Art Andrews

Very nice! However, you would think they would have gotten permission, but it is awesome to see that the costumes that are now being made/worn by "mere fans" are being considered good enough to be on official merchandise!

Here is all I have been able to come up with...

A bit more info. There were 6 sandtroopers in Tunisia (could this be were AA came up with the thing about there being 6 "hero" helmets? Perhaps he was thinking about the sandies... or maybe 6 was just a coincidence.) The stormtrooper scene in the desert is scene B32 which was shot by the first unit utilizing " six local men" who were paid $6.50 a day. "We had a black all-in-one leotard for the stormtrooper costume," Mollo says, "over which the front and back of the body went together; the shoulders fit onto the body, the arms were slid on - the top arm and the bottom arm were attached with black elastic - a belt around the waist had suspender things that the legs were attached to. They wore ordinary domestic rubber gloves with a bit of latex shoved on the front; the boots were ordinary spring-sided black boots painted white with shoe dye." And there we have it ladies and gentlemen... the mystery... REVEALED..."suspender things" I did like the confirmation that the hand plates are latex.

As promised, here is the sandtrooper pic! If you haven't ordered it yet, order this book! Not a lot of other sandtrooper pics but some nice trooper pics and great stories about SW!

From the forthcoming book "The Making of Star Wars:" One item that stood out [of the wardrobe budget] was te cost associated with the stormtroopers, tho ran up a tab of ($93,000) [The total wardrobe budget for Star Wars was $220,000, so the stormtroopers were almost hald the budget!] - and whose final outfits were still not ready a week before location shooting was to begin . "Stormtroopers were the nightmare costume," Mollo explains. "We got a model in of a suitable size, did a plaster body cast, and Liz Moore modeled the armor onto this figure. Then everybody used to go in and say, "Arm off here, arm off there," and George changed all the kneecaps. This went on for several weeks. Finall that was all taken away and produced in vacuum-form plastic - but the next question was: How does it all go together? And I think we had something like four days before shooting , but we just played around until we managed to string it all together in such a way that you could get in on and off the bloke in about five minutes. If you haven't preordered this book yet... ORDER IT! Interesting that it seems that AA's only involvement in this project was as the vacuformer. Also, this makes me even more resolute in my theory that the sandtrooper armor was not purposefully different, simply unrefined and almost a prototype as I point out on my website.

From the forthcoming book "The Making of Star Wars:" "George announced that he was going to take some stormtroopers on location, and he wanted them to be in 'combat order.' I said 'Oh yes, George, what's combat order for stormtroopers?' and he said, 'Lots of stuff on the back.' So I went into this Boy Scout shop in London and bought one of these metal backpack racks; then we took plastic seed boxes, stuck two of those together, and put four of those on the rack. Then we put a plastic drainpipe on top, with a laboratory pipe on the side, and everything was sprayed black. George asked, 'Can we have something that shows their rank?' So we took a motocyclist chest protector and put one of them on their shoulders. George said, 'That's great!' We painted one orange and one black and that was it!" If you haven't preordered this book yet... ORDER IT! Let the hunt begin!!!

Tony, Your humility and willingness to share are quite refreshing, especially for this line of armor and helmets. Thank you for showing pics of your new efforts and good luck with moving in bringing this armor and helmet into a brighter future, hopefully unclouded by the previous nastiness!

Seth, this is your playground, and I respect your judgement. I just hate to see Matt infect this board once again with his childish and hated-filled venom.

Wow... and once again, a banned member is allowed to post here via proxy. Why is this being allowed? If you are going to allow Matt to speak, then as I said before, lift his ban and let him come back. This enemy of my enemy is my friend crap is pretty pathetic... And don't think I am siding with Gino on this. I have told him numerous time I think it was a mistake to call Paul out publicly without proof, regardless of what he and numerous others believe to be true in regard to the origin of Paul's faceplate. I guess I just don't see two wrongs making a right...

The Star Wars Chronicles is a definite MUST BUY. I am hoping to have the new book in a week or so (a bit early) and will of course scan and share that awesome sandy pic as well as any others, although I have heard there are not a lot of additional pics...

Has anyone actually done a side by side comparison of Paul's armor compared to any of the sets of armor that came from the RotJ molds? I would really like to know how it stacks up side by side. People will always have their preferences, but I think direct comparisons, when possible, are always best.

I am thinking that is probably him on the dewback as he is the dewback rider in the promo pics. Davin is a bit of a *****... he is everywhere and in virtually every sandtrooper scene or promo.

