tipperaryred

Absolutely, you can use this thread as your build thread for Saxon and post any photos you find here as you go. We work from the top down (usually helmet, then jumpsuit) so that works perfectly for us too. We typically don't move on to the next piece until the previous one is finalised to stop the discussion jumping around all over the place! And yes, if you can create a separate WIP thread for your friend's costume that would be great. We can use info from both WIP threads to feed the two CRL threads, which we will create and pin to the top of the page. I took a quick look at my book this morning and while there's no detailed sketches for unnamed Imperial Super Commandos, there are some for characters who wear variations of their armour. There was also some Gar Saxon artwork that I uploaded into his own reference thread last year, so you can find that there.

Great to see someone willing to push such a brilliant costume forwards, thanks for posting 🙂 You are correct! We don't currently have any CRL drafts for the grunts, and the only one with significant progress was the Arena version. So if you'd like to lead the way on an animated version, we'll give you all the support we can. First step I'd recommend is gathering together as many visual references as you can to post here. I have the Rebels art book myself, so I'll see if I can find some too. The MMCC CRL seems to have had a huge amount of work done on it, so we can certainly then use that as a starting point rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch.

And some draft text to go with that. My first attempt writing one of these from scratch, so please call out anything that doesn't look right or needs adding. I'm also calling a few elements by names that seem natural to me, but might be meaningless to other people, so give a shout if anything I'm trying to describe is unclear. HELMET Gloss black in colour, consistent with the rest of the costume. Is in proportion to the rest of the costume. The eye lens is one continuous piece with a red tint and should obscure the wearer’s eyes. There is a matte black hexagonal front plate, with matte black greebles. Square profile side tusks run back from the lower edges of this front plate. Rectangular metallic silver greebles in the front of each side tusk. Six symmetrical recessed stripes on each tusk, with the recesses painted red. Raised teeth painted silver, with matte black in the recesses (OR cut out, backed with mesh?). Silver greeble on the nose, between the teeth and the front plate. Symmetrical recesses with greeble on each side between the side tubes and the cheeks. Sharp angular cheekbones sculpted into helmet face plate. Three raised ridges run from the centre of the brow, over the top of the helmet and down to the rear centre rim. The central ridge is considerable wider than the ridges either side of it. Top of the helmet separated from the face plate by horizontal ridge along the brow, and from the rear skirt of the helmet by a groove. Rear skirt of the helmet may be a separate part? Symmetrical rectangular greebles (communicators, range finders?) with semi-circular ridges underneath, present at the back of each side of the brow ridge, in between the join between the top of the helmet and the rear skirt. OPTIONAL – top LED may be lit (must be white), bottom LED may be lit (must be red). Small double indentation in the bottom corners of the faceplate, under each ear.

Starting off with the front view of the helmet, a recap of our references so far. I've put together the best of the screenshots and production photos on top, with some views of the Hot Toys and Kotobukiya ArtFX statues underneath for reference. Straight away I can see the Hot Toys seems to be missing the vertical metallic greeblie below the teeth, although this is present on the ArtFX. This aside, I can't see any other serious inconsistencies between the three sources? Similarly, I've put together the best of the side on screens and photos on top, with their statue counterparts underneath. As far as I can tell, we never really get a good view of the left side of any of the Purge helmets in the show, so we may have to take it from the statues that they are indeed symmetrical. The only clear difference that jumps out between the three sources is the ArtFX statue shows a much more obvious red colours recessed in the tusk stripes. However, the red can definitely still be seen from certain angles both from the screen footage and the Hot Toys. Finally, the back seems fairly straightforward. Besides the divide between the top and bottom halves, and the continuation of the vertical grooves that can be seen on the front, there does not seem to be any other detail that needs mentioning.

Again, you need to compare colours in the same photos. Yes, the lighting might be awful, but they are all under the same lighting. Look at the gloves and the E-11 barrel in your last post - both are indisputably black. Both have the same lighting conditions as the armour. They are also both a much, much darker colour than any part of the armour that you can see in the same screenshot. It's not even close, and it can't be explained just by materials, angles, matte/gloss contrast or lighting. The shoulder straps are also black, and are also much darker than the armour. So you have a matte black synthetic fabric, a glossy black leather fabric, and a satin black effect prop made from metal, rubber or plastic. All are clearly a far darker colour than the armour in every screenshot, under all lighting conditions. I do not doubt for a minute that when on set, the armour looked black, especially as it was constantly in contrast with the green fatigues. But I do not see how we can disregard all the visual references from the show and change the CRL to indicate that the armour should be the same colour as the straps, gloves and boots.

I know where you're coming from, but the dark green/grey hues look even more obvious to me inside the bunker and on the wall than it does outside. I mean, compare the colour of the armour above to the black boots or gloves. There is a huge difference. True "black" is usually a lot more obvious to identify than this, and unless it is gloss it is very unlikely to reflect the colours from surrounding environments. The CRL armour in the post above is a very close visual match to what we see on the screen, both in and out of the bunker.

