Phase Zero Dark Trooper Build

[Blue Hatter]

Hello all! I'm completely new here (to this forum, anyway, but not to Star Wars costuming... I've been in the Rebel Legion for around eleven years now) and I have finally started my first 501st costume build! I've finally found the perfect armor for a bigger guy like me and for my first attempt at full armor, well, I'm really diving in hard. I'll be doing a phase zero dark trooper from the older Star Wars Battlefront games.

I already have the armor (but I still need to trim it) and the helmet is built, all of which is from Oota Goota Workshop (and he was kind enough to put the helmet together for me), I've ordered some of the paint and I've been sourcing some of the other parts for it. I'll be making some models and 3D printing them for the chest, elbow and knee "bolts" and I'm also working on an ARC caster build. This should be fun! But seeing as this is my first ever full armor costume build I'll definitely have some questions as to the best way to put it all together, and especially with how to trim down the armor... The thigh armor is a bit too long for me and I can't bend my legs well, so I need to shorten it but I have no clue how to do it and still keep the shape of it. Any tips would be appreciated.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures...

Here's the helmet so far (again, thanks go to Oota Goota for putting it together)...

I took a picture of the armor a while ago but I can't remember what I did with it...

And this is the model I've been working on for the ARC caster. It's not finished yet, I still have a bit of clean-up to do and I'm going to be changing a couple things that I don't really like the look of how I did them. I'm planning to mod a Rubies "Stormtrooper Blaster" simply because it'll be the easiest one to mod; I figured it wouldn't do me much good to buy a blaster kit because I couldn't use most of the greeblies and the Hasbro blaster has too much that would need to be removed or changed compared to the Rubies blaster. Ignore the white model in the images, that's just a rough mock-up of an E-11 so I could get the dimensions of the greeblies correct, and I didn't bother to make a model for the ammo magazine because I'll just be using the one on the Rubies blaster.

The ARC caster seems to essentially be a ROTJ E-11 with the greeblies flipped to the right side of the blaster (and, of course, the spiral and plate on the front end), and a slightly different end on the scope. I did take a bit of creative freedom with it on the left side just because I didn't like how bare it looked with the greeblies flipped to the right... So I added a few greeblies there to balance it out a little (keep in mind that the ammo magazine isn't shown and the position of the greeblies isn't final). The ARC caster doesn't seem to have a visible ammo counter, or at least not one like most E-11s have, but I figured that, logically, you would need to know just how much ammunition (or in the case of an electric weapon, battery power) you have left so I made a small horizontal ammo counter that will sit behind the ammo mag. I made a small dial on the top of the ammo counter to look like you could adjust the strength of the electrical discharge but after rethinking it I might change that to a slide switch instead so it takes up less room and the weapon should look a little sleeker overall. I'm working in adding lighting and sound effects to make the ARC caster really come to life.

And that's about it for now...

[RAIDER[COTG]]

Very nice.  Interesting...this would require a new CRL entirely.  @Blackwatch @izzi @Scubacat  We may need to make sure our reference photos and what not are up to date and sufficient for building the CRL.  Following your thread man.  As detailed of a build as you can provide in here the better. Good luck!

[Blue Hatter]

Thanks. I'm pretty hardcore about accuracy so I'm going to try to make this as accurate as possible, though I've been thinking of adding a couple small things to increase realism, like a little bit of chipping along the edges and some burn marks on the thrusters of the jetpack. Nothing too major. I've also been debating with the idea of putting just one of the square stormtrooper belt "rivet covers" on the front of the belt, just so I can rivet a cloth belt onto the plastic box belt very securely and then cover the rivet head, but I'm not sure yet, I'll figure out more about it when I get there. Though I suppose a few rivets showing here and there might just add to the look of making the trooper look like it's fitted with heavy armor.

But yeah, I'll definitely post up pictures!

I think I've found some paint for the base color and I've been experimenting with it, seeing what I can do to adjust the tint of it with a white primer or a black primer, and using black primer with a coat of silver over it and then the blue-grey spray paint I found. So far the black primer, silver paint and blue-grey paint combo seems to look best to me but it's not perfect. I haven't had much luck finding the "perfect" color of spray paint but this one is fairly close, and I'm going to buy a can of transparent medium gray paint and see what it looks like if I hit the blue-gray with that. It's been hard to tell exactly what color the armor should be, anyway, as every reference shows the armor in a slightly different color... Some pictures have it looking more grey, others it's more blue, others have it a darker blue-grey, others a lighter blue-grey. Ugh. ?

