Liquid Planet Troop – Pictures!

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Waxer Build

Quite a bit mor progress last night. As seen above, we did a complete test fit, which told me where we need to trim (back of the thighs at the knee, the tops of the shins at the knees, a bit under the arms, to make everything a bit more comfortable and movable.

I also went ahead with puttying the arms. I started with the upper arms, and put on probably a bit too much, which means more sanding to make them seamless, and I think I did a better job with the forearms. That stuff is pretty cool, and I’m happy with how that’s turning out. I’ll move to the legs tonight, I think, and finish up with the chest/back and the hips.

We also picked up Velcro, so the tabs on the sides of the upper body have been put together, and tabs for the thighs / cod piece as well. I’ve also put velcro on the abs/kidney plates to hold that together, and the belt has been secured in the same fashion.

Next up:

• Helmet visor needs to be completely sanded out – we’ve got the top half, now the bottom half needs to be taken care of.
• Seamless treatment for chest, cod, thighs, shins.
• Sanding for the above, and for the arms
• Forearms need to be trimmed a little.
• Shoulder bells need to be trimmed off and I need to get knee pads to stick inside. Upper arms need to be strapped up to the bells.
• Straps need to be sewn
• Shoes need to be purchased and modified

Painting:

• We’re going to most likely go ahead with painting once that’s all done – several coats of white.
• Orange coloring (this was Megan’s selling point when I convinced her to get the armor) – any tips on where to get 212th paint?

Weathering – we’ll go with the acryllic wash that the other TCW Clones have.

Cloning Around: Part 2

Earlier this year, I picked up a Watch City Armor Clone Trooper kit from a fellow member who was selling one. The armor, built to replicate the clones from the TV series, was a rough kit. Despite my admission after building my first Clone Trooper, the price was just right, everybody else had one, and after learning quite a lot from the first build, it seemed like it might be a fun project. The intent was to recreate Clone Trooper Boil from Ghost Company in The Clone Wars television series.

Then my girlfriend moved in with me, and I was able to convince her that she wanted a set of armor, and that this suit could be for her. So, the armor went from being my third, to her first. Much of the suit had been trimmed by the time she moved up, and for the first couple of months, I did a lot of fine tuning for the pieces, trimming off excess bits, using a pair of heavy-duty shears to take care of most of it, rather than a dremel, as some people use. I’ve found that shears are much easier to use, quieter and gives me quite a bit more control. Using a dremel to get to the hard to cut parts, and to smooth down rough edges, we were able to trim down the suit to the right size.

The next step came when we began to glue things together. The forearms, upper arms came together first, then the shins, thighs, chest, back, cod and butt, using Goop and clamps to hold areas together. This seems to have worked well, and a quick test fit of the chest, abs and cod piece fit together well, although there is more trimming that needs to be done.

The next major step is to fill the seams and overlaps in the armor, so that many of the pieces are seamless. With my first Clone, this was accomplished with Bondo, which was applied over the seams and smoothed with sand paper. While this worked well, it appears to be fairly brittle,and already there are some cracks with a year’s worth of trooping. For this new clone, we’re going to be using a putty made from HIPS mixed with Acetone, which melted the plastic and will allow for application to the appropriate spots, where it will then be smoothed, allowed to dry, and then sanded.

The next steps will be properly fitting the armor to its new owner, and then adding in straps and padding to make it wearable. Pictures to come!

Attack of the Clones

This was written up for a friend’s project:

One of the earliest impressions of the Star Wars universe on me was the white-clad Storm Troopers. Driving home after watching the first movie in the Montpelier Capitol Theater with my Dad, I pretended that I was one of the Imperial soldiers on the way back to a mission to take care of some rebels. Not because they were inherently evil or anything like that, they just had the cooler uniforms. My passion for Star Wars grew as I did, and in 2002, when Attack of the Clones was released to theaters, I was fascinated by the Clone Troopers, the obvious early version of the troopers that I was so taken with.

