WEG Cannon Seatrooper Build

[Darth Agnon[501st]]

What is that?

[izzi[TX]]

What happened?

 

-iz

[Tachyon[501st]]

Speechless cause it's so awesome!!!

 

What happened was I freed it from it's plastery tomb Was just waiting for pics to upload so I thought I'd be evil

 

 

It's like wearing a fiberglass box though, I can only hear people if they are directly infront of me and speaking loudly when in it. It's also pretty well fitted to me, lucky I extended the sculpt that little bit. Going to need to widen it before I can reproduce it, but for now it should be fine

 

It's all downhill from here, hopefully have it painted and the visor fitted this coming weekend

[Darth Agnon[501st]]

Evil!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwvIZ4y_TQM&feature=related

 

btw way, you might be able to rig one of those hearing aids they sell on tv to help old people hear the tv better. /shrug

[Tachyon[501st]]

Haha, cool video.

 

I've been thinking that I could set up two small mics, one on either side of the bucket, that run thru an amplifier and into speakers positioned above my ears. This would give me a sense of direction of the sound and also let me plug in the ipod but early days, might not actually need it in the end.

[muppet[501st]]

very evil of you Alex

 

looks awesome

[izzi[TX]]

[Rotccole]

Awesome stuff brother!

[Mr Fett[501st]]

Speechless cause it's so awesome!!!

 

 

It's like wearing a fiberglass box though, I can only hear people if they are directly infront of me and speaking loudly when in it. It's also pretty well fitted to me, lucky I extended the sculpt that little bit. Going to need to widen it before I can reproduce it, but for now it should be fine

 

It's all downhill from here, hopefully have it painted and the visor fitted this coming weekend

 

 

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!! ......and I'm gonna need one of those, my Seatrooping brother. I just found this message board tonight.

 

It is time to rebuild my Seatrooper, only this time keep it canon white so they don't boot me off the TX status like they did last time. The midnight blue one was legit for a while until they thought it was too EU to keep active. I did sell it a couple years ago to help fund another costume. Now I've been getting the itch to make another one and I see you've already been on top of things while I've not been around the SpecOps community. Kudos to you!

[Darth Agnon[501st]]

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!! ......and I'm gonna need one of those, my Seatrooping brother. I just found this message board tonight.

 

It is time to rebuild my Seatrooper, only this time keep it canon white so they don't boot me off the TX status like they did last time. The midnight blue one was legit for a while until they thought it was too EU to keep active. I did sell it a couple years ago to help fund another costume. Now I've been getting the itch to make another one and I see you've already been on top of things while I've not been around the SpecOps community. Kudos to you!

 

So that was you. Did you post your for sale thread on the OG boards?

[Tachyon[501st]]

Welcome back mate, more than happy to help you with getting a seatrooper up and running. Your suit was an inspiration for me to get to work. I'm glad you like the bucket, I'm coming along with the rest of the suit quite quickly as well. Drop me a PM if you have any ideas or questions. The helmet isn't far away from completion now

[Mr Fett[501st]]

I am really loving your build on this armor. My suit was finished back in 2004, and at the time I built it, there was one and only one reference picture. The black and white one from the old 1980s role-playing game Imperial Sourcebook....

 

 

I based my build off this. But not having sculpting abilities, I used readily available armor parts. Yes, I skipped the frame around the tanks, the light box on the forehead (instead used the EL-wire lights), a few of the other odds and ends like the recessed areas on each pec of the chestplate that you are doing because I was geeked to get the suit done and rushed through it.

 

I tried to do some of the proper looks from that picture like the V-neckline on the chest and backplates, and tried to make the shins match. Not having any reference pics of the backside at all, I never knew what it looked like so made it up. This was before they redid that same picture into the colorized version where you can see a second Seatrooper in the background.

 

The dive knife on my left arm was because I only had one Scout Trooper bicep armor piece so needed something to put on the other side, and in talking to other 501st guys who dive in real life, they said they never go diving without a knife, so that solved my problem. Found a dive knife with a "sci-fi" looking handle, and painted the plastic sheath to match my armor.

 

My belt was made of little resin boxes in roughly the configuration of the normal Scout Trooper vacformed belts. The separate resin boxes to me made it appear more like a diver's weight belt, which I thought appropriate for this costume.

 

The reason the suit was a blue shade was because I wasn't personally fond of the black TK/TB armor look at the time and yet I did not want a white Seatrooper because I thought (and still think) these underwater commandos would not be wearing shiny white suits. One of my TK buddies in my Garrison thought a midnight blue would counterbalance the black undersuit well so that's what I did. Midnight Blue spraypaint with acrylic black overwash to make it more murky weathered.

