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Davin Felth - Take Two


Art Andrews
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So, after years of being without trooper armor, I got in a new set today... well, not really a "new" set but a set that Gino released on eBay several years ago has found its way into my hands. My original armor came mostly reassembled so in some ways this will be a first for me as I will need to assemble every part myself. My intention is to build up each part as close to how the originals were made as possible, with the same strapping and attachments systems, and where possible, the same detailing. I do not expect this to be my final set of armor but expect to build this up as a test and probably sell it off after I am done. My true hope is some day, Gino will retool the bucks he has and make a new, and more accurate set of ANH armor, now that we have much better reference. Of course, I might be dreaming on that one...

Anyway, I have some obstacles to overcome right out of the box as a few of the pieces are damaged or have cracks here and there. Nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of worth, but I am starting out a bit in the hole. Also, the belly detail had already been glued into place so I had to cut that off and now need to go back and clean up around the belly rectangle.

I am pretty excited about this as well as nervous. I want to really make an effort at capturing some of the essence of the original armor in the fact that it is not cleanly trimmed and not really all that nice. I think Lee (Rogue Studios) said it best when he said we are creating "controlled sloppiness." We will see how it goes...

So here is the original armor:

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Don't expect updates too often, but I hope to get this done before Dragon Con... We will see.

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Controlled sloppyness :lol: i like the sound of that

True....a very accurate set of armor(especially for forearms and thigh),my dream too.....but almost no hope for me :P

Cant wait for WIP pics!

For strapping,do you believe sandtroopers are assembled like stormtroopers?

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congratulations whit your new armor Art.

The GINO set, is one of the best.

What about the helmet, will that be a GINO too.

I have assembled 6 suits/7 helmets now.

But whit all the info on forums/sites, ref shots etc.

I´m sure you will make it flawless.

My hope is to the new DL/TE suit comming.

Useing the TE LFL archive ANH suits ref cd.

Good luck in the progress buddy :) .

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Don't have a helmet at the moment... and yeah, the archive reference images are very helpful.

Copy.

I can´t wait to see you hit the sandy suit, one more time.

You skill are among the best :)

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hey Art,

i´m glad to see you´re back and doing another TD suit.

i´m really looking forward for this and PLEASE take tons of pictures!

my Gino suit is still waiting to be build... soon! :rolleyes:

:duim:

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I think Lee (Rogue Studios) said it best when he said we are creating "controlled sloppiness." We will see how it goes...

yeah, don't be afraid to slap gaffer tape to hold things together here and there.

BTW, is there a diagram or some documentation somewhere that shows/tells how it was all strapped together on the originals?

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BTW, is there a diagram or some documentation somewhere that shows/tells how it was all strapped together on the originals?

I am not sure, but I will show pics of how mine is strapped and I am going to try to do it as close to the original as I can. I can already tell some compromises will have to be made, because whoever trimmed this armor (not sure if it was Gino or the previous owner) trimmed too much of the edging off and didn't leave me enough to do all the strapping 100% accurate... but I will make the compromises as few as possible.

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I am not sure, but I will show pics of how mine is strapped and I am going to try to do it as close to the original as I can.

Yep... I'll be watching this as well so I can "follow suit" and do my strapping really good / accurate as well I think!

I want my TD to be the absolute best I can make it... so I'm in no rush — so hurry with pics — because it's better to do it right than do it fast I think!

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RE: Biceps

Well... I might have messed up already... sorta.

I began work on the biceps... not sure why I started there, but I did. I went back to my handy-dandy pics and did a few scaled measurements and came up with the strips that cover the gaps of the bicep halves being 0.5" which I thought was odd to have an imperial unit measurement for an item made in the UK... but whatever, it is what it is. On the biceps I have, there is a raised area to the strips, I assume from the original RotJ casting.... I have looked and looked and simply can't determined if these raised beds are actually on the original ANH biceps or not. In some pics it looks like there are raised beds, and in some pics it looks like there are not. With the way my biceps are formed, I have no choice but to use the raised beds because if I cut them off, the circumference of the bicep will be too small.

Inside the bicep pieces, the edges of the raised beds are very clearly defined. Since the strip measured 0.5" in width, I divided it in half and trimmed both halves of the raised beds to 0.25".... so when the biceps are assembled, the overall width of the raised bed is 0.5". Well... here is the issue...

When I went back and was looking at other ref, I noticed that the sandtroopers, in particular, the Terrick armor has strips that are MUCH wider than the studio stormtrooper and the armor seen in the archives. I check some other photos and while there is some inconsistency, it appears that at least on the sandtroopers the strips were cut to roughly match the width of the vacced in "strip" detail that runs down the center of the shoulderbell, which is roughly 0.75"!!! Now, I can't tell you definitively that the wide strips are a sandtrooper trait and that all sandtroopers have them and no stormtroopers have them, but it does seem to me that MORE sandtroopers have them than stormtroopers!

I have no idea if any of this is new info or if this is something that has been hashed out in the past, but after looking at the pics, I am going to make my strips for the biceps and forearms at 0.75" in width instead of 0.5."

This means I am now going to have a bit of a gap between the two halves of my biceps since I have already trimmed them for the 0.5" strips... crud... Oh well... always knew this was going to be a test suit.

One other thing to note: I am really trying not to go too crazy with making perfect cut lines. While it kills me, I have committed to not sanding ANY edges on my armor pieces but to cut them the best I can and to leave them at that.

Here are some pics.

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Posted this in the other thread but thought I would post it here as well... Here is an initial test hook for the bicep. I am not at all convinced the sandtroopers had the hooks, but I might include them anyway since nothing else will be holding the biceps up.

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Just wanted to verify some scaling...

According to my numbers, the strips which cover the gaps on both the biceps and forearms are 0.75" on most of the sandtroopers (can't say all).

According to my numbers, the elastic at the bottom of the sandtrooper shoulderbell which loops around the bicep, is 1" wide. I can't confirm or deny if this is the same for all ANH stormtroopers, but this is definitely much wider than what we see on the RotJ stormtroopers that were on display at the MoM and AoSW exhibit.

This is just my opinion, but the sandtrooper forearms look more "beefy" than the standard stormtrooper forearms, most likely due to the wider strips which I believe cover a thicker "platform" which increases the overall circumference of the forearms by approximately 0.5" inches.

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