Sith Trooper Build

[lunar lord]

looks great and iz i was looking forward to those pics XD

[Rotccole]

sweet action!

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

So I have good news, bad news and...um. News. First off, the bad news. The helmet I made is too large, and I'm unhappy with how practically every other piece has been turning out. I know I'm not going to achieve perfection on a project like this, especially on my first try but I know I can do better than the pieces I have. The good news. After about a week of not working on this project at all, I am now diving back into it headfirst. I just got back from Starfest (Denver, Colorado sci fi convention) and it was just the inspiration I needed to keep going on this project despite the (admittedly self-induced) setbacks. We, the Mountain Garrison, also had our annual dinner where we talked about things such as how much money the Legion and our garrison has raised for charity, the trading cards we're going to be doing soon and a very personal matter involving one our member's father (Santa Bill, please read). All this reminded of why I personally, and many others in the Legion do this. Not just for ourselves, although that is part of it, but for the difference we can make. What could be better than combining a love of Star Wars, costuming and charity work? Everybody wins. So I should be back to regular updates on my progress with this costume.

 

Almost forget about the neutral news. While the helmet I have is too large, it did help me figure out some mechanics of the suit early enough to avoid a lot of stress and extra work down the road. The helmet and neck piece have to be separate. If they were cast together, the costume wouldn't look as good, movement would be unnatural and since the helmet now has to be smaller there would be no way of putting it on save for cutting a slit and pulling it open every time it was put on, which would be stress on the rest of the helmet and likely cause major damage over time. On a slightly happier note, thanks to a facebook status from Allen Amis, I have discovered Rondo and it importance in pepakura projects. It's basically a 1:1 mix of Bondo and fiberglass resin. This is applied to the pepakura piece after the initial coat of fiberglass resin (although I might try using jelly instead) and should drastically cut down on work time and improve the quality of the piece compared to my previous method of resin then straight Bondo. Here's a brief tutorial on Rondo for those who are interested. Expect to see progress Monday night as I'm probably just going to rest tomorrow and recover from hours spent walking around in costume and posing at the con today.

[LongShot-X]

Shaggy9342

 

I'm new here but not new to the pepakura method that you are going thru.

So far from what I have seen, your "pepping" skills are very good.

- Good clean folds and straight lines.

- No warping.

- Good HD detail on all the parts.

 

As for the scaling... yes it sometimes does require that you rescale and re-pep the pieces. I have had to do that many times with mine.

 

Keep up the excellent work. I like what I'm seeing from a fellow pep builder.

 

Oh... and here's something to hopefully help inspire and motivate you to keep going.

 

"Darth Chief"

 

 

Cheers

[Darth Agnon[TX]]

Fantastic!

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Shaggy9342

 

I'm new here but not new to the pepakura method that you are going thru.

So far from what I have seen, your "pepping" skills are very good.

- Good clean folds and straight lines.

- No warping.

- Good HD detail on all the parts.

 

As for the scaling... yes it sometimes does require that you rescale and re-pep the pieces. I have had to do that many times with mine.

 

Keep up the excellent work. I like what I'm seeing from a fellow pep builder.

 

Oh... and here's something to hopefully help inspire and motivate you to keep going.

 

"Darth Chief"

 

 

Cheers

 

Thanks! It's really nice to read something like this. As I am now starting my 3rd helmet since deciding the previous one was too large, finding motivation can be difficult. I have a bunch of the wallpapers off of the TOR website as my wallpaper. An epic picture like the one below reminds me why I'm doing this instead of just a clone or something (not that I don't love clones too). So I'm turning up the music and jumping into another day! Sadly, I haven't been able to find my camera since I went to Starfest so there may not be any pic updates for a while.

Also, I checked your site out. Who doesn't love it when Master Chief orders some pizza lol? Awesome suit man.

Revan is such a bad-um...posterior? What are the rules re. profanity on this forum? Oh well. I'm gonna start holding my saber Shien style like that while trooping.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Great news! I just finished pepping the helmet and tried it on. It's the absolute perfect size. Just enough room on the sides, face plate is just right, back to front is right and the brow sits right above my eyes, meaning there will be room for padding. And considering I have one of the biggest noggins I know of and plenty of hair besides, this means it should fit practically anyone without a problem. Also, I couldn't be happier with the pepakura work itself. It honestly makes my earlier helmet look like crap in comparison. The lines are cleaner, folds are sharper and it barely needs any tape holding it in place to keep it symmetrical. Going to do a little fiberglass work, let it dry then I should have pictures up tonight.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Decided to take pics before going to work just in case.

