New VT Events

A couple of developments lately with the Vermont side of the NEG. Over the past couple of days, we’ve confirmed or at least begun to think about attending a couple of events in the area.

March 10-15 – Montpelier’s Geek Week, run by the folks over at the Langdon St. Cafe, for the third year running. We don’t have anything nailed down yet, but this is an event that we’ll miost likely see one or two armored figures walking around for.

April 25 or 26 – Vermont Maple Fest, in St. Albans, I trooped this last year with fellow member Jerry Kolvas, and had a very good time with that. Hopefully, we’ll get more troopers to this one, this time around.

Clone Process

More repainting and other things this weekend. I’m almost done!

I went up to Walmart and bought several more cans of spray paint, and a tube of caulk and some more sandpaper.

Thighs, forearms and upper arms have been recaulked and sealed so that they look more seamless. It’s not smooth, but I’ll essentially cover it with weathering once the paint is completely dry.

The abovementioned pieces have also been repainted, along with the knees, elbows and hand pieces, which have been appropriately weathered.

So now, all that I need to get finished is the shin pieces, lower back and abs plate and the belt.

The abs / lower back pieces have also been extended by about an inch – I cut both in half and reinforced the gap with extra bits of HIPS, and I’ve attached velcro so the belt covers the gap. Looks a bit weird, but the front doesn’t have the gap any more, unless I bend backwards. The back is pretty flush with back piece, but it’ll work.

Storm Trooper Reviews In the Shadow of the Moon

One of my recent hobbies and interests is space history, and last year, I came across an amazing book, In the Shadows of the Moon. The author, Francis French, just forwarded me this fantastic review of the book:

http://vimeo.com/2114892

Enjoy!

501st Band of Brothers

This is a very cool video:

Kyle Newman, Director of Fanboys Interview

Kyle Newman, Director of Fanboys Interview
Posted By: Sheila Roberts

MoviesOnline sat down with director Kyle Newman to talk with him about his exciting new movie, “Fanboys,” a heartwarming story set in 1998 that follows a group of young, passionate Star Wars fans on a cross-country quest to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch and watch Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace before it’s released.

The film stars Jay Baruchel, Dan Fogler, Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, and Kristen Bell. It’s produced by Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunetti, Evan Astrowsky and Matthew Perniciaro. The screenplay is written by Adam F. Goldberg and Ernest Cline from a story by Ernest Cline and Dan Pulick. Kevin Mann served as executive producer.

Kyle Newman is a fabulous guy and we really enjoyed our time with him. Here’s what he had to tell us about the long awaited “Fanboys” and the excited adventures he experienced along the way to its final release:

MoviesOnline: Can you talk about the long and winding road to making this film and finally getting it released?

KYLE NEWMAN: Well, I think just like in the movie which I didn’t expect it to be, for me, what I’m so happy with is the journey, not the destination, because we met so many amazing people making this movie, and the fans helped us make the movie and finish the movie. We had 501st which is the costume division of Star Wars fandom. We didn’t have a budget to make all the costumes. They were even making our Star Trek outfits so… Can you imagine Star Wars fans having to sit there and sew Star Trek outfits? They were like, “Alright, we’ll do it for the sake of Star Wars.”

I was just impressed by how many people came together because of their love of Star Wars. That’s how we got so many cameos too. People were like, “I grew up on that. I love it too. I want to come in and sure, I’ll do it for half a day. Why not?” So, that was the most impressive thing to me and then also working with Lucasfilm after hearing all these things which were so untrue about them online and people’s perspective of what they’re like and then having them welcome us in like part of the family and embracing us. I think they realized at that point that there are no more movies and there wasn’t a TV show yet so it was a way to keep Star Wars alive, and I think they realized fandom is the future of Star Wars. That’s why they’re doing those kind of… They support the fan film awards.

If you look online, there are so many Star Wars fan films. This was like us getting to make almost like an official fan film because we were all such fans. It was all these incredible things which I never expected when we started to make this movie – never knowing if we were going to get Lucasfilm approvals, never even planning to get so many cameos, never planning to actually get to shoot on the ranch which no one has ever gotten to do before.

Full interview: http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_16344.html

Armor Update & New Helmet

It’s been a little while since I’ve worked on my clone – I haven’t worn it since I did a quick photo shoot with my friend Seth of Seth Bebee Photo. Over this past weekend, while procrastinating before writing a paper, I began some work to finally get this finished up.

I took the shoulder bells, and shaped them down a bit. The first ones were the size of bowls, and completely oval-shaped. They’ve now been trimmed down and shaped up, and are more angular.

The belt needed some work as well – the boxes were a bit too fat, so a half-inch or so was taken off of the bottom. I need to reattach them, but they’re the proper size now.

Finally, I finished up my new Clone helmet, a BS bucket. My original one was wrong in a couple of places, and this one has a neck ring, more accurate and all that. I then painted it, black, then gray, then white, with numerous coats of each, then once it dried, took sandpaper and weathered it to match up with the rest of my armor.

Now, I just need to get my boots, and this’ll be completely finished. It’ll be about fine – 6 months and counting!

Storm Troopers & The Superbowl

I’m not a football fan, but sharp-eyed viewers would have noticed a pair of storm troopers in a trailer for the upcoming film, Race to Witch Mountain. Take a look here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/racetowitchmountain/