 

The EL lights on the helmet came about because it looked like the real single reference pics he had some sort of rectangular headlight on the forehead of the helmet, and similar light systems are used by deep sea divers and such in real life, so the blue EL lights were my own version of those diver's lights, but "space style" in the Star Wars realm to give it that "underwater glow effect". I tell you what, canon or not.....EVERYBODY who saw that suit really, really loved those EL lights. They were a huge hit every time I wore that suit !!!!!

 

Cumberbun like a Scout trooper......my thoughts personally are don't use one, unless it's made of neoprene. Why would Seatroopers need a cloth piece around their midsection like the Scouts who use that section to hold their saddlebags? I don't think they would. Why carry extra cloth around underwater to get waterlogged and weigh you down?

 

I also would go with a black cheek hose on your suit. It would blend nicely, and be in the same family as the TIE pilot hoses. My own hose I used was a rubber SCBA breather hose off Firefighter equipment. It was extras from a batch the local 501st TIE pilots were using.

 

Because like I mentioned not having the sculpting skills, my shin armor was built like this.....I started with a base of the old Marco TK shins. These shins didn't have the nice calf sweep of the new TK armors and were more tubular in shape. Perfect for this project. I used Snowtrooper knees because I didn't have any Scout knees. For the recessed side details, I contact cemented pieces of Foamies around the one side of each shin based on the one reference pic to create the depth of layers. To create a more tubular shape around the ankle, I cut a piece of thinner gauge PVC pipe into the proper shape. This is then attached after I'd put the TK shin on. It velcroed under the front center onto the shin. The kneearmor also velcroed to the shin armor. I never got around to making the little jets on the back.

 

I used a cut down Snowtrooper codpiece and put a second one on the backside to cover my butt somewhat instead of just the open bodysuit since I didn't know what the back was supposed to look like.

[izzi[TX]]

Hey, hey! Mr. Fett! Been awhile since you've come around. Still have your Seatrooper? Rumor is you sold it off awhile back.

 

Tachyon, When to I get the second helmet shipped to me? I've been saving me pennies up for it!

 

-iz

[Mr Fett[501st]]

Nope, sold it off 2 years ago. Helped fund my Iron Man costume. Now I'm feeling like rebuilding one again. I didn't even know there was a new 501st SpecOps message board until I found it last night while looking around for Seatrooper stuff. My original Seatrooper went to a 501st guy in Australia. Surprised Tachyon hasn't seen it in person.

 

 

Oh yeah, I forgot something from my earlier post. Talking about the wider TK type shoulder bells. I originally had someone get me some wider bells without the center line the TKs have, but I went with the thinner TB bells because I'm super skinny and the TB bells seemed to fit my frame better.

[Tachyon[501st]]

@MrFett: Love the EL wire lights on your bucket. They add another dimension to it, instead of the costume being a flat series of colours, the EL gave it a kind of glow. Fantastic! As for the hoses and cummerbund etc. I was originally going to use plain TI hoses and skip the cummerbund, but you know 501st rules. So I have to have em. I'd make the cummerbund out of neoprene, but I think in the climate here, I'd die. I'm still thinking I might die in the cummerbund in the middle of summer. Also, I think the cummerbund can be justified if you say it's part of their environment control suit so they can dive in sub-zero temperatures or what not. The grey hoses I have now match the visual reference quite closely and one could say that the colour difference is because the TI hoses are made to operate in the vacuum of space while the ST hoses have to operate in the pressures of the water. What difference it makes, I don't know, but hey, rules is rules. Wishing ur costume never got booted though, the blue paintjob does suit the armour and environment more than stark white. And it looks damn cool.

 

@Izzi: You know, it's part of the Seatrooper training course to swim from America to Australia in order to receive your armour. If you start now, I might have it completed by the time you get here Just don't forget a knife, the sharks here bite

[Tachyon[501st]]

Nope, sold it off 2 years ago. Helped fund my Iron Man costume. Now I'm feeling like rebuilding one again. I didn't even know there was a new 501st SpecOps message board until I found it last night while looking around for Seatrooper stuff. My original Seatrooper went to a 501st guy in Australia. Surprised Tachyon hasn't seen it in person.

 

 

Oh yeah, I forgot something from my earlier post. Talking about the wider TK type shoulder bells. I originally had someone get me some wider bells without the center line the TKs have, but I went with the thinner TB bells because I'm super skinny and the TB bells seemed to fit my frame better.

 

I've got a mate who has offered me a set of his TK bells from his personal moulds to modify to remove the centre stripe. I have been thinking about using TB bells, but I don't think they are long or pointy enough. I've talked to the guy you sold the armour to on and off for the past year, but he lives in Sydney, and I haven't had the time to go and take a look. Yet. Would love to see it, it's a fantastic costume.