When it came to build a second set of armor, I decided to build a Clone Trooper from that film. On a film level, the movie is easily the weakest of the six Star Wars films, but has the saving grace of a massive battle as the Clone Troopers swoop in to rescue the besieged Jedi, and more often than not, most of the movie is fast-forwarded to that last battle scene. The original Clone Trooper carries with him a fascinating story that is brought out in the background narrative of the Star Wars saga: a new race of men who have been bred for warfare, covered in armor that is distinctive, interesting and battle worn from the start.

When I purchased my armor kit, I found myself in the middle of a completely new world of prop-building that took almost a year, with countless frustrations, setbacks and problems that both opened my eyes to the process, and a greater appreciation for what I do in the 501st Legion and in costuming. The armor had to be trimmed, sanded, trimmed some more, bondo’ed, painted, repainted, and has survived mis-cuts, modifications, getting run over by a car and the eventual wear and tear that only trooping can bring.

For me, this is matched with the theory that this particular Clone Trooper has been run through the ringer on the front lines. When George Lucas put together his universe, it was worn, lived in and used, and in this instance, the Clone Trooper matches that philosophy. There are cracks in the armor, scratches and scoring, designed to give the appearance that he has stepped off one of the LAAT/I ships and in front of the viewer. From inside the helmet, it’s clear from people’s expressions that he makes an impression, from his appearance to his weapon, fulfilling my original intentions: to bring the Star Wars universe to life for those who see it.

This Clone is a labor of love, sweat and tears, and in a sense, helps to me to put a foot in both sides of the Original/Prequel ponds, a predecessor and the result and a beginning and an end. But, while there is a philosophical reason for putting this particular costume together, there’s another one that trumps it: it just looks so damn cool.

New Roster Pic

I haven’t been updating this as regularly as I should have been, but well, not much has been happening on the 501st front. The New England Garrison is changing a bit with the new command staff, and we’re getting a new image for the website and all of our roster photos. Above is my new one, which is really, really awesome.

With the command staff change is some changes for me as well. I’ve been made the garrison archivist, which essentially means that I’ll be doing what I do here on the 501st NEG page – Blogging, public outreach, photos, etc. It’ll be pretty cool, and I can’t wait to start getting stuff off the ground.

The trooping season’s starting up soon. This past weekend was supposed to be the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, but we were rained out. Hopefully I’ll be out and about soon enough!

The Today Show

On Friday, I participated on the biggest troop thus far: NBC’s Today Show. This was an official LFL troop, one that was announced several weeks ago, along with signups. I submitted my pictures of my Clone Trooper, and was selected for the group. It wasn’t until a week ago that we were told what we would be trooping, and weren’t allowed to tell anyone. So, I worked on getting my Clone up to snuff, made a new blaster and on Thursday night after work, set off for NYC.

I arrived down there at 10:30, and met up with several troopers from my garrison and the Connecticut Garrison in the hotel that we were all staying at. We stayed up pretty late talking, and turned in for the remaining couple hours of sleep before we had to get up. At 3:30, our alarms went off, and we got up, dressed and carried our gear to NBC studios, where we checked in, met more troopers who were arriving at the same time. At 5, we did a walk through of what we were going to be doing for the morning, getting lined up and recieved our instructions. We then went back to the studio and suited up.

By 7 or so, we were finished suiting up, so we lined up, put our helmets on and went down to the street, where we crossed and waited for cameras. There was a little rehersal and changing of plans, and I ended up being on the first shift, rather than staying the whole morning. At 8 am, the show started, and cameras rolled. I was standing behind Al Roker, for his introduction, with a group of clones, and was on TV for just a couple seconds. You can see video here.

After that introduction, my time was done, although 10-15 clones and stormtroopers were retained for upcoming shots. I, along with three other clones went back to the changing space, got out of armor and went back down to watch for a little while, then headed up to Boston for the next troop of the night.

 

Woburn Parade 2009

This event marks the beginning of my third active year with the 501st Legion. The Woburn Parade has quickly become one of the major events that I would be loath to miss, and for good reason: this is one of the larger events that we come out in great numbers, and churn out some of our best work for.

