Blackwatch

....When I was not building the Army Engineer i built the worlds first Royal Manticoran Marine Corps M-21 Heavy Battle Armor affectionately known as "the Rougarou". David Weber, who wrote the majority of the Honor Harrington Honorverse books, created the armor and wrote about its characteristics. The armor exists as a description in the Saginami Island Tactical Simulator Game. There is a single, small, line drawing in "House of Steel" which describes how the Manticoran government and its military works. Mine is the first, and very likely the only costume to be built. A few people tried several years back but gave up because there are no plans, no downloads, no PDFs, no Pepakura, no STL files, no models, no 3 view elevations. I figured it all out on paper and mocked it in cardboard. It took me all of four months of working LONG nights, and it was a race to the finish. It has full lights and sounds onboard thanks to Evan Roth DZ 51009, when I pull the trigger the Tribarrel Gatling gun spins and I have a gatling gun sound effect from a 15W Aker. I have to thank Evan Wayne TX 31519 and Evan Roth for their skill and expertise, and Ed Cook TI 5335 and Steven Rosenthal TR 11107 for literally being guinea pigs learning how to suit me up, and keep me from falling over (and handing out SO MANY business cards at MantiCon) when I went out in the Rougarou. Krista Dison DZ 81431 made our Rougarou Tactical Support Team shirts.

i googled the boot and found "sorry item sold out" It must be an older boot. I noted that sizes were below 13, far too small for my big landing gear.

you are on a good start. I just posted a tutorial on converting the collar. I have sent the Imperial Navy version of that conversion for flightsuits around the world a hundred times now and I love seeing people take a hand at converting their own suit. Really glad to see another Engineer in the works. Please take a look at the Combat Engineer CRL proposal as well, we need input on it to move forward, and this is the base suit.

OK Everyone, MantiCon is done, The M21 Battle Armor "Rougarou" is complete, and Im ready to get back to work. tonight I wrote a tutorial on how to convert the collar for the Imperial Army. It based on the existing Imperial Navy flight suit I have been converting for years, so its nothing new. Its posted, and if one of the Mods here would pin it that would be great. I am currently waiting on my Imperial Army helmet. Ive had some messages from Walt regarding it, and Im starting to scratch my head since I have yet to receive it months after I ordered it. But---Onward! We need input on this costume to make it happen. I will be working on my backpack in the coming weeks as well. I have to sort out the demolotion charges and shapes of the boxes. The pouches should present no problems.

