BigJasoni

And that right there is absolutely perfect. That is bull denim. I've got plenty of it on hand and will gladly play around with it to get a match; but I'll do that for my Aldhani costume. The Ferrix stuff on the other hand just doesn't appear to have the same weave. I'll dig around a little more with some screen caps, but this is what I'm seeing:

Please no. Continue providing your valuable input. Me being a person who's signed countless NDAs over the years, and also being a person who's tried to pry this kind of information from others who spent time on set of The Mandalorian, Kenobi, ROTJ and several other LFL features, I know that information isn't typically freely given without an understanding of what's at risk. Since you don't intend on getting hired again, you've accepted that, but I would caution us all to remember that not every costume is identical. Case in point: if I were speaking to some of the New Generation Stormtroopers who worked in similar regards to you on The Mandalorian chapter 15 (The Believer), they would tell us that TKs wear grey boots: But we know this wasn't the intent of the costume designers. It was just what they had on hand at the time. That's why these guys are kind of stuffed in the rear. So, while I trust your insight into the costume you wore, we need to be very deliberate in our selections/ requirements for this and other CRLs. Your chin cup was likely brittle, and the belt box you cited during the Aldhani discussion was likely cast, but we need to focus more on the appearance of these items rather than the construct which may have been different across all the actors. This is almost always the case while creating CRLs, unless we have specific found parts. Regarding the fabric, I was going to save the conversation for our discussion on soft parts, but here's an example of Oilskin: This is dark olive waxed canvas. Not green enough for Aldhani, nor does it have a twill pattern, but watch what happens and imagine it's behavior during common movement. Here, I crumpled it up and released it. This is what I was left with. What's cool is that after doing this, if you feel that there's too much wear showing, you can apply a little more wax, typically heat it up (I just rubbed it with my fingers), and then brush it down. And this is what you're left with. It's pretty cool stuff. On this last piece, I took a piece of black bull denim and waxed it myself. After I brushed it down, I was still left with a black denim weave that behaves very nice... Very, very similar... nearly identically to this: However, in my assessment of the above photo and others in the Rix Road scene, I can almost definitively say that I'm seeing canvas rather than denim weave. If someone has a better picture showing a clear weave in the fabric, please post it because I'm almost convinced they used waxed canvas for these costumes. Also, before someone asks me, your clothes will not become sticky or waxy if they're made of waxed canvas. It simply provides a barrier against the weather. Ok. I'll get to a few of the other posts when I return from the theater. I still need to answer @Blackwatch's questions about the Yugo pack.

