Blackwatch

ok heres a big update. Painted the boots, and finished prepping the helmet. I used the very last of the paint on the boots so I have to order more Montana Gold Olive Green. I prepped my boots by airbrushing them with the Angelus Olive. It is quite a bit different from the Montana Gold spray olive. I used the Angelus as a primer to make sure that the MG stuck to the vinyl of the boots. now on to the Montana Gold Olive Green spray.

good day sir! you are a man after my own heart. I love this. And you practice what I preach: TEST TEST TEST! i am going to be following this build with great interest. i also love that you built up a source/ part list, which is something I used to have my TIE Cadets do when I was mentoring. I had them change the color to indicate sourced ordered or in hand, but what you have is great and I appreciate it. dont worry about a paint gun--we get GREAT jobs done with spray cans. prime, sand, wet sand. Wait 48 hours between major coats. . Check for imperfections and spray your color coat. Wet sand with 400 and spray again. Wet sand that if you want but since this is a DIRTY trooper I dont think that is needed. Patience will reward you as you paint.

Im noting a tubulr frame like he uses on his sandtrooper packs. That was a question raised early on, and we will need to revisit it. When I started my pack it was built without a frame using just 6MM sintra. This is something we can revisit.

WE NEED A JAW HITTING THE GROUND EMOJI!!!

i followed the link above and looked them over and then compared them to the CRL The CRL only refers to them as cylinders, I dont have the R1 VisDic in front of me, so it may call them rockets there. The link above to me looks very close to the CRL image. I know I have seen those before but I cant remember where, it was on something else. This is our current CRL . I kinda like the look of the weathered metallic silver.

mine arent wethered in the typical way, but my Gunner, Navy Trooper and new Sapper definitely show use (and abuse like getting freaking NAILED by lightsabers in my helmets)

There is something of a sheen diference between Semigloss and Satin. I prefer satin on everything, use it all the time, and OVER TIME it kind of dulls down. But it also shows scuffs. All my black helmets (other than TIE) are painted Rustoleum2x Satin Canyon Black.

we have matte here in the Garrison and it looks GREAT. From my persepctive it shows less in the way of scuffing than gloss does, since even a satin will show almost every scuff. I have a custum costume I completed last year and painted it satin black and it shows scuffing pretty easily. My option would be (IF ALLOWED) a dead matte flat.

The link I had posted was for the side strap. You can see a horizontal elastic that holds the front and back armor together. The ShoulderStrap is the main item of concern. In all three art sources, it is smooth and not ribbed like a TX shoulderstrap. If it were omitted, it would not have been omitted in all three arts. I edited four images in Paint to give us this view to compare to the actual costume. The ribbing and its shadows seen on General Veers in the behind the scenes photo are missing from all versions of the art. We all agree this is young Max Veers, however that does not mean that the armor remained the same through his career, therefore we put forward that in THIS instance, the Army ground commander has smooth shoulderstraps.

Neal i am realy glad that this is going to work out. I really want to see this move forward. i tried to do this years ago, on my own, but it ddnt pan out. I want this to ROCk. I want to see the Sapper become the next Sandtrooper. I am really looking forward to seeing the pack, to guide my own build, and we will get this done and approved. THEN we will turn our attention back to Sunber because right now, that topic is heating back up!

hey Bill! yeah its been in-work for some time, and when the other units got approved this one kind of slid from the forefront we do need to nail down the final details (in the text of the discussion). Im not sure how far along Kerry got, or how many were approved before the CRL was taken down. Overall i would not say this is a difficult build, just different from the typical green Army trooper.

the way we learn is by asking. NEVER be afraid to ask.

thank you! I hae been MEGA busy myself. We stArted working 12 hour minimum days at work, and Im super busy on my off days. Im FINALLY at my keyboard. YAYS! Ok, gong to update the topic now.

you are correct sir! The best refereces we have, and the only references used currently, are the three at the top of the proposal, understanding that this is young Maximilian Veers early in his carreer with the Imperial Army, and two others using the same tan coveralls. Wren we need to discuss the straps (smooth as we see them not ribbed like the other Ground Commander) as well as any other details.