Imperial Army Collar conversion Please Email me at tiebomberpilot@gmail.com if you want a copy of my templates. Once your coveralls are in hand and the pockets and collar are picked off this will take a day to complete. I use AutomotiveWorkwear model CT10 coveralls exclusively. You may prefer Dickies, or another brand of coverall/ boiler suit. You need two pair, one to cut up and one to wear. The pair you cut up does not need to be the same size you wear, so save a few ducats by purchasing a size small or medium of the same coverall. You can also get one and share it with your growing local Army unit. Watch automotiveworkwear.com for sales. Each US Holiday they run a sale with a special code. Even minor holidays get a special promo code, so keep an eye on the site. Make SURE you are cutting up the proper pair. i cannot stress this enough! CAREFULLY remove all pockets with a seam ripper and sharp knife. It will take you about an hour in good light to pull the pockets off. The chest pockets remain in place. Open the leg seam and take out the ruler pocket then stitch it back closed. Conversion checklist: 1 Remove butt and leg and any arm pencil pockets. 2: remove collars after you wash the coverall. 3 turn coveralls inside out and wash in cold water, or hot water to shrink if needed 4 line dry or dry "hot" to shrink if needed. 5 press coveralls flat from inside. This helps, trust me! 6 Measure the collar opening, overlapping a few inchest. Print templates and resize to fit you and transfer to cereal box cardboard. . Tape to your body to check fit and size. 7. Use chalk to lay out your cut lines plus 5/8" around each part seam allowance. 8. You will be putting on: Imperial Army style Collar Thigh pockets and flap You may add a flap to the top chest pockets Imperial Army Patches and blank Imperial Army tab (tab is optional per CRL) Materials list: 2 coveralls black thread and bobbin filled with black thread. black velcro (sew on type preferred) Long ruler sewing marking chalk tape empty cereal box elastic for leg stirrups snap for closure. To Begin: A Bust open the bartack seams from the inside of the pocket, between the pocket face and the flap that turns under. Don't cut this bartack next to the coverall itself, you will make a hole if you do. pick out all the loose threads from the fabric. Wash the coveralls in cold water after you take off the pockets. If you want to shrink them , now is a good time and these coveralls shrink up to one size, so be prepared for that when you place your order. You can use warm water or dry them on the dryer "hot" setting to shrink them, which prevents any size malfunctions later on. Trust me on this, I got a big shock after i ordered and converted my first, and then they would not fit! So, better to be prepared for that. Study how the collar is put on when you take it off. You will be making a new one and putting it on the same way, yours just has extensions added. B Turn the donor coveralls inside out, you will *always* work from the inside of the donor coveralls. Your fabrics' bias runs up and down along the length of the torso and legs, so lay out your templates along the bias plus as a 5/8" (14mm) seam allowance around all pocket parts to turn under and stitch Clean the gunk off the sole of your iron and set it for polyester. Make up your collar template to fit your coveralls. Many coveralls dip in the front where the original collar was sewn. Play with your pattern until it fits right. Make a rectangle that fits your leg for the thigh pocket. The art shows a simple pocket, not the fancy boxes we have on modern cargo shorts and pants. Simple is accurate. You will need pocket flaps for the thigh pockets . For the collar, lay out a double width of fabric, leaving enough to turn under and stitch, and make it plenty long to wrap completely around your neck and have overlap. Plan your cuts so that you have enough fabric to make the collar, it takes a lot of fabric to make it. Make it deeper than you think it should be—you will be turning the excess under and stitching in a giant fabric sandwich. Turn the coveralls to be cut up inside out and iron them on the polyester setting using a big scrap of fabric between the iron and the coveralls. Ironing the inside leaves no shiny spots on the twill. Lay them out flat, and using a fabric pencil or chalk to mark the pockets and collar shapes to be cut, staying with the bias of the fabric. Before you cut, mark the inside of each piece you are about to cut out. Trust me on this. Cut everything out and leave at least 5/8 inch around each part. Make certain that you are not bunching your fabric up and cutting something that you really dont want to cut...it happens! So double check before you cut. Once your parts are cut out, iron all the parts from the "wrong" or "inside" of the fabric. Identify each piece on the inside with chalk or sewing pencil. Fabric has an "inside" and an "outside" that look different ESPECIALLY UNDER FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. If you cant tell in room lighting, look at it in sunlight and you can tell which is which. If that does not work, take photos inside with a flash...that will certainly show you. The original collar is re purposed, cut in half and sewed over the top pockets. I used the butt pockets to make the flaps for the thigh pockets. There is virtually no waste. I also added elastic to help keep my legs pulled down in my boots. Make up your leg pockets and flaps, and sew them on. I had to open my legs on the inside them sew them shut when I was done. Ive done about 22 Flightsuits so this is no big deal for me. If you can find a way to get them onto the machine and sew them in place…rock on! The collar is a big treat! Plan this carefully and think this through. You are working in reverse, and when done you will turn it right side out and iron the bottom edges before you put it on the coverall. I suggest you work this out with scrap fabric first. Doing it the first time can be a bit nerve wracking, but trust me, if I can do this, you can too! BIG NOTE: The collar pics you see are from my Jolly Roger Squadron tutorial. Ignore the big point in the back of the collar. That is NOT SEEN in the art at any time, so just ignore it and rock on. You need to add Velcro to the INSIDE layer, before you sew the collar together. Make an arrow of Velcro and sew the soft side of Velcro in place on your INSIDE piece. Stitch the collar parts together around the top, down the pointed closure and at the box end, but leave the bottom open where it mounts to the coverall. Trim the point tip, trim the excess fabric, and flip it out again poking it to shape with a stick. Fold under and iron the bottom edge of the collar. You will have a big fabric sandwich at this point. Try the length of the collar against the opening of the suit. Pin the inner flap of the bottom of the collar all way around the neckline and make SURE that the fabric of the coveralls is properly caught by the collar and all the pins: there tends to be gaps when you think you stitched it and it did not grab correctly. Pin the collar at least 1/4 inch inside the suit opening, making adjustments for your neck as needed. You may wish to modifty the pattern to allow for the "dip" the front stormflap takes when they re made in the factory. If you added lots of extra material when you marked the collar near the tabbed closure, it will keep the collar nice and level. Finally mark and sew the rough Velcro on where you need it to close the collar. You have the option to add the snap closure now, or earlier in the process as you feel warranted. Remmber that the snap does not need to function, but it is seen in the art. Now that you have read it, copy it into Word and print it out so you can mark it up, make notes, etc. Add your patches, and you are done. Go out and pump some bilge, or blow something up! Here you see the collar turned right-side-out after sewing One flap is turned under for stitching to the collar neck hole, the other has not been turned under yet. Ignore the big point in the back. The collar seen here is from my Mechanical Crewman, it is dark blue, not black. sewed on and ready to add the velcro on the collar itself. The closure tab got velcro in the first step.