All, I'm back and ready to add a few details/ differences between this helmet and goggles and what we've seen previously. Agreed 100%. The Aldhani Trooper was one of the most organized CRL developments I've been a part of, so there's no need to break the mold. However, there was one quote about upcoming items that I do want to address. I reached out to my fabric pro (my mom who does this stuff as her retirement profession) and she immediately identified the fabric used in Aldhani and Ferrix both as oilcloth, also known as waxed canvas/ denim. I've done some tests and I almost hate to say that she's dead on with her assessment. We'll discuss this later; I've done a couple tests on some bull denim I have here. I agree 100% with Sean. Regarding David's comment: we acknowledge that these are on Aldhani. We were also told that Aldhani was filmed following the Ferrix scenes and further told that a lot of the gear was damaged following the riot. My guess is that the costumes got banged up and they glued, screwed, or taped the goggles down to keep them in place. Please keep in mind how many times we've seen duct tape used on screen to hold TK shins together, but we don't name it as an option. As I said in the Aldhani CRL development thread, there's no way for us to confirm any of this, so we need to determine what the intent of the costume designers was. I also always take word of mouth assessments from those on set with a grain of salt given the NDAs they all sign. I have spoken with several actors over the last couple years, (Dominic Pace, Dmitrious Bistrevsky, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee to name a few) and each of them just smile and say something like "the costumes were great" when you ask them a question about fabric, construction, or materials. We should only develop these costumes based off what we see on screen, or if stuff leaks out from the makers. For example, though the costume belongs to the Sovereign Protectors, Shawna Trpcic slipped that the new Praetorian Guard skirts were made of microsuede fabric. Those are the only real nuggets we can take with us... their errors in judgement. Kind of like when the people who painted the mudtroopers posted pics of their paint. So, back to the helmets, I think everything has been great so far. I really feel like we need to assess the liner inside the helmet though. The word "foam" keeps being used, but there's another picture of a helmet lying on the ground which appears to show 2" webbing straps going throughout the bucket. It looks like foam around the perimeter and on top, but with 3" polypropylene webbing crossing the top serving as a suspension mechanism, keeping the helmet from fully resting on the head. This is actually a common application for helmets. Next, I want to address the goggle straps. They appear to have constructed them much differently than in the past. These goggles do not appear to use the webbing attached directly to the goggles, but rather utilize the 1.5" elastic. Remember, the muddy goggles go 1.5" webbing, 1.5" elastic, 2" elastic. For reference see the muddy pic below, followed by the Aldhani helmet posted by Sean: Also of note is that both the Ferrix and Aldhani helmets appear to use the Gentex style serrated buckles, but they're not black. They also appear to be twisted 360 degrees from how they are with the muddy which makes sense. I just bought a few of these and will get them nice and metallic. Next the chin cup: I agree completely. This is what we all used for the muddy and yes, you can get them in adult sizes. I understand the comment about brittle cast chin cups, but again, can we confirm consistency amongst all the costumes. As an example, someone try to find a JSP 281-CSD-2PT 2-Point Chin Strap with Chin Cup for a Shoretrooper costume. I had to order one directly from a wholesale safety equipment distributor and it was on back order for nearly 5 months. So, with that said, I can imagine the practicality of recasting several hard to source cups. However, all this discussion about the helmet, goggles, interior, but relatively little about strapping things together. Please take a look at the following pic: Looks like the old Yugoslavian pack was raided again as a hardware donor and this time they appear to have even used the straps from it. That's pretty cool. They also appear to have taken a lesson from my playbook and attached the straps to the screw that attaches the code discs to the helmet. Nice... You can grab one of the Yugo bags for $10 right now. This is an incredible deal: https://colemans.com/vintage-yugoslavian-small-backpack Finally, the goggles definitively have green lenses. We don't have that in the write up yet: In the Aldhani CRL, we went back and forth on goggle lenses, but this seems pretty clear. Anyways, I look forward to discussing the soft parts, because I'm coming up with some awesome stuff. For now, I think we need to wrap up the helmet, but definitely need to address the goggle straps, buckles, chin cup strapping and finalize the helmet padding/ harness.

Honestly, if your pants and tunic came out different colors, you can’t tell from this picture. If I were your GML, I wouldn’t have any issues with this especially once you strap on your armor which will cover a lot. You’re looking good so far. I am curious what your dye combination was.

TJ, In my post, I pointed out that the Trooper that shows the texturing most clearly is the one on Aldhani in Episode 6 The Eye . This is the same guy as in @Detaleader's first couple pics. Go back and check out episode 6 at the 10:03 mark; it's very clear and reminiscent of what we saw with the Mudtroopers. I could definitely live with that. I think this captures what I was going after. I just don't living in the "Shall" and "Must" categories unless we know definitively that all costumes were the same. For the Aldhani troopers, shall and must are more appropriate for identifying the different coloration of the buckles, strap traps, etc. Those details are clearly shown on all the costumes. Thanks for the work everyone; I'll likely be painting my helmet this weekend.

True, but as was pointed out, we were told that Aldhani was filmed after Ferrix. But, I think you missed where I said that the clearest shot of the textured helmet was on Aldhani. I only took a picture of my TV because I was standing in front of it; you also posted a picture of an entirely different Trooper, wearing different gear than the one I posted. Honestly, we see both textured and what appears to be smooth. However, having heard from the people who painted these helmets previously, the original ones were textured. However, we also know that the props department has been making new costumes at an epic rate which is attributed to the technology available to them now that wasn’t available during the making of the Anthology films. It’s very likely that they did make new sets of armor, I.e. helmets for this show and in that process, they left some smooth and others textured. Long story short: we cannot say definitively that they were ALL smooth. Therefore, we shouldn’t require it for the CRL, nor should we require textured buckets; it should be optional. We have pictures showing both. I would also venture to say that we can’t confirm whether ALL the helmets had the goggles permanently attached or not. Can we?

Also, for those unfamiliar, this is SLS printing. It's possible they printed these helmets and didn't sand them down. Watch the following video and check out the printed piece at the :35 mark.