I mean, if you handed the item below (the very dark green, as used in the new CRL) to someone, and then 12 months later asked them what colour it was, 99.9% of the time they'd simply answer "black". No one wants to be the person who rambles on, "well, it's a funny story that it looked black, but if you looked very closely you could clearly see a dark greenish hue!". Well, except us folks 😉 Having some insight into the production is great, but ultimately we are trying to recreate what was seen on the screen. Reference images and screenshots have to take priority over memories I believe. If anything, the grass and the green fatigues should have made the armour look *less* green, not more. It would be a shame to undue months of completely transparent work almost as soon as the CRL is published.

Looks ok, though I definitely don't know this kit well enough yet to be sure. Shall we start at the top and prepare some text for the helmet to kick off?

Yeah, sadly unofficial so no use for a potential CRL, but those are some fine models and I need them very soon for my Legion army!

One thing that might be useful to bear in mind - when I first made my outer belt I used a very soft leather for the strap. Turned out to be too soft to reliably clip the thermal detonator to, so I was always paranoid about it falling off. That's why I switched to an actual leather belt, and just hid the buckle behind the front section of the scout belt. However that didn't work very well... So I am going back to velcro, but I'll be using a sturdier leather strap this time.

Yes, velcro is a simple and effective way to do it. I've experimented with some other options which has been less successful, so I'm going to convert my own back to velcro again!

An incredible looking kit, great work!

Would agree with lighting for L2. Not much jumps as L2 only. Also, while I agree with taking "matte" out, is there a reason why it's as specific as "satin" instead? As opposed to "gloss" or "satin/gloss"? I'd struggle to tell the difference between them often, especially in black.

No, I think it's a different image but showing much the same. I think it was just a sketch in the art book, with very little detail. That's why I didn't take a photo at the time - it was very clearly the helmet that ended up being the P2 Purge, but it didn't offer any details. I'll take a photo next time I'm back with my books anyway to check. Thanks for the reminder Anton, I lost track of this with everything going on late last year. Let's get back on track 👊

Great start, and I always love to see a good spreadsheet! Looking forward to seeing your progress, and ask if you have any questions.

One more thing to consider Alex, it's not a cheap hobby so you're doing a great job asking these questions now. If you haven't already paid upfront to the supplier you're already talking to, you've got 3 options: 1) Go ahead and pay the extra $150 to get them to complete the full helmet to CRL standard. 2) Ask if the supplier can simply provide the helmet without any vocodor molded on. With some cheap rubber tubing and some glue, it would be very easy to create one yourself. 3) Shop around with other suppliers, and you may find one who already includes a separate vocoder as standard, which may work out cheaper for you.

Hi Alex! First up, great choice of costume ? Unfortunately, for even basic Level 1 clearance the CRL requires that the vocodor be a separate piece, not molded into the helmet. Ultimately however, this decision will lie solely with your Garrison GML. We ourselves would have no say in this unless your GML requests our advice. So while it should not be possible to clear anymore with a molded vocoder, it is at your GML's discretion. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Yeah, I'd say see if the on set guys can shed any light on that before we spend time trying to figure that oddity out. Could easily just be a case of a lens breaking or falling out and them not having time to replace it before shooting. I mean, what sort of crazies would notice or discuss such a thing ? The draft text looks good, though I'll defer to our muddy brothers and sisters to catch anything subtle.

Great summation mate. I'd agree with simply stating that the helmet colour should match the armour for now. You're right that there's plenty more of the season still to come, where we might get clearer views and a chance to contrast with the Ferrix version. Are there any other helmet details still to agree on?

That's a good spot on the gloss around the white bar. Makes me wonder whether a decal was used with a gloss black border? It would make sense to me to treat it like that unless the guys from the set can say otherwise, rather than assuming there are different applications of matte and gloss paint on the hard armour.

I'd echo that the views of the guys who saw it on set should be paramount in making the final call. I'm no expert, but I do a fair amount of eyeball colour matching for miniature painting and in the most natural lighting I'm definitely seeing a dark green-grey tint. Kind of reminds me of a "German Grey" from Vallejo that I use a lot to create the impression of black, while still contrasting with matte or gloss blacks slightly. I'd be surprised if the real thing wasn't close to that - maybe just a shade or two darker.

Some great insight into the costume already, brilliant to see. Like Blackwatch suggests, if we work down the list one item at a time until we've covered everything. Makes it much easier to avoid missing details, plus if anyone ever needs to refer back to the thread then all the discussion regarding the helmet, boots, chest armour, etc is all clustered in the same place. It's important to keep everything transparent and easy to follow, especially if this initial CRL will be used to build other varients as Felix suggests. Can't wait to see this one get finished!

Fully agree that whatever decisions are made, those with existing IAT clearances need to be listened to above and beyond anyone or anything else. Certainly more so than considerations over how merch run allowances will be impacted, or other random elements I've read elsewhere. So it will be great to see the views of our cleared members, and I have no doubt our staff will stand ready to support our members with whatever they choose.

Good job. Yes, I'd agree there's a slight curve to it, but a little sanding might be all you need to achieve that effect. If you can also fill in the gaps at the side, I'd say that model will give you a close approximation of what we see in the references.

We could use some more reference images of Gar Saxon's jetpack I think. The only one we have in the thread is close to the file that you link to above. My one concern is whether the orange cross shape in the centre of the missile tube is formed in that shape, or whether it is a square shape with the cross painted on (as the Etsy file seems to show).