So according to that text the mudtroopers are Imperial Swamp Troopers! Hmmmmmmm!!

Roger that! Yesterday I had six people all over my house finishing up major assembly on the armor. We did my first major suit up and I walked around in the back yard on big old squishy foam size 26 feets! I have built both costumes concurrently. Tonight I will finish the suit and pack it, we leave in the morning for the last MantiCon. And when I say pack, I mean leave the upper body armor out of the Husky tote troopers use because its too big and too tall to fit in it!!!!!

Im mega tied up finishing a from- scratch armor build. Im totally out of the loop until the 28th. We leave for Mn on Tuesday and Ill be fone a week on the road.

I just tried to edit the proposal to remove the basic layout, and remove mention of configuration without charges. It says I dont have permission to share part of the post, likely the photos.

The pack is in another topic. Crookknight did a workup on that in Feb and the CRL PROPOSAL i wrote is based on his version of the pack and the source art. Regarding helmet size some people look larger inside of helmets then others. When I was in the army we had guys who look like a turtle had lost his shell and been stuck inside of another Turtles shell because the helmets were so large on them. When we got our first generation Kevlar helmets some people barely fit in them. Because the earphones are only seeing in some art I would leave it as an option, instead of having to come up with a new resized helmet with ear phones

We are excited too!

They can be bloused down for the appearance. The RL pilots are required to do the same to give the correct appearance. I support Jacks for Lvl1. I have air force current issue boots that sort of resemble jungle boots with suede leather parts and nylon uppers. The boits zip up and lace but could be covered by a fitted colr matched gaiter

Ill alter the text to read either material for the MP40s I also updated the CRL text to be more in line with the approved Engineer CRL. What about the screw caps on the helmets I know from the chat I was part of that WTF had suspended production on the helmets pending a ruling on the caps and placement, and that was some time back, and I dont know if that has moved forward since the chat has moved away from that topic. The art shows both locations; if the CRL is written to allow both, no one is wrong since both are shown while at least one helmet has none. '

Apparently the quote function does not work on.my phone. I would propose putting the caps above OR below the helmet strap but not both on the same helmet even tho there is one helmet with that arrangement.

A second item for attention is the MP40 pouches. Are they to be leather, canvas or both? Etsy is full of them in either material.

I would suggest removing "flightsuit" from the coverall description

Thanks guys!! Tbh its a LOT less work to convert work coverall and add the cargo pockets than to pick off all the pockets from RP flightsuits. The coverall chest pockets are the right shape and it can be argued that the coverall butt pocket when removed is the right shape for the leg pocket. I used my original collar to put flaps on.my chest pockets.

One of the things we need to nail down is the locatuon of the caps on the helmet.they floatbetween mounted above the brim and below the brim, but are clearly not Greeblies.

I got it to load. The tunic is a black ID with that before-unseen helmet.

TX 4019 approved for duty! I owe a BIG thank you to the Spec Ops Detachment, its members, its Staff and the people around me who put up with me while taking and retaking photos, especially my long suffering wife!

I updated my tab patch topic, and put creation information into it. This was done here at home. http://forum.specops501st.com/index.php?/topic/5414-ia-combat-engineer-specialty-tab/#entry76372

Speak to your GML first about it, but when Tarrif did his original suit he took come of the cuff off and made his collar. You have to look at the original CRL pic pretty close to see the seam since its on the side of the neck opposite the snap.

first post updated with tab creation information. This will become an option for the Combat Engineer

I replied but the system ate it? I moved the tab patch down to the Optional area above the E11, and denoted Aurbesh. My wife used her embroidery program to make ours, which was on my first version uniform. So, its totally possible to do these, I have a small stack of them made here for our guys with her home embroidery machine, and Aurbesh TT font downloaded from the web. These could also be done in vinyl, likely more quickly and easily. I changed the triple PALS pouch to MP40.

I have made edits for readability and making sure that the proposal "matched itself" as far as content on the demolition charges. Please take a look and give feedback on this, that way this proposal can move forward. Crookknights Imperial Packs was generous enough to draw up the plans for the pack, which I wrote into the proposal. Lets give him some business by making this a reality.