Fraser, Thanks for the insight. Out of curiosity, can you define “print lines?” The reason I ask is because Lucasfilm’s designers have openly discussed their use of SLS printing and vacuum casting for the costumes on Andor and other new shows. So, knowing that both SLS and vacuum casting rely on mediums (polymer powder and resin) that don’t produce extraordinary lines, I’d like to know what you saw. This would also help to clear up some of the discussion on the “cast” belt boxes that I would imagine were likely SLS prints rather than casts. Also, just going back to some of your comments about the costumes being rigid, this starts to make me think that the costumes were made using a more advanced technique. Regarding the helmets, you saw them, so it's wise to lean on your analysis for the costumes you saw. However, I’m not sure if the legion’s ever relied on word-of-mouth assessments when developing CRLs, especially when we clearly see texture on screen. I would strongly argue that we don't know for certain that all of the helmets were without texture. Since we clearly see helmets on screen that appear to be textured, can't we leave this as an option for builders? Here's why I argue for texture: we know that the mudtrooper helmets were, and unless they created entirely new molds and cast new buckets, we have to assume some of this was reused. However, removing any assumptions, we have these two from Ferrix which Fraser has told us were reused for Aldhani: and this guy from Episode 6, The Eye on Aldhani: The one from Aldhani at the 10:03 mark is the clearest shot we have of a screen used helmet. Please watch it in HD on a larger television if you're able; I wasn't picking up the same detail when I tried watching it on my PC. This is one of the reasons I'm able to justify having a 90" TV in my basement. 😆 Regardless, the helmets I'm seeing are clearly textured. That's not to say some aren't, but the references I'm seeing are. @Blackwatch @Bozzy @sonfield

Thanks for the input... Regardless of the material used, I still hate the collar. 😆 Regardless, I posted this on the Mudtrooper FB Build Group page last night, but wanted to post it here for anyone looking for a better solution on their 3D armor kit.

Justin, Typically for armor pieces I use a 80/20 mix. 80% Fast ABS Like and 20% Tenacious. I've seen people use 90/10, but that left my pieces a little too brittle. I've gone as low as 50/50, but that ended up being "gummy," even after significant curing.

A lot of it is, but we're actually seeing a combination of multiple materials; that's why I'm trying to figure this particular piece out. Honestly,if appearance is all that matters, it shouldn't really be a concern. However, as long as we continue to include the following verbiage in the CRL, GMLs are somewhat limited in their discretion: The armor parts are matte and are made from one of these (or similar) types of materials: Fiberglass ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) None of these are truly flexible materials, nor is Polyurethane similar to any of them; that's why I've been attempting to get detachments to change the wording. We do know that the costume departments have employed a vacuum casting procedure for creating the armor, but separating which parts were cast in PU rather than a more common (hard) urethane has been a bit of an adventure. We also now have the Adam Savage tested videos where the FBFX fabricators were a little more candid than designers have been in the past. In the Clone Trooper video for example, at the 6:12 mark, Alea specifically says "urethane," but then at 7:38, points out the soft rubber at the back of the knee and then knocks on the bicep armor and calls it "hard." Additionally, when they're discussing the straps at the 7:15 mark, the thigh armor appears to flex a little bit, but you can't really tell. Unfortunately, these "I think I saw it flexing" moments have led to a few CRLs in various detachments requiring flexible materials be incorporated for higher level approval. This is also a clone trooper, so we'll let those guys argue that one out. 😆 Other flexible examples we've seen in the new generation shows (Anthology movies and Disney + series') include Boba Fett's armor, Din Djarin's hip plates, and various cod pieces and posterior armor amongst the troopers, but that's about it. So, here's the reason I want to hunt this info down: 1: This piece is a horrible design and frequently breaks. So if builders can make it out of a flexible material, then let's denote that in the CRL. On Tuesday, @Blackwatch said: I agree. So, 2: Lets change the verbiage in the CRL and state that flexible materials may be used in areas that frequently move or are prone to breaking. For level 2, our Deathtrooper CRL states that the shoulder straps "will be rubber," but in this thread, we've annotated that the shoulder straps are permitted to be made of cast flexible urethane or other flexible material. I would suggest doing the same thing for other pieces. 3: Let's eliminate the potential for an overzealous GML to disqualify a new recruit based on their chosen material. IS makes incredible gear, but if they're making flexible pieces, then per the verbiage in the current CRL, it's wrong. I appreciate that this CRL is being done right and apologize for revisiting elements that were effectively closed. But, as we wind it down, I do feel that if there's any loose ends, they should be tied up so we're not calling for revisions later on down the road. Thanks for being patient with me.

