Maulevolent

More progress to close out the weekend. I’ve had a lot of battles with dust and insects ruining great top coats, so I went ahead and setup a paint structure outside of my workshop: and broke it in by finishing the top coats on the abdomen section. Very happy with the seam work and finish on this piece: I also finished trim and paint on the cod, posterior, knee plates: Next up 🆙 is the final armor pieces I need to trim which are the thighs and shins. Getting closer!

I’m finally past a point where I feel closer to the finish than the start. A lot of delays recently for various reasons, including refining the finishing and paint process for each piece, but I’m definitely building momentum! First, I finished filling and smoothing the seams on the abdominal plate and primed the entire piece for painting. This is the last of the significant modifications for approval/TLJ and glad to be done with slurry: I also assembled and primed the ABS spats. I will upgrade these to the urethane resin ones but the ABS were far enough along I could check them off: Next, I did the Behr gloss white top coat on the forearms and hand plates: And I also repainted the yoke after adding reinforcement to the shoulders and the metal tab for the shoulder bells: With all that, I’ve got the difficult aspects of the upper body build mostly done, minus the details and strapping, and ready to start moving to the lower…

So I hit a bit of a stall due to other commitments and some painting issues, but starting to pick up progress again. I completed the assembly of the forearms with the accurate TLJ shape and 3D printed Picatinny rails. These are primed and ready for paint along with the hand plates: I also installed the metal shoulder support tabs on the yoke for the Level 3 requirement: And I completed the paint and finish on the more accurate 3D printed thermal detonator, again to Level 3 standards. I’ll line the interior with neoprene once the paint cures and before mounting to the backplate: Up next is finishing the seam fill on the abdominal section, primer, paint and assembly and then shifting focus to be lower body armor parts. More to come.

So right off the bat, if you’re going for Boba Fresh and the S2 CRL, the helmet will not pass. It’s a RotJ style model with a Boba Fresh paint. There are subtle but significant differences in the helmet called out in the CRL that are judged for basic approval including the dent and the turn signals: The helmet, including its shape, proportions, details and greeblies, is not an OT-style Boba Fett helmet but is true to The Mandalorian series version. The dome features the iconic dent but is noticeably smaller than the ROTJ Hero dent, in the forward-left section of the helmet. There are 2 “turn signal” details above the band in the front of the helmet that are noticeably smaller and farther apart from each other than what is seen in the ROTJ Hero version. The left-facing turn is painted bright red, and the right-facing turn is dark blue. I haven’t looked deeper yet as the helmet is a pretty big starting point… P.S. Not to pile on, but the jet pack is also the wrong design for this version and the belt would not pass muster. Unfortunately, you’re going to need some significant changes to align with your goal. i would strongly encourage you to step back, carefully review the relevant CRL, and start working from that road map and keep us posted here on a regular basis as you continue.

Yep, you’ve got it! The CRL says “numbering 9 to 16 per side,” which means you’re good as long as each side has between 9 and 16 stripes. That range is based on what’s seen on screen and there’s some variation in the original helmets, so the CRL allows for that. Traditionally, stunt helmets tend to have around 13–16 stripes, while hero helmets usually sit around 9–11. TL;DR: Pick whatever looks best to you, between 9 and 16 per side, and make both sides match. If you're going for an in-between “sweet spot,” 13 stripes is a popular and very safe choice.

Looking good so far! You’re definitely on the right track. For holding up the biceps, both methods work, but I also lean towards the short elastic strap from the shoulder bell to the bicep. It’s simple, keeps the bicep from flopping around, and gives you more control than the hook method. Just make sure it’s not too tight or it’ll pull weird when you move. Swapping out the holster straps for undyed leather is the way to go, nice catch there. That’s screen accurate for ANH stunt TKs. On the belt wrapping too far: totally up to you. Some people just add a keeper or extra piece of Velcro to secure the overhang, others trim it down for a cleaner look. If you’ve got the room and don’t mind the extra length, you could leave it but if it bugs you visually, trim and clean up the edge.

Seamless ears are a bit of a myth. This is an area you don’t want to pursue perfection over “good enough”. With that said, I would recommend hand sanding and filing your trim lines/edges to remove the jaggedness and smooth out the shape, especially on the front, and that would help overall appearance as well as help form the curves closer to the helmet shape. There’s a lot of trial and error and patience involved there until you reach a point you’re happy enough with it. If it was a little cleaner, I’d probably let it fly. The screen used helmets in ANH were rarely seamless if at all:

Progressing a bit more slowly this weekend but making progress nonetheless. I started assembling the forearms after trimming to approximately the proper TLJ shape: I also trimmed and assembled the abdominal plate and prepping it for ABS slurry fill on the side seams: and priming the resin boxes to go with it: My raw urethane resin spats also came in from Sanotized Creations. I’ll work on these as I get further in the build: Now to whip up a fresh batch of slurry for the seams and call it a night!

Continuing to make progress but I also decided to complicate things further and paint the armor for a richer white finish than the raw ABS. I think the end result appearance will be worth it: I also decided to upgrade the spats to a pair of flexible white urethane ones from Sanotized Creations. Those are on order and en route:

Looking good! You’ll probably want to raise the thighs that 1/4” to close the space towards the cod, assuming you’ll still have no issues with walking/movement. The small ammo belt and sniper knee will take up some space and close the knee area.

The cover strips should be sized to cover the flat area of the butt joint. My understanding on the cover strips is for accuracy they should be 15mm wide for front and back of the arms, 20mm wide for the front and back of the thighs, and 20mm for the front of the shins and 25mm for the back. This provides a starting point. Typically, the flat area of the butt joint on the front should be trimmed to about the same size so that the strip completely covers it when joined. For the front of the shin with accurate size that should be about 10mm on each side of the joint and 20mm when together. You have more latitude on the back to accommodate sizing in terms of trimming but use the same size strip. If your calf implants require you to need more space, it can be bigger but it needs to be uniform. Generally, minimum sizes on the front and larger on the back as they won’t be noticed as much. There may ultimately be GML latitude but I was a historically tough grader in that role.

I finally resumed this build several weeks ago, working through trimming and assembly. I’m attempting to finish it before Weird Al but I’m not rushing it either. I’m still working towards Level 3 requirements for no other reasons than my OCD and that I know I can. Terrificon though will be my ultimate goal. Trimming has been a combination of scissors, the Dremel, hand sanding with 120/320 grit, and emery boards to round the edges… I also started working on filling the seams on the yoke using multiple thin layers of ABS slurry and a LOT of hand sanding. While the effort was tedious, I’m very happy with the end result: In between that, I also started working on finishing my TLJ accurate 3D printed thermal detonator to replace the resin TFA brick that came with the DN kit: That’s a work in progress but progress nonetheless. I’ve also picked up a gorgeous F-11D blaster with lights and a magnetic removable stock to switch between blaster and rifle mode: I snagged it from a maker in the First Order Stormtroopers FB group and it was worth every penny! So a lot of momentum and progress, with more to come soon.

Welcome, Don! Walt gave us a heads up you’d be knocking on the door! We’ll keep an eye out for the email with the photos and keep you posted on the status of the review. As we’re in the final stages of prep for TerrifiCon in August, please be patient with us! -Ray

Then I would focus on the basics for approval at the Garrison level and anything additional would be at individual discretion. We can provide what guidance we can but other than @CTdadalorian20none of us are going to be close enough to the higher level requirements for the kit as the detachment.

Nothing to add so far but I’ve been a huge fan of the GA files. This is just motivating me to start printing my Tech armor…