[Mr Fett[501st]]

I took pics of the parts before I shipped it out, to use as reference to myself in case I wanted to make another one. I know mine is a different version than yours, but if you wanted to see anything in particular, let me know.

 

OK, I can buy those remarks about the cumberbun. Almost like a dry suit around the midsection. I can accept that. Same with the hose. It's just hard to find gray hose, I think. There's also nothing in the CRL that mentioned having the EL lights INSIDE the visor, not outside the visor and up the snout like I did. Hmm....maybe I could create a softer glow with an internal light. But if the CRL people say I cannot, then I cannot. Time to make a white canon one.

[Darth Agnon[501st]]

could you use the hose from a smaller vacuum cleaner? seen lots of those in gray.

[Tachyon[501st]]

I actually got 30mm electrical conduit piping. It was perfect, because they had the appropriately sized conduit endcaps, which I used on the bucket. The hoses fit snugly into the endcaps and shouldn't fall out unless pulled. And they were in grey, so no need to paint Only trade off was I had to buy 50m of the stuff, so free hoses with the buckets when I get to selling them.

[Mr Fett[501st]]

That's cool. Just checked the CRL and hose color is not mentioned. Just that they HAVE hoses on the helmet. Also it said cummerbund is optional.

 

Speaking of hoses, the way I ran mine was the cheek ones were in there all the time, and the ones on the backplate were the ones I pulled out when taking off the helmet.

[Tachyon[501st]]

Yep, just a reminder, I'm currently reworking the CRL, as the one posted was just a rough outline Izzi and I came up with a 12 months ago. Nothing has been submitted to the LMO for approval yet, so there technically isn't a formal CRL out there yet. But it's all up for discussion, so if you have something to say about it go for it

 

My plan for the hoses is also to have the cheek hoses permanently attached, and possibly even the backpacks hoses permanently attached too. I don't know how well that will pack down though, so still kicking ideas around until I get the backpack fiberglassed (next step after the helmet), but the hoses will be functional, as airflow though this helmet is minimal. Alright for you in the cooler climates, but Queensland is terrible for stinking hot trooping days.

[Mr Fett[501st]]

My hoses went right inside the Don Post Biker helmet I was using as well. I think you should have one end or the other able to pop out for ease of trooping and being able to take the helmet off and hold it in your arms or set it down without having to take the entire torso armor section off with it.

 

About the CRL, I explained what I did, and why I did it.....trying to relate the space armor world with real world SCUBA. Stuff like Dive Knife, the mask lights for eerie underwater glow effect (could mount a light source behind the forehead vents I see you cut out of your helmet - same effect), having belt boxes different than Scouts to simulate Diver's weight belt. All practical real world type things stuck in the Star Wars world.

 

I also used the cut down TS codpieces front and back because I was thinking of hip movement for swimming, if this had been a real-world dive rig. You couldn't have bigger armor cutting into your hip/groin area while trying to paddle your legs, like TK armor or Fett armor where it wraps around your waistline..

[Mr Fett[501st]]

You wanna get high tech? There's always.......

 

http://scubadiverlife.com/2011/01/15/liquid-image-scuba-series/

 

 

Watch the video. Oh, look.....blue LED light inside the SCUBA mask ? Hmmmm........

[Tachyon[501st]]

Yeah, I havn't had any experience with helmets that attach to other parts of the costume before, so I'm going to have a play around with the helmet and backpack when they're both done. I'm thinking it might be possible to have the hoses not permanently attached because they sit very snugly in the connectors, and might not need permanent adhesive. This would also make it easier to display.

 

Yeah, I know about wanting to relate it to the real life world. Already considered the light behind the forehead vent. An easy attachment, but not sure how it would go down for approval, so I'll make it removable and try getting it approved with the light. The belt pouches I made look similar to dive weights, but they're in fabric because it's cheaper than vinyl and give the same kind of look as the cummerbund, something the LMO wanted me to do. There's also a dive knife I am working on reproducing (non-bladed version though) attached to the right shin. I think also, the backpack was referenced from the Rebreather technology that was being tested back in the 80's when the book was written, and the fins are based on a dive fin that was popular at the time

 

Rebreather;

[Tachyon[501st]]

You wanna get high tech? There's always.......

 

http://scubadiverlife.com/2011/01/15/liquid-image-scuba-series/

 

 

Watch the video. Oh, look.....blue LED light inside the SCUBA mask ? Hmmmm........

 

Oh, nice find! I have been wondering how the RCs make their visors light up without showing the person in side. Something like that could add an awesome edge to the costume. I'd just like to find out how heavy the bucket is with all the fans, speakers, mics and what not before adding more stuff. I'm thinking the batteries will be in the backpack though.