Post Party Progress
Resin Reconstruction
First off I'll start with the bad news; that occurred over Memorial Day Weekend. While attempting to install the darker shaded visor, I attempted a test fit before it was fully trimmed. The stress that the visor material put on the tabs included on my helmet's mask was too much strain for it. The resin cracked, and ruined my evening.
Thankfully two weeks later I went to an armor party hosted by people from the Rebel Legion and the 501st. They were able to assist me in using some CA Gel glue to repair the damage to the mask. I'm still letting it dry for several days before I attempt to do anything with it, but it seems to be holding quite well. There's only a little bit of a crack showing, but that just means I'll have something to weather later on.
Armor Shaping
The armor party went well, and I made some headway on my armor plating. The pieces were already cut out, but I needed to make some adjustments and trimming. The collar plate needed the corners hacked off to allow for movement so it wouldn't bite against my shoulders. The chest plate also needed a reverse cut on its edges to ensure I had more freedom of movement. Then it was onto heat shaping them to the duct tape dummy. This is the third iteration of the armor plates I've dreamed up. I found that going with three scalloped plates would make it too long and unwieldy on the front, so I opted for two plates. Some of these pictures were taken before I had done a little more heat shaping and sculpting of the edges. The blue tape kept falling off because of the humidity, but I finally got a mock up.
Looking for advice on the shape of the plates, where they lay now how they separate from the collar piece. I plan to use bookbag straps underneath the shoulder curve of the collar plate, and then attach nylon strapping from both the back and front and form that into a harness that can have the plates chicago screwed onto, and give me a single harness that can carry all the plates as one unit. Suggestions are very much appreciated!