I have a number of references for the armor, too. I also have the extracted 3D model and the texture image for it.

[Scubacat[TX]]

This looks fantastic so far and would be a very neat build to see. We would need a CRL written out for it to be a fully approvable kit. I hope to see more work on this in the future. Keep up the great work so far. See if you can find more reference photos to assist you in your build. They will help.  

[Blue Hatter]

On 1/31/2019 at 4:20 PM, Scubacat said:

This looks fantastic so far and would be a very neat build to see. We would need a CRL written out for it to be a fully approvable kit. I hope to see more work on this in the future. Keep up the great work so far. See if you can find more reference photos to assist you in your build. They will help.  

Thanks.

I have a fair amount of reference pictures, as well as the texture image from Battlefront and the CG model so I can get a 360 degree look at it. So that definitely helps.

I've been slowly working on this but haven't gotten too far yet. I"m nearly finished with my Resistance X-wing pilot costume and once I'm done I can focus more on the dark trooper. Hopefully the weather will get a bit warmer soon, too, so I can start spray painting. I did find a color of paint that I think I'll use for the base color, it seems like a pretty close match, and I found the colors for the belt and the indented center part of the torso armor. I haven't found the dark navy paint yet for the rest of the accents but I haven't really looked too hard, either, but I don't think it'll be too hard to find something. I did find the material for the belt so there's that at least.

I finished my model for the arc caster as well, which I need to post some pictures of. I completely remade the scope, for one, and added some details for "realism". I'm just waiting for my 3D printer to arrive and then I can (hopefully) start printing the parts.

I'm still trying to figure out what the best way would be to shorten the thigh and calf armor. I'm worried that if I cut from the top and/or bottom of the armor that it might become too wide or too narrow but cutting it through the center might alter the shape. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to pull that off. Like I mentioned, I've never done full armor before so I'm not exactly sure how to do some things...

[Blackwatch[CMD-DCA]]

Ill be following this now, so please go ahead and post up your pics so we can get a CRL topic started, and we can continue to consider this your WIP thread.  I just checked the other reference pics posted in other DT topics, more is always better. 

Have you considered forming the armor with Sintra? I just completed another suit with it this week. I used TK parts and the only drawing in existance of the armor were building and figgered it out that way.  I prototype in cardboard and move on from there. 
On your leg / thigh issues splitting it at the front may give you what you want, it may not.  It seemed like every couple of weeks we were redoing a phase  1 clone thigh because the gap was too big (he could sit) but it showed too much black.  We used a lot of parking lot sign material to add material back in, and bondo and repaint. 

I would like to see this project move forward, so ive got it marked to watch. 

[Blue Hatter]

I'll definitely be posting some pictures up when I have more to show. I haven't made much progress on the armor yet, it's been so cold outside that I haven't been able to work. But I did, finally, found the right combination of paint... so there's that at least.

The armor itself is already made, it's a kit that I bought and I just have to trim it and put it together. The thigh armor I think that I'll start by trimming from the top, and maybe a little from the bottom, and see how that goes. Fingers crossed that it'll work.

I did finish the arc caster model, though. I'm pretty pleased with it. I haven't tried printing it yet, though. Again, ignore the white model as it's just a rough E-11 mockup for dimensions. And the purple corkscrew on the front wont be printed, it's just to give an idea of what it might look like. The corkscrew will be cut out of a piece of plastic with a spiral pattern I have. I also decided to remove the entire scope from the Rubies blaster and just print a whole new one, which should make it look much more accurate.

[IcyTrooper[CMD-DL]]

Wow, that is a wild gun! I hear ya on the cold, makes it not fun if you have to do it in a garage or the works. Definitely get the pieces together for the thighs I'd say and then figure out how much to take off the top and bottom so that way you don't cut it too short.