That dewback is just gorgeous... now where can we find a rhino body to get started on a 1:1 scale version?

Check this pic!!! Book comes out April 24! Who will be the first to scan and post?!? http://www.amazon.com/Making-Star-Wars-Def...ie=UTF8&s=books

Not true. The armor I had was fine for trooping. I know the v2 armor is going to be made of thinner material and will surely not be as sturdy as some of the super thick stuff that is out there, but even that should be fine for trooping as long as you are somewhat careful. I have had a chance to preview a few of the V2 pieces and while I wouldn't try the "Stop that Ship" Trooper's head dive in it, I again think it will be fine for the occasional trooping event or con.

You guys are very welcome. I am glad I could share!

Hey guys. I have completed screencapping the sandtrooper scenes from ANH and wanted to make them available to you. I believe Rocko is working on a more thorough capping of all the stormtrooper scenes, but I wanted to get these up and available for you guys in the meantime. The images are in PNG format (a lossless format, unlike jpg) and about 2Mb each . Click the link at the bottom of my sandtrooper page. http://www.looksirdroids.com/ PLEASE do not repost this to other forums as I only have so much bandwidth and made these caps mainly to be used by members of this board. ENJOY! BB

I can't answer all of those questions but I can tell you as I told one other person in PM... at the rate Gino moves... the universe will have collapsed on itself at least once before he gets the v2 mods completed... In all seriousness, I have no idea when it will be done. I sold my suit in anticipation of getting a v2... and I think that is going on close to two years ago now, with no end in sight.

one of the reasons I detest gloss ABS plastic. Very difficult to weather nicely unless you paint it. The material Gino is looking at for the V2 armor is VERY different... and I believe much more accurate. The nice thing is that it should also hold the weathering much better.

I am not sure all the effort was worth it as I can't even begin to count the hours I spent weathering and then stripping and reweathering the armor. However, you are absolutely right about it getting better everytime, not so much from my technique improving, but simply because the armor was becoming more scuffed and scratched and scraped. While super glossy armor looks nice, it does not make a nice canvas for weathering. Once it becomes beaten and worn it really becomes 100% better. Of course the final weathering is so engrained that I couldn't get it off with a scotchbrite... literally.

There are plenty more but they are much less glamorous as they highlight my mistakes, mishaps and errors. The sandtrooper was my first comstume and a HUGE learning experience. While I am hesitant to post progress pics as you get to see a bit behind the curtain, here are a few for you to laugh at. This is how my armor arrived, both a blessing and a curse. It was mostly assembled thanks to Gino but it was not assembled for me specifically which meant I had to go back and retro a number of mods and trimming. First test fitting of the legs. Test fitting of the upper body and initial weathering test. Don't ask. I can't explain it. Just one of MANY failed efforts to weather the armor correctly. One of many "back to square one" efforts. You should have seen the ring around the tub from scrubbing the weathering off the armor so many times. Close to the final "First DragonCon Appearance" weathering. This was a monochromatic weathering effort. First DragonCon Appearance Weathering First DragonCon Appearance Weathering on helmet vs Final Weathering. From there the armor went through about 3 more weathering stages in the span of a few weeks to the final weathering you see on my site.[/img]

I am sure you have all seen this more times than you want but here is the prototype/v1 Gino armor that I used to own. And yeah, you know if there is a v1, that means some day....

freakengine, I think that is a good idea. I hope that the posts I have made have helped show the true Matt, the vindictive and deeply jealous person who hordes in a hobby that is all about sharing, the person who competes in a hobby that is all about cooperation, the person who threatens and lashes out like a child over and over again at his perceived enemies. While Matt made a great contribution to this hobby many years ago, his time has passed and with that passing, I think you are right that we should ignore him so that he may also pass from out minds and we can move into a brighter future without the gloomy blight of his ghost hanging around.

Good idea TD-4935. Unfortunately for Matt, this is not just a costume club. It is his life and the only accomplishment of any merit that he has to cling to so he MUST defend his "secret knowledge" with all his might. Every picture that is "leaked"... every fact that is "exposed"... anything that furthers the wealth of knowledge that is available to the general public erodes the myth that is "trooper expert." It is sad that any individual would wrap up the entirety of their being and value in such a silly thing, but by sending emails like the one posted above, Matt makes it all too clear that this is the case, at least in his mind. By these images being made available in a compiled format (instead of making you search the internet high and low for them), Matt feels that his majesty and authority has been compromised. What other purpose would he have for lashing out so venomously? Sad... sad... sad...