activation email

[trashcanmando]

Oooh, awesome, thank you! I'll definitely check out the datapad and magic band. Unfortunately it's only for one day, but I never thought I'd get to go at all, so I'm still thrilled!

[trashcanmando]

Knees are fixed!



The original hook and the rip. Not nearly strong enough to support a plate coming off and moving.



Cut a piece of my stiffest two sided interfacing and of the quilted fabric I used for my flak vest.



Sewed it together, ironed it on the inside of the leg, and stitched it to the pants.



The attachment system I had before- hook on the flight suit and loop on the plate. Not only did this not distribute the weight well on the fabric at all, getting the hook into the loop on the knee plate was ridiculously difficult.



New method! Paracord length in the actual pants, sewn into the interfacing to make it much stronger and distribute the weight more, and the hook now stays in the plate.

[Aster Veris]

Wow, I love your galaxy's edge vest! That's so awesome, I've been thinking of making one for my mando as well.
Knees look good, glad you fixed them! They can be so annoying.

[trashcanmando]

Wow, I love your galaxy's edge vest! That's so awesome, I've been thinking of making one for my mando as well.
Knees look good, glad you fixed them! They can be so annoying.

Thanks! You definitely should make a vest, they're awesome. 

Finally. Finally. Through some miracle. I have gotten most of the way through some blasters.

These are b-grade resin casts from Fi-8015! They're really nice, I had a set of 3D printed westars, but 3d printed weapons just feel too light to me (and I also looooathee sanding). Beautiful casts even with the b-grade issues. He printed me off a nozzle for the one that was missing it too!



Here they are right out of the box, I didn't really take details shots of the stuff I had to fix, but you can see that the one on the left had obvious missing bits. The one on the right just had a few bubbles to fill in.



Post some of the major sanding, filing down the flash lines and preparing the bubbles to be filled. Instead of worrying about filling in the missing part of the grip, I just filed it down to a nice round edge.



Nozzles (where the worst of the bubbles were) all filled and fixed! Used a bit of uv resin to patch them up and sanded back down. Just used super glue to stick on all the extra bits.



Went ahead and cut off the mismatched part of the grip on the other one too, to match. I like the smaller grip better! At this point they were fully assembled and ready to paint.



Black primer and the first pass of silver finished! It was in the 60s today, miraculously, but this was all I could get done before it was too dark. Hopefully the weather holds just a little bit longer so I can do a second coat of silver.

I think I'm going to go for dry brushing different metallic shades over the silver, and add leather to the grips. I really love these so far!

[trashcanmando]

Done!













Acrylic paint was not the optimal choice  But I'm very pleased for this somehow being the first time I've actually finished a blaster!

Now I can finally apply! Took me long enough, lol. Stay tuned for kit number 3, because I've lost any sanity I had. 

App pics again:











Here's hoping the kama being an just that little bit off center isn't enough to knock me back. The only thing I've changed since taking these pics is upgrading the knee attachment.

I know the app team is still on vacation, but fingers crossed!

[trashcanmando]

Fix list is in! 



Overall not bad! The biggest thing to change is adding pouches or holsters, which is my bad for not realizing they are in fact required. I was going to make holsters for the westars anyways, so no problem.

I am somewhat confused about the 'logo on the back of the boots' item. My boots currently look like this:



I'll admit that you can definitely tell where I covered the logo, but I thought it was covered quite well. I suppose I can cut a piece of black leather and glue it over. If I'm going to do that, may as well also do it on the front where I covered another logo in the same way.

Did a bit more shaping on the cod plate since it seemed like the easiest item to knock out!

Before:







After:





The paint job is unharmed!

(Didn't bend it any more the other way)

Also ordered some new gloves. There's just no way I can get the cuff of my current gloves under the edge of the gauntlets.

Visor will be easy as well, it's hot glue mounted so I can just pop it out and adjust it.

Edit: Visor fixed!

Before:



Step 1: Rip out visor.
Step 2: Reinstall visor, carefully making sure the edge is aligned with the bottom of the helmet.
Step 3: Go to take the after picture and realize somehow the visor has shifted back to exactly where it was before.
Step 4: Die inside a little.
Step 5: Rip out visor again.
Step 6: Reinstall and make sure the hot glue holding the edge of the visor has hardened before installing the upper part.

After!





'Oh man I can barely see what I'm doing in here- HANG ON IT'S GOT A LIGHT!'

[CaburIjaat]

Making fantastic progress on your fix list! Keep up the great work!

[trashcanmando]

Thanks vod 

Just finished getting everything knocked out today!

Holsters:







(Belt buckle was missing because I was painting it, lol.)

Weathered:



Gloves arrived!





I always find it so difficult to weather black well but not too much...

Belt buckle got a metallic coat and a blackwash:



The parachute buckles on my flak vest and thigh bags are remaining black, but I did scuff them up and blackwash them when I did the weathering for those items.

Boot logos are covered and I did some washes of red and gray to weather them in:





And the flak vest got a bit more weathering, along with the upper sleeves of the flight suit.









Fought through a cold to get this done but there's a couple upcoming troops I would really like to be in kit for! My roommate has promised we can take app pics tomorrow 

[trashcanmando]

This kit is now APPROVED!!

Here are my final app pics:











Sorry they're in the bathroom, it was dark and rainy and that was the best lighting I could get 

Just got my letter about an hour ago, went and got boba (fett) tea to celebrate!

Photoshoot images incoming, as well as... the link to my third kit WIP...  Look, at least I made myself get this one approved before starting a WIP for the third! 

[Bowfanny]

Congrats on approval Vod!

Would you mind if Ed team harvested some of your build photos to assist in creating some alternate training materials?

[trashcanmando]

Oh wow, thank you! Wouldn't mind at all, I'd be honored!