Hausi

I think you're right about the original packs not having support bars. A friend has attached the trays to the fabric using zip ties. He even uses the pack for trooping and has reported that it is actually quite sturdy, no rattling.

Great pics Paul! Was a fun event and nice meeting you again.

Hey Luke, great progress, mate! That's what I call enthusiastic! From what I can see everything looks good. You have done a good job making the armor fit and it suits you very well. I think I can see that there's still a lot of returnedge on the lower side of the biceps, you can trim it some more for comfort, just leave a very thin edge. Your undersuit seems to be to large as there are large wrinkles visible between the forearms and biceps. Keep up the great work, soon you'll be one of the dirty dudes.

I really enjoyed looking through those pics, great work mate!

This is truly amazing, great work and quality, you are showing some serious engineering skills and craftsmanship in this build. Way to go mate! ...and that sandcrawler is insane

Chris, I think Tony's idea with this line or ridge is that it is supposed to slide the face plate in to the box as soon as you've built it, so it stays put. Of course you will also have to attach it in some way, magnets or something similar. So I wouldn't recommend sanding that down.

Holy s###! Where do you live, John? I see you are in the UK, should have come by when I was on the island two weeks ago... and stolen all that awesomeness. Joke aside, this is amazing. I am truly jealous but also happy for you mate. I'm looking forward to seeing this pack come together.

Finally I wanted to lean back to read a good book and I found this pic of the screen-used RotJ head: couldn´t identify the corrugated tube on the popped eye when I studies the screen grabs but had to add it: I call it done for now.

And then came the dirt...weathering. Didn´t want to overdo it but I tend to making everything extremely dirty... I´ve also made a stand for it so it can easily be slid onto that to display it. If not on the stand, my friend Markus "tiny" Zeitvogel has provided an ultra-accurate cloth he uses for his "SWAT-Jawas" (they are truly screenaccurate) to rest it on. and so it ended up on the shelf in my office... next to that sneaky guy. I

After doing a lot of research on the RPF about the issue of what color to use to paint that head, I decided to give Plastikoat brilliant gold metallic a try and I am extremely happy with the result. It might not be extremely abrasion resistant but it holds on well and also survived the weathering process easily which is a good sign. As you see, I´m doing a battered up Tatooine version anyway (no throne room finish here) and also decided to have the right eye hanging out of the socket. Gnarly stuff. Anyhow, here´s what it looked like before I started weathering it with water down black acrylic paint:

I then used putty and finally sprayfiller and after a lot of sanding it looked like this: I came up with the following construction to carry it around as I didn´t want to go the route most Jawas go with carrying the head around in a net, so I added a neck piece made from some PVC tubing and added cables and stuff to make it look as if the head had freshly been ripped off. I also have a steel tube to hold it.

I have already built an R2 Dome to carry it around as a trophy but as it is quite heavy and a little unwieldy, I decided to use it as something else, so after my wife had given her okay to use it as a living room lamp, up it went. Now I needed the golden boy too and I was lucky to buy a StarBuckCylon vacuformed helmet kit from a friend and after it had been sitting in my cellar for almost a year, I finally started working on it. Trimming came first, that part I´m familiar with. The so-called horseshoe made of resin was a little deformed, so I put it in the oven to get it straight again. So this is what Anthony Daniels probably felt like: The eyes are made of yellow resin as is the detail that goes in the back of the head and it was a pain to get these parts to fit. The horseshoe was glued into the back with E6000. "Alas, poor C3PO"

Hey Gino My opinion on your adjustments is pretty simple… here comes the next review: Application Review: Part 2 Name: Gino Maertens Legion ID: TD-24294 Forum Name: Gino Maertens Garrison: Belgian Garrison/Flanders Dragon Squad Helmet a. Green lenses: check b. Paint color of traps / tears: check c. Correct number of teeth: check d. Mic tips: check e. Vocoder color: check f. Tube stripes: check g. Rank bar on ears: check h. Brow: check i. Side screws (ears): check j. Weathering: check k. no mesh behind teeth: check *additional comments* RESULT ON HELMET Checked & Cleared Armor details a. elastic straps shoulders: check b. neck seal: check c. black undersuit: check d. shoulder bells: check e. biceps: check f. forearms: check g. pauldron: check h. chest / back plate: check i. kidney / butt plate: check j. ab plate / side rivets / cod: check k. strapping system: check l. thighs: check m. shins / calves: check n. sniper plate: check o. boots: check p. gloves: check q. hand plates / guards: check r. ammo belt (waist): check s. ammo belt (right knee): check t. canvas belt: check u. pouches: check v. weathering: check *additional comments* Everything looks sharp now, if you feel more comfortable with the thighs sitting a little lower for trooping, that is up to you and absolutely okay. The pouches have that used-look now, well done. The belt now also is in line with the rest of your weathering. RESULT ON ARMOR Checked & Cleared Backpack a. details: check b. weathering: check *additional comments* RESULT ON BACKPACK Checked & Cleared Weapon a. details: check b. weathering: check *additional comments* RESULT ON WEAPON Checked & Cleared Gino, this was your second and final review! Your gear looks great and you are a worthy addition to the ranks of the MEPD´s finest. Be proud of yourself! You have successfully followed the guidelines in regards to the MEPD CRL and have met all requirements. Please send the pic you want to use to Luis (Sandman Tigui) and we'll get you squared away. We will have your updated information uploaded into the MEPD system very soon, now off you go on patrol, good luck finding those droids, don´t let anyone fool you or "jedi-mind-trick" you. Congratulations on becoming a Deployed Officer of the MEPD! Cheers mate! Hausi - MEPD Deployment Officer

That's the spirit! Yeah mate, thought that your shins are a little short, you seem to be a big guy, but don't worry, the gap at the knee will be okay.