[Darth Agnon[TX]]

does this one fit? looks great btw.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

does this one fit? looks great btw.

Yep, fits perfectly.

[Rotccole]

I'm getting excited just watching you build it dude...looks like alot of fun.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

So I think I'm in love with Rondo. Don't tell my girlfriend lol. Seriously though, this stuff is amazing. I just put one thin coat on the helmet after two coats of fiberglass resin and it's like watching dozens of hours of potential sanding disappear before my eyes. I didn't get the hardener ratio quite right so I'm going to wait till tomorrow to do anymore as it's still slightly tacky but here's how the helmet looks right now. You can still see most of the flat surfaces, but again, this was a thin test layer. Putting it on thicker next time should solve everything.

[izzi[TX]]

Are you hitting the interior of the helmet with a coat of resin as well?

 

-iz

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Are you hitting the interior of the helmet with a coat of resin as well?

 

-iz

 

Yupp, I got the inside with fiberglass resin and I'm starting to put some rondo in it too. Here's what I've done so far this morning. It should be almost finished curing by now, then I'll do the other side.

[Rotccole]

Oh shiny!

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Oh shiny!

Yeah, it's still wet in that picture. I found a thread about mixing fiberglass resin with bondo that says that using both the bondo hardener and fiberglass hardener when mixing will help the rondo to set faster. Good to know, as I hate waiting for things to set. Also, I've decided on a resin to cast the helmet with. Most people I've talked to and read about use Smooth-On resin, but I found that Alumilite is nearly half the cost, comes in larger quantities, sets faster and has almost double the tensile strength of the most commonly used Smooth-On resin, Smooth-Cast 320. And Alumilite sells a cold cast powder that comes out closer to silver than the pewter offered by Smooth-On.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Did a little paint test on the old helmet. Krylon on one side, Rustoleum on the other. Turns out, both sucked lol. The Rustoleum looks like I covered the helmet with aluminum foil. The Krylon side looks like...well, it looks like a helmet covered silver paint frankly. Not metal. So until I actually cold cast a helmet, I'm not gonna worry about paint. I've got most of the helmet covered in Rondo and did a bit of sanding. I'm gonna put another layer on and then sand. And sand. Then maybe file for a bit to change things up, then do some more sanding.

Krylon side

Rustoleum side

Helmet with some sanding.

[Rotccole]

Looks really good bro!

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Pretty much done with the rondo stage, now just lots of sanding and filing. Last layer is curing right now, so I'll put up progress pics tomorrow.

[Darth Agnon[TX]]

A Jango in my Garrison used the cold cast method and his chest plates look like real metal plates. That should do the trick.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

I'm hoping the cold cast will work provided it's buffed and polished, but the Sith troopers have an almost chrome appearance. Not sure what Brian Anderson and Jason think about it but Thomas Spanos suggested using chrome, in which case the aluminum will just help with possible weathering. But as I said earlier, until I have an actual cast piece in hand, I can't know. Didn't get too much sanding done tonight, but before I started sanding I decided to do a rough sketch of how the detail lines on the helmet are gonna look. Even with the skin file, it's pretty hard to figure out just how the lines go in some places.

And the back of the helmet

For the final version I plan on cutting out templates to make sure both sides are identical. The top parts are just somewhat darker or less shiny areas of the helmet that will have slightly indented lines bordering them.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Here's the helmet after some sanding. I'm not going to have any progress posted until Monday as I'm flying out to North Carolina for my sister's wedding When I get badk, I AM GOING TO BUY A CAMERA! So that everyone can actually see what the helmet looks like, because these photos just don't show any detail, which is pretty much all I have left to do.

[Rotccole]

You are really plugging away at this brother!

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

You are really plugging away at this brother!

Haha, yeah. Basically it's a combination of a lot of free time at the moment, knowing school this fall is going to take away most of that free time and a desire to have the whole thing done by October 18 for the release of Revan (and my birthday! lol) I'm hoping to have the helmet mostly complete by the end of next week at the very latest. That will leave me with 5 months to get the rest of the armor done. I'm not going to quality if I find I'm running short on time, but I'm definitely going to be putting the hours into this project to avoid the urge to rush things as October nears. I'm also trying to avoid that dry patch I see so many projects run afoul of. It's always frustrating when I'm reading someone else's thread and it stops all of a sudden. I suppose it's similar to the feeling you get when you stat watching a tv show and you finally catch up to the most recent episode and you realize that there isn't anything else.

[Shaggy9342[501st]]

Behold...resolutions!