ALRIGHTY!!!! SO!!!!!!! I wrote up a proposal for the backpack. Please look it over. I know its wordy but we can trim and edit for clarification. troopers here is my proposal. Bear with it, its a rough draft: Rocket Pack: Styled after the pack as seen in the battlefront II video game. An interpretation of the pack is allowed, but screen accuracy is encouraged. Comprised of the main pack box, fuel tank at the top of the pack and exhaust ports at the left and right bottom of the pack. Main pack box is rectangular in shape, flat at the top and beveled at the bottom, stopping above the thermal detonator. It is mounted to the armor backplate “0 II “ . The main box features a depressed center area inset approximately ½”-7/16” deep. The depressed area is divided into five segments. There is a horizontal line at about midway up the depression, with three horizontal lines dividing the upper half into equal segments. These three equal sized segments may be weathered light grey or dirty white. There are three circular buttons approximately ¼” to 5/16” diameter below the bottom horizontal segment line, arranged horizontally toward the right side of the depression. These are black in color. The bottom bevel of the rocket pack features a black rectangle on the right size of the bevel, approximately 2” tall by 2.5” wide. Horizontal black lines extend to the left from the upper and lower edge of the rectangle. The pack center box may be lightly weathered. The rocket exhaust ports are mounted to either side of the pack center box, curved at the top and are beveled at the bottom. They are mounted ½” below the surface of the pack center box. The bottom of the exhaust ports feature rectangular nozzles, inset into the exhaust port, and may extend ½” below the top of the bevel. This area is weathered per the reference photos. There are two medium to dark grey rectangles 3/4” by 2” just above the exhaust nozzles. The left rocket nozzle has a raised rectangle approximately 2 ½” wide by four inches long. Rocket nozzles and ports may be lighly weathered. The fuel tanks is slightly wider overall than the backpack. The center barrel section is as wide as the center section of the main backpack box, and is mounted directly on top of it. A horizontal groove divides it into top and bottom sections. Two truncated cones extend to the right and left side of the barrel, ending in flat depressed caps which feature raised rings inside he flattened ends. 20 grooved depressions are seen near the ends of the tank. The outermost part of the caps are painted light to medium grey. The back side of the tank features two vertical oblong depressions 3/8” by 1.5” long, painted a light orange / peach color. This is not the same color used on the helmet and shoulderbell. The fuel tank may be supported by plastic structure as seen in reference material to help hold it stable. Level 2 The backpack is as close to screen accurate as possible. The black rectangle and horizontal lines in the lower bevel of the rocket pack may be made of separate individual plates instead of black lines to represent the separations. Tank end cap layout should match reference photos as closely as possible.

I just checked the text in the original post and fixed one server migration error, and it looks ready for your review. We are still working from the 3 source images. I know Wren is working over her coveralls and Ive asked her to update us. Our armor is on hand but untrimmed at this time.

i worked from the plans that were posted early on for the backpack, and I used sintra. However its not 100% done yet and I had not finalized my explosive layout. The pack , boxes shovel and two explosives are done (to a point) however I think Im going to run itno a problem with the lower explosive hitting the back pouch on the belt. Thats why I really wanted to hold off before I posted much outside my own buid thread, to see how the crookknight had been buit and how it handled certain things. I do know this--when you ask for a refund it gets their attention!

Ok, great that helps thanks. I know a lot about otehr stuff but when it comes to TK armor Im not up to speed. I aplogize for not answering sooner I could see you sent a message but I was not able to respond on my phone

This may be academic, but Im not a Tk type TX , do we have a list of kits with parts featuring overlap construction?

Thanks. Its dead at work now and I have the proposal printed out and i am going through it.

Awesome!!! Overall I lije it i would say tighten the straps up a bit and add a spot of velcro to hold them to your shoulders. Until i weighed the Engineer belt down the way it is now, my shoulderstraps were always slipping. Looking forward to your approval!

Yeah, i totally understand. Kind of how it is with waiting on a vendor thats producing other orders.

Neal any word on the pack ?

Ok so back to the forums-yay- and looking for any progress or discussion on the topics above.

THAT "creates a vacuum". And ive been there, more than once with different makers. Please let us know if anything changes.