Fraser, thanks for the insight. Can you tell us anything about the collar. As I said previously, for the ICAT, Mudtrooper, Shoretrooper, etc. this is the weakest part of the costume and could definitely benefit from being flexible. I'm getting ready to cast one out of polyurethane, but was just curious if you had any insight? Thanks!

I’ll have to watch that again. If their armor split, I’m sure that collar was toast. Ok, I’ll make my molds tonight or tomorrow.

PETG is what I typically go to if I can’t print in resin, but I’ve been amazed with the CF Filament lately. I’m likely going to print another version of this for the Ferrix costume and will do it entirely (except for the yoke) in CF filament. That actually reminds me of something and I’m really hoping @fb501 can chime in: I know we closed the chest and back armor portions of the draft, but I never saw anyone discuss the actual material the armor should be made of. Knowing that the collar/ yoke of this armor is the worst feature ever, specifically where it hooks into the chest, are we going to allow some freedom in the costume’s creation? The generic statement in our CRLs always calls for “Fiberglass, ABS, or HIPS,” but what are the thoughts on a polyurethane type flexible material for the yoke? Between my Muddy and Shoretrooper costumes, I’ve broken 3 of these and was about to either print one in 100% Tenacious, or make a mold and pour some rubber. Here’s another one of my short videos showing Tenacious: @fb501, can you answer any material questions? Were yours flexible?

Yes and no. 😁 Here it is on the build plate before curing: My blaster is a combination of resin and carbon fiber filament. The main body/ barrel is carbon fiber filament, but the details are all printed in Siraya Tech Blu. You can see in this picture that even the FDM printed sections don’t have visible lines. I highly encourage people to print with CF filament for this reason or if their SLA printer doesn’t have a large build capacity. Additionally, the CF filament is stronger and lighter than standard PLA/ PLA+ and PETG, it sands beautifully and isn’t susceptible to warping in heat. However, this butt stock is a combination of Siraya Tech Tenacious and Fast ABS like resin. That’s a short video I made a few months ago on this resin combo. I typically reserve it for armor pieces and use the impact resistant Blu for solid parts, but I was out of Blu. My armor is a fiberglass kit I’ve had sitting around for about a year now. However, I may print new shoulder bells following some minor design tweaks. I should finish the helmet this week.

Ugh... Ok. With wind chill, it's going to be single digits tomorrow. So even in my makeshift garage "paint booth," even with the space heater, my guess is that it'll get up to around 20 degrees. So, no painting until Sunday at least. Regardless, I got my soft parts from Jim Tripon today so I can at least give people a glimpse at what his look like. Please forgive the poor lighting: Overall, I'm pretty happy with them, but I probably could have made everything myself; it's a very simple design. Next, I just pulled the new butt plate off the printer and I think we've got a pretty solid design. Thanks again Chris: Anyways, I'll be waiting for warmer weather so I can jump on this. @sonfield can't be the only person having all the fun. 😆

I'm printing it right now. Thanks again Chris!

I leave for a couple days and the post grows two pages... Lol. @Detaleader, great call on the range trooper. You're correct that this is the same butt stock used on the Muddy's E-10, but unfortunately, it's been badly overlooked and we don't want the same mistake happening again. Case in point: here's the picture from the Muddy CRL which shows the shorter, incorrect butt: That is the correct butt plate for the Deathtrooper, but makers overlooked this when making pretty much every available E-10 out there. My point in bringing it up was to illustrate that we need to ensure we're carrying the one that matches the references. Here's another pic of the Range Trooper stock: So again, we have the longer butt plate, but something else worth noting is the distinct shape of the butt which is actually annotated better in the Range Trooper since the plate's a different color. Even Chris noticed this a few nights ago after Justin and I both printed the new butt stock. Take a look at the Aldhani trooper in the upper right corner of my SBS pic and then the larger picture below that Cris sent me: So, unlike the upper real stock in my SBS picture, we see that the ones used by the Aldhani, Range, and Mud Trooper appear to be a two part construction, or something similar. So, we got it wrong with the Mudtrooper CRL picture. Nothing egregious, and the blaster in the CRL is a fine piece which I believe is Sean Fields' design, but that stock is definitely wrong. So, I would argue that the verbiage should remain, or both CRLs be changed to reflect the correct application as shown on screen. I agree Justin... pretty damn close and you did an awesome job on the finish work. However, Chris is the one who pointed out the "two part construction" to me, so I'm sure he's already working on a v3. Lol. I'll hit him up in the morning, but in the meantime... let's warm up our printers.