I also took the blaster apart to rework the shape and position where the trigger guard attaches and repainted the whole thing. Mark told me that painting his rubber blaster doesn´t work very well but as I´ve had good results with painting rubber props before, I gave it a try. I thoroughly cleaned it and gave it a first coat with some special primer intended for plastics. I then painted the scope with plastikoat brass and the Hengstler with some grey primer for the back end and plastikoat brass for the front. For the blaster I´ve used some acrylic spraypaints: gunmetal first, a very fine coat (a mere dusting) with chocolate brown to emulate rust, then I applied Revell color stop to all parts using a brush, to emulate paint chips. I then painted them with acrylic black spray paint in a satin finish. I used a white wax crayon for the lettering on the scope (the scope was the only part that received a satin clear coat). After rubbing off the color stop, I gave it some washes with watered down acrylic black and earth. and here come some pics of the finished blaster in different lighting conditions.

First I sanded the grip smooth: then I sawed off the rubber mag and dremeled out the mag slot to fit a real cut off sterling mag with a wooden insert. I also tried to enhance the casting line along the sides of the back end which was originally cast of aluminium: The rubber Hengstler counter has some nice and sharp details too but the plugs aren´t there, so I just fitted some plugs that match the original´s: and after painting it looked like this:

So after building a heavy metal (almost) all real parts Bapty and my special "Move Along"/SWAT Bapty based on a Doopy kit, it was time for something new, the all metal blaster is slightly too heavy for trooping while the Doopy kit on the other hand is a little too fragile and I wanted something that could also be handed to kids - no worries. So I went for Mark´s rubber bapty and ordered it unpainted as I planned to paint it myself. What I like about it: great details and very sturdy, communicating with Mark was great too, he´s a nice guy - always kept me updated about the progress and sent some pics - and he was even so kind to add some goodies, stickers, a pin and a patch, thanks for that! What I didn´t like so much: the grip was very rough, looked as if it was ground down with a file and the mag with the wood inside didn´t look right as the mag´s walls are way too thick. Here it is as it arrived: So I decided to rework most of this baby.

Hi Gino good to see you´re back , here we go with the first review round: Application Review: Part 1 Name: Gino Maertens Legion ID: TD-24294 Forum Name: Gino Maertens Garrison: Belgian Garrison/Flanders Dragon Squad (I really like that name!) Helmet a. Green lenses: check b. Paint color of traps / tears: check c. Correct number of teeth: check d. Mic tips: check e. Vocoder color: check f. Tube stripes: check g. Rank bar on ears: check h. Brow: check i. Side screws (ears): check j. Weathering: check k. no mesh behind teeth: check *additional comments* Overall a nice helmet, I like the subtle weathering. Brow´s a little low for my liking but that of course is personal preference. RESULT ON HELMET Checked & Cleared Armor details a. elastic straps shoulders: check b. neck seal: check c. black undersuit: check d. shoulder bells: check e. biceps: check f. forearms: check g. pauldron: check h. chest / back plate: check i. kidney / butt plate: check j. ab plate / side rivets / cod: check k. strapping system: see comments l. thighs: see comments m. shins / calves: check n. sniper plate: check o. boots: check p. gloves: check q. hand plates / guards: check r. ammo belt (waist): check s. ammo belt (right knee): check t. canvas belt: see comments u. pouches: see comments v. weathering: check *additional comments* Strapping/thighs: not a big problem but especially in your new pics, the strapping keeping the thighs in place seems to be too long, the thighs are positioned too low and there is too much black of the undersuit visible, so please adjust them to the proper height, it will look better that way. That of course means that you will have to suit up one more time but that hopefully won´t be such a problem. Pouches: great that you have those correct pouches now Gino but they still look factory-fresh, use some fine sandpaper to roughen them up slightly and then give them a wash with some watered down earth-colored acrylics. Canvas belt waist: your canvas belt is too clean at the back where it normally is hidden by the pack, so please put some dirt on it. RESULT ON ARMOR pending Backpack a. details: check b. weathering: check *additional comments* RESULT ON BACKPACK Checked & Cleared Weapon a. details: check b. weathering: check *additional comments* Your E-11 looks much more in line with your armor, now as it´s also dirty…because dirt is what we want here. RESULT ON WEAPON Checked & Cleared Gino, this was your first review! I really appreciate your willingness to improve your armor and although it already looks great and suits you well, it will finally look even better. Those changes are no big deal and I expect to hear from you soon again, keep up the great work. Cheers mate Hausi - MEPD Deployment Officer

Hi Gino, thank you for the higher resolution pics, now I can see all those details. The large Spanish pouch looks good, the roadblock pouch will be okay, the weathering on your blaster looks good too. I'm on a trip till Tuesday, will write your review when I'm back.

Yeah mate, I support that!

Yep. Didn't really matter to me as I was already working on my pack when my TD was approved and I've always been trooping with my pack since. Actually I have just used this way of attaching it for my basic submission. There are actually no troopers without pack wearing a shoulderpouch on screen. The packless troopers are also pouchless (shoulderpouch).

Here you go, just a pic of the strap, you can imagine how the rest works, pretty simple, just some buttons on the pouch and velcro tape on the inside of the shoulder parts of the backplate. Cheers mate

Looking good mate. Hope you will be wearing that armour once it's been finished.

It attaches to the backpack shoulder strap when a pack is worn. As you don't need a pack for basic submission but the CRL still requests people to have the shoulder pouch, there are different ways how it can be done. Some people use magnets glued to the inside of the chest, I personally had a strap velcroed to the inside of my backplate and then that came over my shoulder and attached to the pouch with buttons.