[Blue Hatter]

On 3/6/2019 at 9:23 PM, IcyTrooper said:

Wow, that is a wild gun! I hear ya on the cold, makes it not fun if you have to do it in a garage or the works. Definitely get the pieces together for the thighs I'd say and then figure out how much to take off the top and bottom so that way you don't cut it too short.

It's definitely a unique looking blaster, the arc caster. It should be an interesting build. I bought a toy taser gun that I'm going to rip apart and use the electronics from so it'll make zapping sounds and have lights that flash. ?

Unfortunately I can't even work in the garage, it's so full of... crap. Heh. I can really only do things on the front porch, or in the front yard of back yard, so I have to catch the good days. Which so far have been few and far between... On Tuesday it was snowing even. But Summer's coming up so hopefully the weather will start to get better and I can start to get more serious on things. I'm hoping to get the armor finished by September but we'll see, I'm not going to rush on it and risk making mistakes. I did pick up a spray painting tent so I have a place to spray paint so hopefully that will make things a bit easier.

I think I can cut down the tops (and maybe the bottoms) of the thigh armor for a better fit. I think, anyway. Hopefully it wont make them look too wonky, but I can probably do a bit of molding with a heat gun if I have to. But I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how to fix something, even if it does take me a while sometimes.

[Blue Hatter]

A small update... I have all of the armor cut out (need to finish trimming and smoothing, though), I printed out the "bolts" for the chest and knees, and I've started printing the parts for my arc caster. I've tracked down the boots, found a body suit, and I've ordered a balaclava. So things are slowly moving along.

Though in the process my rivet gun broke (I know better than to buy tools at Harbor Freight) but I saw a a rivet gun attachment for an electric screwdriver that looks like it would make life a lot easier, so I think I'm going to order one on payday.

[RAIDER[COTG]]

Progress...I'm going to PM you my email so send all additional reference pics you have ASAP please so we can start updating that section and have it ready to go.

[Blue Hatter]

18 hours ago, Raider said:

Progress...I'm going to PM you my email so send all additional reference pics you have ASAP please so we can start updating that section and have it ready to go.

Sure thing. Give me a few days to get them all together.

Also, on a small side note, I see that you're in Florida. I'll be moving up to there probably next year.

[Blue Hatter]

I was hoping to have an update with my armor test fitting but unfortunately that didn't happen and noticed something that I needed to correct first, so I'm hoping that I can suit up this weekend. Hopefully. I was set back a few weeks after I sliced open my left index finger with a box cutter and had to go to the hospital. I'm still not able to fully use that finger but it is a bit better.

But just to show that I am still working on this, I thought I'd post up a couple pictures. The armor is all trimmed, though I need to finish sanding a bit of Bondo, and I'm nearly finished with the chest and knee bolts (or chest "nipples" if you prefer ), the arc caster is slowly coming along, and I'm working on the risers to make the shoulder armor "float". So here's a purdy box of armor...?

And here's my shoe armor so far with the shoes I'll be using. I haven't added the strip up the center of the shoes yet or, obviously, painted them. Much to my delight the color of the soles ended up being a near perfect match to the game model texture.

[Blue Hatter]

Before I finish the last bit of trimming on my armor I need some opinions because I can't decide on what I should do. I had to extend the sides of the abdomen armor (front and back) as they were a bit too small for me, but I can't decide how short that I want to cut them.

The video game model has the abdomen armor completely wrapping around the body as one piece with no seams or split, though this was probably more due to lazy drawing than anything else (especially because, if I remember right, the standard stormtroopers in Pandemic's Battlefront also had the same wrap-around abdomen armor). Of course, regular stormtrooper armor does have a split between the front and back abdomen pieces... Originally I was going to have the sides of my dark trooper abdomen armor be long enough that the front half could layer over the back half, giving it the look of one piece, but the more that I think about it the more that I'm wondering if I should cut them shorter and leave a small gap-- or maybe just have the edges touching.

So, on one hand, the overlapping armor would be more accurate to the video game model, but having a split or having the edges touch would be more accurate to real stormtrooper armor. Overlapping would take a little more work, as I would need to bend in part of the back extensions so that they don't stick straight out, which is doable; having the split would make it look different from the game. I can't decide what I should do... Should I have the abdomen pieces overlap to look like they're one piece (like in the video game) or should I have a small separation between them (more like real stormtrooper armor), or just do a bit of both and have the edges touch? What do you all think?

