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[Novoc Mereel]

Not dead, I promise! This year has been difficult with work and schedule changes, and such, but some better hours and a promotion & raise are good things for me professionally, so I've been focusing on that predominantly, but doing some small bits here and there, mostly with blasters and other smaller items. Someone local to me made me a really great flak vest, and I've got a set of Dickies work clothes I plan to use as a flight suit - just need to get those tailored.

Anyway, my big focus currently are my enclosed shins/shnees/whatever you want to call them. I went to an armor party a while back and they helped me size the parts I had better, and made a suggestion for my knees. A 501st guy working on his TK suggested I use those knees flipped upside down, and since they were parts he didn't need, just gave them to me.

My concern is that the point facing up, while cool-looking, may not be approve-able. The corners are rounded off, and I could even round them off further, but I wanted to post here for some feedback in case it's just going to be a non-starter.





Thoughts?

(Unrelated, but if anyone knows how to get the forums to stop making all my photos horizontal when I upload them from my phone, some advice would be much appreciated! I swear I'm not doing it to y'all on purpose!)

[Novoc Mereel]

Big shout-out to Havelock for answering my question about the knees here.

I had a local 501st member 3D print me a set of hand plates, and I've started sanding the print lines down this evening.

[Novoc Mereel]

Sorry for the triple-post. Actually have some updates again, though! I did some work on my greaves/shnees/whatever you want to call them. If you've been following my thread, you may remember that my lower leg armor are Clone Trooper b-pulls, and the knee plates are Sandtrooper knee plates from a 501st friend in my area. The first thing I did was cut two "backing plates" out of 6mm sintra (same as my chest plates) to help bulk up the area and really help to make the legs feel unique. I attached them using E6000 and a couple rivets.



Made a small error with drilling out the pilot hole for the rivet on one side, but it won't be visible after the knee plates get attached.




Next, I eyeballed where the knee plates should go, marking them up with a pencil. Then, I used more E6000 to attach these in place. I'm going to let them dry overnight, but so far, I'm actually really satisfied with the result.


The next step once I can clean up a small amount of squeeze-out from the E6000 will be to mix up some Apoxie Sculpt and fill those little gaps between the pieces. They will eventually blend nicely into each other, and the bottom edges near the rivets will get shaped a bit to fit the shape of the legs a bit better rather than being a big squared-off plate.

[Straka Zulu]

As long as there's a day between posts, give or take, you don't have to worry about "double-posts".

Those shnees look good, vod!

[Novoc Mereel]

As long as there's a day between posts, give or take, you don't have to worry about "double-posts".

Those shnees look good, vod!

Much appreciated! I'm always super critical of my own work, so it's so weird to me that I'm actually satisfied with these so far.

[Novoc Mereel]

Got some more stuff done this weekend (my weekend is in the middle of the week haha). Added some Aves Apoxie Sculpt to help fill the sides of the knee plates, sanded them down, and then hit them with a layer of filler primer.








I also sanded down my hand plates and used the same filler primer on them, as well.








After the filler primer, I added some Bondo filler putty into the remaining cracks of the hand plates. I'll let that dry over night tonight, then do some sanding tomorrow. After that they should be ready for another layer of primer + paint.

[Novoc Mereel]

Update! Shnees and handplates have been bondo'd and sanded down. Hand plates I'm happy with and will prime next time I have painting time, but the shnees will likely get a second pass. I might leave them as-is and just do some heavier weathering. I'll have to mull it over. I'm really happy with how they shaped up!

[Novoc Mereel]

The plan for tomorrow is to try and get some paint down on the shnees. I also did a little rough mock-up of what my paint scheme will look like on a few things.


The little gray bits on the side are some latches I'm working on that will be attached to the front side of my shnees. There will be velcro on the inside as well, but I liked the idea of having some sort of hard closure on the outside, as well. Basically, it'll look like this from the top:


There will also be a second piece of sintra over the top of this feature, but that's just a cutaway to give you an idea.

Next, the thighs. The yellow boxes on the sides will be where my blasters attach on each side.


And the gauntlets, with the right side having a screen and a speaker.


Finally, the chest plates. I took the collar piece off of mine because I wasn't quite satisfied with it, but here's the paint scheme all the same. As soon as I have a collar cut out that I'm happier with, I'll post that up.

[Novoc Mereel]

Got my neckseal in the mail from K'raam (and a blazingly fast turnaround, to boot!) and I realized I don't really have pics up of my soft parts. I'm going with a two part flight suit, using a Dickies work shirt and pants together. My flak vest was made by someone local to me. I knew it fit pretty well before, but it was hard to get the velcro on the neck fastened with that neck seal underneath. I'll have to look into that. I know my pants need to be taken in a little bit, and this is of course without a girth belt or ammo pouches, as well.

Excuse the dumb look on my face, I was trying to give my roommate some last-minute direction for a photo. I think the lighting is good enough?


And the back:


Boots are just a black pair of Chelsea boots I got for like $40-50 off Amazon. I've worn them to work a few times to break them in, and when it snowed or rained, I've been trying to toss them on and walk around for a bit to get some natural weathering going on them. The plan is to tuck the shirt into the pants since it is so long, and I'll just wear suspenders under my flak vest. They will be easily hidden between my flak vest and girth belt (that has not yet been purchased, ammo pouches are in the mail, though).

As always, I welcome any comments and constructive criticism! I really wish the forum's uploader tool wouldn't rotate my pics from my phone.

[compdrag]

It’s all coming together looks really good. Keep up the good work.