Liquid Planet Troop – Pictures!

Click on the picture for the full gallery.

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.

Adidas Release with Snoop Dogg

I left after work on Wednesday night, and stayed over with my brother in Hartford. I was awoken at around 4:30 by my brother’s cat, left and picked up Viv off of I-95. (Never pick up people from the side of the highway. They’re more trouble than they’re worth. :p) We got into NYC at around 7:30 (traffic was light!) and was able to find where we needed to go with no problems. I think we were some of the first to arrive. We were led into a room, changed, got briefed on what we’d do.

We lined up around 9ish? Two troopers, two models, staggered in two lines, led by Vader. We went up a flight of stairs, into the main building – Imperial March was playing and suddently, everything was really going – it was quite something. We hit the street, reformed into formation and took off, with Adidas models handing out fliers to people on the streets. We turned a lot of heads as we made our way to Times Square, where we were joined by Snoop Dogg and his security personnel, and to the Foot Locker, for photos and to present Vader and Dogg with shoes. After a while of that, we took off again, got on a bus and went to Soho, where we repeated the march, ending up at an Adidas Originals Store, where we went into the sstore, filled with smoke (I thought my visor fogged up), formed up, and a garage door opened up to let the smoke out. It must have looked pretty cool from the other side – there were a LOT of cameras there, and Bob and I were right in the front row. Bob was right next to Vader, and I two away. NEG represent!

Doors closed and we were allowed to mingle in the store, take our buckets off for a moment. The press were then let in, and we just hung out for a little while, while Snoop Dogg walked around the store, pretending to shop. They grabbed me and someone else (Marty Miller, maybe?) to stand next to the guy while he was being interviewed, so we did that for a while before they pulled us away to let him do his thing. We then packed it up, got back on the bus and returned by around 1:30 or so.

All in all, a very fun event!

New Picture

Hayes, TK-4289, from up here in Vermont just did a fantastic photoshop of my clone:



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.

 

Converting a Rubies Blaster

The build was pretty easy – thanks Sean, for posting up the pictures, and Brian, for helping me last night with a couple questions. This is what I did:

Materials needed: Rubies Clonetrooper blaster, 2 ft long piece of PVC, PVC connector for said pipe, 5′ piece of 3/4 flat rod, thick cardboard tube, metal clothes hanger, glue, spray paint.
Tools needed: Hacksaw, clippers, sandpaper, clamps, screwdriver (small)

I took the gun and cut the bottom rail off with a saw, about halfway down – completely seperate this from the main body of the gun. At the same time, I also cut off the wires on the barrel, although Brian noted that they can be snapped out somehow. I just tossed the pieces. I also removed the greebles on the side with a small screw driver.
Taking the metal rod, I cut it into four pieces – 2 15″ pieces that make up the side rails, a smaller, 13″ piece for the bottom, and the last piece, about 6″, went on the handgrip. From there, I used Goop to attach the two rails to the seperated piece, lengthening that bottom part. I used clamps to hold the pieces on, then glued on the bottom piece and clamped it down. Once that glue was well on it’s way to being set, I put on the handgrip piece.

While that glue was setting, I cut the PVC pipe down from 24 inches to 14 or so. I took a cardboard tube (the kind used to mail posters and things) and cut it in half, then stuffed the two halves down the barrel, to give the entire setup some stability. (It might be prudent to put some glue on them.) Put on the connector (essentially a PVC ring – It was a snug fit, I didn’t glue it), then glue the greebles on the pipe in the same postition as on the original barrel.
After that is set, I took a coat hanger, and cut off the corners. They’re about the same position and shape as the original wires. Taking a sharpie, I marked out where they should be postitioned on the end of the barrel (use the original for reference) and with a small dremel bit, I drilled two guide holes. Cover the ends in glue, and stick them in, and they should hold – make sure the holes are a little angled and that there’s no undo tension that will pop out the wires before the glue sets. Mine are a little delicate, so next time, I’m going to drill a little deeper.

Once the bottom rails have finished setting, I slathered the original barrel with Gorilla Glue and put the new barrel over it. There’s a stub on the guide/handgrip, and I used some goop on the top of that – that connects to the barrel, and will hold that assembly together by connecting the handgrip to the barrel. Make sure it’s on straight and let set. Gorilla Glue expands a bit, and I’ve found that this helps when in an enclosed space – I don’t think that’ll be going anywhere. Allow this to dry.
Next step, paint. I only had time to give it one or two coats, but flat black should do the trick. There’s a lot of little edges that you should keep an eye on – I missed a couple my first go around and had to repaint a couple parts.

Done!

This was a pretty easy thing to do, and around $40 all told. I really enjoyed putting this together. Knowing that there’s a bunch of clones out there in the test tube, so to speak, I’d be willing to make more of these, provided they’re okay to be approved with.

Fanboys DVD information

From the official site:

The Fanboys DVD comes loaded with Special Features including:

• Deleted Scenes
• Commentary with the Cast and Crew
• The Truth about Fanboys
• Star Wars Parallel
• Four Fanboys and One Fangirl
• The Choreography
• Disturbances in the Force: A Series of Webisodes

Comes out May 19th, on the 10th anniversary of The Phantom Menace.