Here's my abdomen armor with the extensions added...

Here's sort of what they would look like overlayed...

And here's the game model...

 

[Blue Hatter]

So... I think I'll just make the sides touch, then. Or maybe just overlap slightly. Or something. I'll play around with it and see what looks best and what seems to work best.

[Blue Hatter]

It's just a small thing but I got the thrusters for the jetpack completed. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. I added some heat warping onto the inside of the thrusters and blast scorching around the edges. Naturally these thrusters would get very hot so I thought that they should look it, nice and toasty.

[RAIDER[COTG]]

Did the armor kit come w the backpack or do u have to create that yourself?

[Blue Hatter]

8 hours ago, Raider said:

Did the armor kit come w the backpack or do u have to create that yourself?

The kit came with the jetpack, it just had to be put together. I did end up making a couple modifications to it to make it more accurate.

I’m gonna try to get some pictures this weekend.

[Blue Hatter]

Here's a shot of the jetpack before I sanded it. It actually wasn't as hard to build as I thought it was going to be. Though it is loaded up with rivets to make it nice and sturdy, heh. Most of them are on the inside or on the back so they wont be seen. I used those plastic corner protectors that you put on wall corners to attach pieces to, and then to attach those pieces to the jetpack, rather than just gluing along a thin edge of plastic. I thought that it would make things much more secure that way.

Unfortunately one of the rivets came off after I sealed up the back and now it's rolling around inside. Bah! I might cut a small hole in the back and try to get it out, which I was thinking of doing, anyway, just in case I ever needed to get inside of it again for some reason.

Oh, and my cat, Egon, says hello.

[Blue Hatter]

It probably seems a bit backwards to paint the thrusters before the jetpack but I wanted to rivet them on securely and this was the only way I could think of, because I needed to get inside of the Jetpack to rivet then on, which had to be done before I put the back on.

Wish me luck that I don’t mess the paint up on them now. :P I do have them covered in paper lunch sacks and taped closed so hopefully that will give them enough protection.

[Blue Hatter]

I was finally able to do the first test fitting of my Phase Zero Dark Trooper armor! Man, I didn't think I'd ever make it to this point. I think that everything seems to fit me alright, more or less, though I do need to pull the thigh armor up higher. And yeah, the stomach armor shifted and I didn't notice it until I saw the pictures, but it'll be secured better when it's finished, I just taped everything together for now. I'm still working on how to get the shoulder armor to float like it should, plan A and plan B didn't work out and I'm still trying to figure out what plan C will be...

Aside from the stomach armor shifting, the thighs needing to be pulled up, and the shoulder armor needing to float, does anyone notice anything that should be addressed before I start painting?

Oh, and the rivets will be hidden. And I haven't made all of the cover strips yet, so bear that in mind.

I did finish all of the "bolts" for the chest and knees... Or the "nipples" for the chest if you prefer. ?

And the aerators for the helmet. They're 3D prints.

And last but not least, here's my arc caster so far...

[RAIDER[COTG]]

@Blue Hatter The initial thing that jumps out to me is the use of rivets on the shin and forearm cover strips.  I don't see those on the reference pics.

[Blue Hatter]

Yeah, like I mentioned, the rivets will be hidden by the cover strips, I just don’t have the cover strips on yet. The raised part on the forearms isn’t actually a cover strip, it’s molded onto the armor. The cover strips will go over the top of those and cover the rivets. It’s the same for the calf armor.

[IcyTrooper[CMD-DL]]

This thing is gonna be wicked when it is done!

[Blue Hatter]

4 hours ago, IcyTrooper said:

This thing is gonna be wicked when it is done!

Thanks. It's definitely been an interesting project.

The shoulder armor is proving to be harder than I had thought it would be-- raising it up and making it "float", that is. I tried something else again today and that didn't work, either. I'm thinking that I might have to try to rig up some kind of bracket system with another smaller piece of shoulder armor that attaches to it. Like a small piece of shoulder armor flat on my shoulder/upper arm, a bracket attached to it, and then the dark trooper shoulder armor attached at an angle to the other end of the bracket. Or something.

So plan D and E here I come...