mr paul

Had a little dress up. Needed to see the bottom half and mid section silhouette. First time I have had my new breeches with the new torso and also my armoured skirt fitted as well. I really like how shapely it is and not at all clunky.

W.I.P Sheev's Emporium. David and I working on a new project together. Absolutely remarkable skillz.

Lol thank you Rudi I shall pass on your compliments to Esme Both ends of the belt are the same and are closed with velcro. I have riveted them to the slider for now as this is all I have to hand that will sufficiently hold them in place. It's secure and functional.

Esme had her machine out again today. Huge thanks to her as I cannot sew for toffee. New belt, new slider, new screws/washers, new boxes.

New toys and things. Gathering ingredients for a new belt build and new torso zipper closure. Could not resist fitting a snap.

Soon. Going to make a new belt first as my old one has been updated over and over. Need to a fresh start on it and finally will be screen accurate.

Esme got her sewing machine out today and got the rigging for the torso sorted for me. I can now hang it on the mannequin and get a proper look at it. The wide spine plate is fitted and its holding up the belt cover with all it's accessories.

Could this be the first time all the correct colours for the Shoretrooper have been together since Rogue One?!

Yes it was Lewis White. We have been discussing the colours of the Mudtrooper and MT medic on FB. He was referring to the colours of the biceps. Lewis never worked on Rogue One however he did say that they used a lot of leftover paint from R1 and he stated "The yellow we usually use is yellow cab". The biceps are supposed to be the same colour in universe so it is not too much of a leap to believe this could be the same yellow used on the Shoretroopers. He built and painted a lot of the Mudtooper costumes for Solo as well as appearing in the film. He is being a huge help and a generous source of intel over in my Mudtrooper Builder page On FB. A really cool dude.

Thank you! Coincidentally I was chatting the other day about how the rigging was attached inside the torso as I am approaching that particular area of my build. Turns out it was glued in place by a black adhesive. Low and behold the glue has now been identified so I may as well go that route.

Thank you to Chris Bostock for doing some behind the scenes digging around. We now know the adhesive they used on parts of the costumes on set for Solo. A black adhesive was used on the Shoretrooper costumes too and some of it can be seen here in this botched up belt box. I will be using this from now on to assemble parts of my kit. Really cool to have the right adhesive.

It has been confirmed over on my Mudtrooper page that the yellow used for the pips on the right, red bicep of the Mudtrooper was Montana Gold Series Cab Yellow. There is a good chance that this is the colour used for the Shoretrooper also. If I recall correctly I don't believe the yellow was ever confirmed for the Shoretrooper.

Starting to mock up the belt cover, TD + mount, vertical can and wide spine plate. All the hardware is installed. Still need to add the belt box. The white end caps are to mimic the ones seen on the SWCE displays.

Here I have tried to recreate that silver flash from behind the spine plate that is seen on one of the displayed armours from SWCE. I have assembled the torso, spine plate and added the webbed belt with the revised aluminium slider. The top corner of which can be seen catching the light in the same position as the screen used.

Finally got a chance to cast up a set of belt boxes for myself. Nice and dark brown too.

I will post a little tutorial on how I am making the suspender loop attachments when I get some time. In the meantime here they are being glued to the abdomen.

Calling the torso done.

Happy new year Rudi. Thank you for your kind comments however I cannot take full credit for what you see above. My work would be nothing without the fantastic model provided by out talented designer and the intelligence we have been given thanks to our generous and supportive sources. The screen used armour was conceived 2 dimensionally and then worked up into 3D in the Z Brush software. The armour would at first be 3D printed (all of the Shoretrooper was 3D printed except the shin straps, front shin armour, shin buckles, belt boxes, back box greeblies and possibly the armoured skirt too however I have not had that on confirmed as yet) The parts were then finished and prepped ready for moulding. They had 500 grands worth of injection moulding equipment at their disposal. The armour was cast in a very dense, rubbery PU resin that was hard but flexible when it needed to be. Suitable for stunt work etc. I have not been 3D printing for long and neither do I spend any time in printing groups looking for advice or tips. Mainly because I am stubborn and not very tech savvy. My printer is still standard straight out of the box and I rarely alter my settings other than a few key options that I adjust per print. It seems whenever you post an image of a 3D print in FB you get inundated with other printers offering their advice on how they do their own printing/finishing which is great but whatever settings/techniques they prefer or whatever products they use to prep I would say do what works for you and the proof is always in the pudding. What you rarely see is clear, close up images of a well finished prints with no visible striations across the surface. I am not a huge fan of printing but it is a means to an end and it is unavoidable when attempting to seriously replicate the symmetry and complicated geometry of something like these new generation SW costumes. Unless you have access to the expensive production processes of the screen used costumes you have no chance of capturing the Shoretrooper correctly. I have used no filler in the above torso and very little across the rest of the armour. Instead I have printed in 0.1 for the larger pieces such as the torso and 0.06 for the smaller pieces. This gives me a good head start on finishing the print and print times are not extensive. I am careful and hopefully clever wrt the orientation and infill of a particular print thinking ahead of its needs and how it will be used in the costume. I use an inexpensive matt black paint to overspray my sanded areas to highlight any imperfections. If further sanding does not rid them I will lay the paint on heavier and use this as a fine "filler". In fact I experimented with the torso and utilised the properties of the plastic weld. Instead of using thicker fillers to hide the deeper seams of the joined parts I used the plastic weld to dissolve the PLA and drag it across the gaps. This has been successful so far and also provided an even stronger structure. For me personally I want to get a high polished finish with as little extra material added to achieve the finished result. Keeping the print strong, simple and prepared ready for paint.

Some more work to do on this before its ready for further assembly and paint but looking good. Most of the hard work done.

Another image for comparison with the screen used. I prefer to see the kit juxtaposed to armour being actually worn rather than that of armour being displayed on mannequins. I think it gives a more realistic view on how the armour sits on the body.

A nice profile comparison picture with the screen used armour.

Popped the not quite finished abdomen and wide spine plate onto the mannequin with the rest of the armour for a quick mock up. So far so good I would say in regards to scale and fit.

Great stuff. Yeah the postage on the Dirty Down in the UK is through the roof as well! Thats if you can find the damn stuff in stock anywhere. Really cool the store is close to you. very lucky.

This was the information from Dillon I was trying to recall. So although he does not go into great detail regarding colours used he does confirm that Dirty Down was partly responsible for the grime seen across the armour. I would recommend the grey and dark brown as that is what I have been experimenting with across my builds to great effect.