or tomorrow.

Another day, another dollar..... apparently. Well, in lieu of money, I got some more work done on the helmet today. I'm quite happy with the result of another days work on it, shouldn't take too many more days till it's complete Before work began, I took a photo of my sculpt next to a KS bucket I borrowed from a friend; Then, over the course of a few hours, I cleaned up the cheeks and snout, attached the pipe holders and worked on the visor edging on one side. The visor is a cross between the close up of Commander Aban and the color image on the cover of the book. The edging has been, and will continue to be a royal pain in the proverbial, as the close up of Commander Aban is quite ambiguous as to whether the lower rim is tiered, or if the inner white line is just a reflection on the visor. I have taken it as a reflection for now. I can see this being a potential point of contention in the future

Yeah, I'd go darker mate. Something else to keep in mind is that apparently the color blue dosn't Photograph well, so it could be darker in person than what we can see here. But I'd still go a bit darker. Other than that it looks great. Good work so far, all the hard work will pay off in the end and you can be like, "Yeah, that's right. I made that."

Hey guys, need another opinion, this time on boots. What I'm thinking, is getting a pair of imitation crocs (cause brand name ones are expensive ); some marine grade vinyl that is used for biker scout boots, and some velcro. The crocs will give a structure for the vinyl to follow and protection for the soles of my feet. The boots in the pictures seem more like socks, so if I leave the vinyl loose it should get the same appearance. I'll also need to add a sleeve from the ankle up, probably about 1/3 to 1/4 the length of my shin so that it bunches up around the ankle (as the structure of the crocs only comes upto the ankle), hopefully giving the illusion of wearing socks. Velcro up the back so I can get in/out. What do you think, will it work? Also, for the shoulder bells, I was thinking of modding a standard set of TK bells to remove the ridge. It would leave them flat all over. I feel the TB bells are too round and not long enough, while the TK bells would be a better match with the ridge removed. Thoughts? Thanks guys.