Evilboy's first Build: Shadow Stormtrooper Build WIP

[Evilboy[501st]]

And so it begins! The three most beautiful words in the english Language: "Out for delivery" My package should be here by late afternoon, and I will be starting in to the next great adventure: Building my armor and earning my 501st ID! I will attempt to chronicle my build as fully as I can, and I will be asking for help when I need. So, wish me luck!

[Griffin-X[501st]]

Best of luck, I'm sure you'll do fine!

[Evilboy[501st]]

I wanted to post this last night, but the evening got away from me...

 

I HAVE MY ARMOR!!!!! I purchesed this armor from TupperwareTK and I would ABSOLUTELY recommend his armor to anyone and everyone. He sells a Full Kit (With helmet) and a Lite Kit (without helmet) The armor is simply beautiful. It includes the following:

 

FULL KITS – Will include ABS cement, ABS polish, Instructions, and an Original FX helmet with the newly re-shaped dome top for now. (A new helmet is being made, but is still in the earliest of production stages – hopefully to be available in the future). It has all elastic straps, but no standard-grade velcro. Troopers didn't use it, so it's being removed. Industrial velcro is now suggested but not included in the kit. A leather E-11 holster is not included. The TD Sandtrooper ab plate and interchangeable plate are included as are the ANH, TESB, and Sandtrooper Cheesegrater handbacks. TESB handbacks have been intentionally left a bit large to allow trimming to fit ALL or MOST hands. This helmet features both blue and black tube stripe options.

 

LITE KITS – As before, this kit will include ALL body armor pieces, Instructions and will now include all needed elastic straps. As before, the LITE kits will NOT include ABS cement, ABS polish, Helmet kit or Leather E-11 holster. Industrial velcro is suggested but not included. The TD Sandtrooper ab plate and interchangeable plate are included as are the ANH, TESB, and Sandtrooper Cheesegrater handbacks. TESB handbacks have been intentionally left a bit large to allow trimming to fit ALL or MOST hands.

 

What he does not tell you is that he also includes a Construction helmet suspension and pre made clips for inside the helmet! An awesome feature for me as a new trooper, as it will take a lot of the guesswork out of how I am to make this thing wearable...

 

So without further delay I present....the unboxing!

 

The box arrived in barely more than a week after ordering from California to Virginia.

 

Everything is packed in the box very well. each individual piece is wrapped in foam sheet with bubble wrap where needed.

 

The instructions were in an envelope with the decals and are pretty complete and well laid out. My only criticism would be twofold; He needs to replace the color cartridge in his printer, and there are a lot of grammar errors and some lines that were truncated in editing, so the end of a sentence is missing here and there. Nothing serious...

The Armor itself is already trimmed and ready to fit/trim to size. The mold itself looks pretty crisp overall with few, if any, issues I have noticed on my first pass.

 

So I laid out the armor as best as i could in my limitid work area, but here it is...sorry for the mess...

 

And then my son was home from school and here is what he thought

so there I am. I will start in on this today or tomorrow, and I hope I can do this fine suit justice. I will look to you all for help....wish me luck!

[Griffin-X[501st]]

Awesome and looks great too! Box party in the house!

[ground pounder[501st]]

Have fun with the build!

[izzi[TX]]

SHINY!

 

-iz

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

Ah, that brings back memories, especially seeing that FX face plate. I used the included helmet liner in mine as well. I now use padding instead, but it worked for quite a while.

[Evilboy[501st]]

I thoght this was an all AM kit...

Any suggestions on reputable vendors for helmets?

[Griffin-X[501st]]

FX is the older style (and former name of) AM. I have the AT3 bucket from Arakyel, very good deal.

 

http://forum.specops501st.com/index.php?/topic/1366-fs-at-anh-stunt-buckets/page__fromsearch__1

[trooper[501st]]

Good Luck with the build and most of all enjoy whilst building.

[Evilboy[501st]]

there is a local armor party next Sunday, so i will pack up my whole kit and go get some "professional" help. I am hesitant to start in to this thing without some hands on guidance...I learn best by doing, and I find even the best pics/tutorials are lacking something for my little lizard brain... but in the mean time, I wanted to check the fit of my helmet, so i made some shims from for sale sign, and spot hot-glued them in just to se how things looked...

 

[izzi[TX]]

Nice work. Just take your time and you'll be fine.

 

-iz

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

Shims are looking great. I know how you feel. I did my whole kit with only online help. Could be why I am reworking a lot of things now . Once you go the armor party and can take your peices out and compare them to actual completed armor, it really makes it come all together

[Evilboy[501st]]

That's good to know. I actually just did that and have stopped. I work and learn better hands on. I hope that once I hace gotten the jump start at the Armor Party this weekend I will really tear in to it...

[Griffin-X[501st]]

Great job so far! I'm also in the process of "upgrading" several components on my armor. The biggest thing I have learned (with 3 costumes) is you are never completely done. You will see something that someone else has done and say "wow, I like that idea and want to do that too!".

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

The biggest thing I have learned (with 3 costumes) is you are never completely done.

 

100% agree with that statement, there is always more you can do if you want. Heck, I am just now getting to things that weren't urgent, but will be much nicer.

[Darth Agnon[TX]]

Watch the "Dave's Garage" series on youtube. It will help greatly with the helmet build.

[Evilboy[501st]]

So, I have been a busy bee...I have gotten a lot of work done on my helmet...First off, here is a test fitting...

 

 

I have not seen anyone else do this but I decided, with the three piece AM helmet, to rivet the dome to the face along the brow where the brow strip will cover...this may be genius, or it may be my downfall...we shall see...

 

So I taped it to make sure it lined up and then drilled my rivet holes. I do not plan to rivet all of them, but I wanted to make sure I was good...

 

 

Once I had my holes set, I separated the dome and attached the helmet liner...

 

then I painted my frown...And...Rivets!

 

Sorry for the blurry pics...The rivets worked great! I E6000'd the rear edge of the dome to the body of the helmet and let it sit overnight with magnets to set.

 

Next up I added the resin Mic Tips from Darth Vorhees. I painted them and added window screen patches cut to fit. I also drilled the hole for the chin piece and added window screen behind the frown.

 

then the ear bits

 

and the brow strip

 

 

I installed the fans that I had put together, and the rubber seal on the base of the helmet.

here are the fans I assembled.

 

and installed. I added window screen over the fan intakes to avoid any...issues...

 

Tomorrow I will add the chin and the lenses, decals, tube stripes and then a good polishing, and it should be done! more pics to come...

[TX-8728[TX]]

Wow I like that man, looks good

[Griffin-X[501st]]

Great progress Jonathan!

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

Ah, that is a lot of holes in your helmet, just makes me shudder, lol. I like the fan wiring job. I have those squirrel fans waiting to be installed in my newer bucket.

[Evilboy[501st]]

I have been a busy bee. I will add pics soon, but the arms and legs are all but finished, and I have started in to the body. I bought a Trooperbay Black canvas belt and sewed "Patent Pleather" over it...how does this look?

[RaiderNick[TX]]

It looks pretty good but you could've probably saved some money by buying an already existing patent leather belt and just using that. That's what I did and it already matched the armor perfectly.

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

Hard to tell without it curved around. Would love to see a pic curved over the ab armor.

[Evilboy[501st]]

I will have that ready to go by this time next week, so pics will come soon!