In years past, the New England Garrison has done a number of large props: a life-sized Jabba the Hutt and Dewback for the past two years, we shifted gears and went with something just as cool, but not quite as big: Battle Droids for the 501st, and an Ewok Village for Alderaan Base. Both builds came off wonderfully, with our two battle droids, Fred and Ginger Rogers looking fantastic. The Ewok Village likewise looked fantastic, with several of our garrison member’s children posing as Ewoks.

The highlight here, however, was the first Clones from the NEG’s massive build recently, which churned out 20 new clone kits. Most of those are still in the works, but there were six of our members who had finished them in time to get them put together, although one was still building his in the parking lot. I was the only AOTC clone there, movie-accurate, rather than Cartoon accurate, which was pretty amusing.

The parade itself was a painful experience. While I’ve marched in my Clone Armor before, I made some small changes and/or put it together wrong this time around, and as a result, I’ve been aching for the past couple of days while waiting for the bruises and cuts to heal. 2.2 miles is a long way to walk in armor, and I was happy that the parade was over, but I was equally happy that I’d done the parade.

Pictures can be seen here.

Bristol, RI Walk Now for Autism

This past weekend was a good one for trooping. It’s been a couple of months, so I was thrilled to get back into it, and add a new state to the growing list of places that I’ve trooped: Rhode Island.

Because it’s a bit of a drive, I spend the night in Boston and met up with a couple other 501st members while down there. On Sunday, I drove about an hour down to Bristol, where I met up with Adam, Mike, Justin, Sean and Ann-Marie, where we suited up (Tie Pilot, an officer, TK and crewman) at the Walk for Autism site. I brought my Clone along, for its first troop as an approved costume.
I suspect that there were some organizational issues between the Autism people and us, but that really didn’t matter. We were surrounded by a number of people throughout the morning, kids and adults alike wanting pictures. Right as we started off, I was approached and hugged by a boy who looked thrilled that we were there. After walking around the park for about an hour and a half, we went to the front of the line, where we waved and cheered people on as they passed. We didn’t walk this time around, because everybody who was part of this had planned on going up to Waltham, where a droid build was underway.

See pictures here.

Northfield Labor Day Parade

This was my first troop in 2 months – I really missed it. Last year, Mike (TK-2084) and I trooped at the Labor Day festival in Northfield VT, right down the street from Norwich University. It’s the oldest such parade in the state, and it’s a large one. The Corps of Cadets from the school marches, and there are people from all over. We suited up after the parade (with just two of us, there was no sense in being in the parade, although hopefully that will change) and made circuits around the town square, getting pictures taken and generally having a good time.

Pictures can be seen here.

Mission Report: Lowell Spinners

It’s been a little while since I’ve trooped – real life has kept me away from the Legion, unfortunately, and most of my duties had been placed on the back burner. This past weekend, however, I was able to get out for my first troop in a long while, a baseball game at the A-Level team, the Lowell Spinners. They had put together a Star Wars Day, and the New England Garrison fielded around 25 people to the game in costume to pose for pictures and to sign autographs.

The event was a huge success. I ended up getting there a little late because of some family matters, and suited up upon arrival. This time around, I brought out my clone, which is in the middle of the submission process (about time!). This guy’s a little harder to put on, because of the way the parts are shaped, and I’m slowly learning which ways to put things on and together so that they stick. Once suited up, I went with a small group to the stadium’s entrance for about a half hour, before returning back to our changing area to assemble for the opening pitch. We lined up on the field in two rows, Vader threw out the pitch, along with Chewie, and from that point, we mingled with the crowds along the top of the stadium. There were many, many children in attendance, all of whom seemed to want our autograph – which is hard when you’re in armor. We posed for countless photographs, and walked around for a couple of hours. The crowd was remarkably well behaved, which was a very nice change from some of our other events.

All in all, a fantastic event! My pictures are here.