Arm Upgrades

So, this past weekend, I think I solve a couple of the last remaining problems with the Clone – the Shoulder and Upper arms. The consistant problem has been that the shoulder bells fall backwards, and the upper arms are just a little too loose, and move around a lot.

With the shoulder, I ripped out all of the padding that was in there, and replaced it with a foam knee pad, held in with some industrial velcro. That both holds the bell up off my shoulder a bit more than it did before, and straps it right to my arm.

The shoulder bells was another quick fix – on the sides of each one, I glued two strips of foam, which hold my arm right in place. Now, the two are both snug, and fit nicely together.

Clone Modifications

 

The night before the Woburn Parade, I worked on improving my Clone Trooper. As I’ve noted before, troops take a toll on a set of armor, and there is generally a bit of maintainence that’s required before using it again. In this case, my Clone required a bit more work, as I’ve lapsed on the fixing up parts. Over the last couple of troops, I’ve had to replace the straps at the knees and elbows, knee pads, belt boxes and shoes.

The knees were the big thing that I needed to get fixed – previously, they’ve slipped down over my shins, which looks weird. To fix this, I took some industrial velcro and simply velcroed them to the knee pads. Now, the straps in back simply hold the knee pads straight, rather than in place. It did push my shins down on my ankles a bit, which wasn’t fun, but it’s a work in progress.

The belt was the bigger improvement. Previously, I’ve had issues keeping the boxes on – they frequently fell off, so I decided to affix them on to the belt permenantly, using an expanding foam. I need to do a little cleanup and paint it at some point, but other than that, it worked wonderfully at the parade – nothing fell off!

Shoes required a little glue here and there, but other than that, they’re good to go.

Meet Trilo!

Not 501st related, but close, my Clone Trooper has been accepted into the Rebel Legion. Clones are accepted, like they are in the 501st, and I submitted mine along with the 501st a little while ago. Instead of numbers, the RL seems to assign people names.

I chose Trilo, which fits with my TKID, TK-3220 (The three in there) and my common username online, JediTrilobite. I also think that I’m the first Rebel Legion member in the state of Vermont. Interesting.

Clone Updates

Did a little work on the clone last night. I need to finish up the paint job for the thighs, which I’ll do tonight once I pick up more paint.

And, I fixed my gun, which had broken. For those of you who didn’t see, I snapped the butt completely off of the main body. I’d planned to pick up a pipe or something to put inside, then glue everything together, but while looking around my apartment last night, I found a stiff poster from the Military History conference that I went to last year. Rolled up tightly, it filled in the hole entirely, and didn’t give at all. I covered that in Gorilla Glue, which expands, and put everything together. There was still a significant gap where the plastic broke, but I found that GOOP spread out over the entire area sealed it nicely. I just need to cover it up with a couple coats of paint and it’ll be troopable again.

Bly

So, I’ve been working on the Clone Trooper for a while when time permits (school and work have been plenty busy lately, and I haven’t been able to keep up with this blog as much as I’d like)

I debuted the Clone earlier this year at the Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which went over really well, with a couple additional things to do to it – seamless legs, a little helmet work, etc. While I’ve been doing this, I’ve been thinking more and more that it would be cool to convert the Clone over to a Commander Bly character, based off of the Cartoon series that’s currently on. He made an appearance in episodes 13 and 14, and there are some subtle differences between Episode 2 accurate and Episode 3 accurate.

This is what I need to do:

Arms need a Stripe – Bells, upper arms, forearms and handplates, yellow, down the middle, but not the elbow.
Chest plate needs a center stripe, as does the Helmet, knee pads and shoes.
I’ll also need a pauldron, kama, holsters, pistols and mountable binoculars. Might also need to get a pair of lights for the helmet as well.

I’m really excited for this.

New Clone Pictures

Last night, I did some more work on my Clone Trooper, getting a set of pictures together with my friend Seth from Seth Bebee photo. Here’s some of the really good ones:

More pictures here.

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.

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!

Rubies Armor NOT acceptable

This was posted up to the Legion website:

Get a Star Wars Costume for Christmas?
Star Wars costumes were certainly prevalent in 2008, and, without a doubt, many fans had armor on their holiday wish list. In an effort to fairly set expectations for new applicants, the 501st would like to emphasize that commercially available Star Wars costumes may not be acceptable for membership. It is recommended that prospective members conduct thorough research on our 501st Detachment forums before embarking on the journey to the Dark Side costuming. Remember that price does not always mean quality!

This is mainly targeted to the Rubies Supreme Storm Trooper armor. This suit is NOT acceptable in the Legion, because it’s a horrible set of armor. Flimsy, poor quality, and far too expensive.

Clone Update

I have a bit of an update. I now have my BS bucket, a legion bucket that has been put together, to replace my Hasbro one. This bucket also based off of a Hasbro bucket, but it’s much more accurate than mine.  Thus far, I’ve cut out the visor and am working on sanding. I can’t find my key to my dremel, but once I find it, I’ll cut out the vent holds in the front. Once that is all done, I’ll buy some paint and get the details finished up, and it should be good to go. No pics yet, but I’ll get some at some point.

Once that’s done, and when I get some free time, I’ll work on making the limbs seamless and fix my belt, and I should be finished. Completely.