Sounds good. I've started making one in fusion that's accurate to the show. Until I finalize my design, I'll make a remix for the Sean Fields files since I think that's the E-10 that most people have.

No problems at all. TPU is fun to print with, but you definitely need to print very low layers in order to minimize the layer lines. Fortunately, the costumes we typically see that use these straps are muddy, weathered, worn or black. Each of these qualities attribute to layer lines not being very visible. Now, just to beat the dead horse a little more, it just dawned on me that the 416 collapsible stock has several variants and the butt of the E-11 D is different (shorter) than the E-10 or E-10.5. I'm not sure how this would be worded to ensure the correct one is used other than to note that the stock must match the references, but here's a good comparison of two variants along side two reference photos. Long (E-10) on top and short (E-11) on bottom. Now, regarding the door jamb receiver; they look similar, but I really think this was a one-off stock for the blasters. I've looked at a hundred of these stocks now and can't find one that matches, so I think this is may be some typical Star Wars greeblie gluing.

In addition to Kevin's, for those thinking about printing a set, Chris' remix of Sean Fields' armor available on Mudtrooper.co.uk has recesses for the hose connectors. Danny Redman's fiberglass kit (which used Chris' remix as his master) also has these recessed. Speaking of the mudtrooper site, I'm the dude who made the shoulder straps that are available up there for printing in TPU; I saw this mentioned previously a couple pages back. I've since remastered the straps and they're much more accurate now. If you want a set of the new set, hit me up; I'll post them on the forum later because I'm in the middle of redesigning the shin straps. Also, if anyone is thinking about doing this; please use a high quality TPU. I prefer NinjaTech Cheetah.

Hey Zach. Welcome aboard; glad to see you here. Go introduce yourself to the rest of the detachment. You know, now that I see you poking around the Spec Ops detachment, I'm going to start bugging you about it at our next troop. On to more pertinent news: I've been off the boards for a couple days as well, so I'm glad to be back and excited to see this moving along. First, regarding the collapsing 416C style butt stock "rectangular greeblie." Is this descriptive enough? The greeblie is actually more pill shaped with a couple small details in the center. Here's a picture of the part: This is blurry, but you can see the shape at least. I didn't go scene by scene, but I watched this episode again on Monday and this butt stock kept popping up. Just my two cents... I'm actually working on my helmet right now. I can provide a picture when I'm done if it's needed and no one else has gotten to it. None of you need to see it right now because it's covered in bondo and looks U G L Y, but here's my goggles that are early in "production." Pay no attention to the other stuff there... you see nothing. Lol Also, further up the thread @sonfield posted the Anthracite paint and I couldn't agree more. Being a former Oregon Duck, I've painted quite a few things in this paint and it's pretty much dead on accurate to what we're looking for. For reference, please allow me to show you anthracite under studio light: So, what's cool about this is you can chase it with a 2K matte clear which will only protect and accentuate the finish. This is the direction I'm leaning. Not trying to rehash the armor conversation, just agreeing with everything that's been written thus far.

Ok. I definitely don't want to diminish the awesome work that was done previously on the armor since I was late to the party, but one part of the back armor that's been overlooked (as it was with the Mudtrooper CRL) is the stepped ledge under the main back box. This is from the level 2 requirement for the Shoretrooper: There is a stepped ledge at the bottom of the main back box. Now with that said, the Shoretrooper and Mudtrooper armor are different, but other than the shape of the very bottom of the back/ kidney section, the remaining elements are the same. This ledge is a small piece that amounts to nothing more than a strip under the main box, but since the costume designers felt obliged to add it, we should too as a higher level requirement. Here's a pic of my mudtrooper armor for reference as well as a couple screen caps so you see what I'm talking about:

Everything looks great. I'm going to keep working on these different versions of the blaster and get them out there as soon as possible. Now, back to the armor.

Good pic. The only thing I still can't figure out is how the D Ring is actually attached to the buffer tube. Hmm... do blasters require a buffer tube? 🤔Regardless, here's some sling swivels that I think I could force on there. The picture also reminds me of something else concerning the magazine. We've seen quite a few magazines which are essentially curved boxes sitting in the magazine well. I understand people wanting to get a blaster out to the community, plus it's fun designing these things, but I do think we need to ensure designers/ makers are at least trying to get these things right. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of shortcuts taken as people rush to be the first out there offering accessories. Please notice the shape of the bottom of the magazine as well as the "wavy" pattern on the rear. Below is a picture of my full size Sterling SMG Airsoft magazine as well as the correct sized one I printed: