Coffintanker

I have ATA and TE helmets and wear glasses...my frames are kind of Buddy Holly style Ray-Bans. The only difficulty is putting the helmet on and taking it off. Just have to tuck the glasses past the bottom edge of the lid. Once the bucket is on, there are no issues though. Done several troops, no problems...I say give it a go with your glasses first and take it from there.

Always happy to hear from the pros. Thanks for the compliments fellas!

Took a while, but here's where I am at the moment. Trying to come up with an independent harness to hold my shoulder pouch till I can afford a pack. I've tried two different methods that have worked but are not ideal. I don't want to attach it to the armor itself. I weathered my boots and pauldron using the same method I used on the suit (raw umber acrylic, sponge, and rag). Pouches were a mix of shoe polish and flat black spray paint. Here are some pics: Here's some recent pics of the kit (last night)...still needs some minor tweaking for comfort. Mainly my thigh garter system, it works great but bothers after a while. Still may have to adjust the strapping slightly on the chest, ab, and back. Mobility is pretty good overall though...Working on a pipebuild E-11 as well (DVH).

Thanks Aron, got the pauldron and some pouches in the process now. I hope to have some pics up soon.

I think it's coming along great! You may find that you'll want to remove the return edges on the bottom of your shin armor...but wait till you try it on with the boots and see how it feels. Otherwise you're rockin' it!

Nice paintjob! Great looking lid...

Looks great! Off to a great start! Did you figure out the deal with the parts marked A and B? Hard to tell from the angle in the photo...

Whenever your in doubt you could always look at the "Request Centurion" threads on Whitearmor.net. There's lots of closeups there of all the armor pieces to give you an idea of how to trim the different parts. Of course, the deployment requests here also have lots of great closeups. A big part of building these kits for me is constantly referring to photos and research. I'm on my second one and it seems I'm still back and forth between trimming and referring to images and screen grabs. Anyways, I hope this helps. Oh...as far as return edges go, you'll find that you may end up trimming them down further in certain areas once you wear your kit and try to move around. Especially at the tops of the calves and bottom of the thighs. These kits (in my experience) are a work in progress even after your "done". Every adjustment you make just makes the kit that much more gratifying and personal to you. Post some pics of your progress and ask more questions... Good luck!

Nice!

Thanks Rick, looking forward to getting to the finish line! I'm very happy with the results so far...thanks Justus!

Thanks Juan. Actually, I stumbled across your blog almost a year ago while researching TK's and saw the photos of your TD kit...talk about inspiration!! That's when I knew I would need to have a TD kit as well. I constantly refer to those photos still. I'm following your Tantive TM build as well...Thanks again.

Thanks Al! I've had no luck finding fullers earth locally yet. I'm still looking though... Thank you Marcus, I still have a few tweaks to make it fit even better. I'm hoping to get another pair of TKboots to have a dedicated pair for this rig and one for my TK rig when its complete. At this point I haven't sprayed anything over the armor to seal the weathering. The kit is sprayed with a gloss white enamel, then the weathering on top of that. Anybody have any issues with sealing acrylic paint over enamel with hairspray or clear coat?

Finally finished weathering the kit. Raw umber and a little black, a foam brush, sponge, and a rag. Gotta decide which way to go as far as the boots are concerned. Still need to get a pauldron (not sure which color yet) and some pouches...and of course a pack...whew! The light washes out some of the weathering. Here's a close up of the lid, pre mic tips...all hand painted, no decals. I'd like to try for Police Officer deployment so any advice you guys have is greatly appreciated...Thanks.

Thanks guys...glad to be here!

Hello everyone, my name is Danny and I've been checking this forum out on and off for the past year. I learned about the 501st last year and got on the F.I.S.D. forum and learned all I could about shiny white plastic. I liked the fact that you had to build your own costumes. I picked up a TK Kit and got to work and finished it a few months ago. I really enjoyed the experience. I finally received my ATA kit after eight looong months and am looking forward to getting that one built. First though, I'm turning my first kit into a sandy. I just removed the TK pieces this weekend and prepping the TD pieces for installation. Then some weathering...I'm really looking forward to that.