emile1138

Thanks PhilBob!

Alright all, I finished up that super secret side project I was working on... I decided my helmet needed a sweet helmet stand, but I didn't feel like any of the ones I found online were cool enough... So I made my own! My goal was to make a helmet stand that's everything I've ever wanted in a helmet stand, and I made it customizable to offer up for sale to others who want one too. Took me quite a few weeks of testing ans revising the design, but I'm really happy with how it turned out! If you're interested, check out my website here. NOW I can get back to printing more armor parts! I'm working with others in my area to get an armor party together so I may have some cool build day photos for future posts too. More progress soon!

Holy crap the man himself! I didn't know you had an account on here. Thanks so much for the compliment, and thanks so much for making such a great design! If there's something else you model up you want me to print and finish let me know

Thanks for the helpful info 👍🏻

I was searching for suede in JoAnn's the other day and there were so many kinds available... Should I be looking for this kind specifically or is there a recommended kind of suede I should find at a fabric store? Thanks in advance!

Alright, I've been quiet for a few days...time for an update! Printing / Armor Progress: I don't have a whole lot to report here. I have printed the four chest pieces and the center brace but I haven't gone much further than that... The reason for this is because I'm starting a side quest to create something else that will remain secret for now... but here's a sneak peek... This secret item is related to this costume project but could benefit other costume makers, not just me. Stay tuned to find out more in later updates! Helmet Progress: I got a set of decals from TrooperBay, and I can see why people like them but I'm not using them. I want something cleaner and better fitting to the helmet, and I wanted to have the experience of making them myself. My grey vinyl came in, and I designed and cut all the missing decals! I then proceeded to move on to the visor. I took a screen shot of the 3D helmet faceplate from the inside out and traced it in Illustrator, then printed and cut it out in paper to see how the shape fit. I had to adjust the shape, re-print, and re-cut to get a shape that fit really well in the helmet... I then cut the shape I landed on in smoke acrylic on the laser. I mounted the visor, then finished installing the fans and batteries. Then I removed and re-installed all the helmet padding with better velcro, because the velcro pads they came with originally really sucked. I'm a lot happier with the new pattern and how much more solid they're attached now! I tried installing the chin cup, but it doesn't fit between my fat chin and my fan mounting system. It seems the chin cup is optional, but I really like the look of the elastic strap on the sides of the helmet when you lift the faceplate up...so I made a compromise. I mounted "faux" chin straps with velcro, that give the look of the externally mounted elastic but doesn't actually incorporate the chin cup. And with those final steps, the helmet is now 100% complete! More updates to come... I'm really excited about this little side project I'm working on, I can't wait to show you all! Thanks for reading!

Yeah this video was made by the helmet designer that designed the helmet I printed. I figured out the chin strap now, I'm about to write up another small update post so check that out when I post it... I exclusively used Rustoleum brand rattlecan spray paints. The primer base was Rustoleum sandable automotive filler primer, and lots of it. I buy it on Amazon in bulk because I use a lot and it's a few bucks cheaper than my local hardware store, here's a link if you're interested.

Wouldn't get that if the sound was on anyways because my printer is almost silent. I can't even hear it running when I'm sitting next to it

WOW you're trucking right along! Great progress Selle!

FYI to anyone interested, I started a live stream of my printer as it's printing parts. I'm hosting it on the company Nest cam. If you want to check it out you can find it here: https://www.seemecnc.com/pages/videostream At the time of writing this the left half of the bottom of the chest chest is already printed, and the live stream is currently printing the right half.

Followed. This will be really useful as I move on to the armor

Joined the Facebook group, thanks for pointing me to it!

That's a relief! Thanks so much for that info. On with the rest of the helmet details then!

Update time! 😎 Helmet Progress: I've finished the painting on the helmet, and now I'm on to the final stages of finishing it up. I'm really nervous to point this out... but I'm afraid I may have gone overboard with the weathering. I wanted my scout to look beat up, but I know the CRL says "may be lightly weathered". The weathering got away from me a little and I'm afraid I may have gone a little too far. There's a scout in our local garrison that's even dirtier than this though, and if you look at the screen used costumes they're so weathered that some armor parts look tan or brown, so I think I might be fine? I don't know, please let me know what you all think... At this point my list of things to complete the helmet is pretty short (as long as I don't have to do a complete repaint if the weathering is bad)... -Finish cutting and applying the decals. I've already added the rear vents and the faux "holes" on the ears because I had black vinyl on hand, but I have medium grey vinyl on order to make the frown, traps, face plate stripes, and fishhook. I ordered the printed stickers from Trooperbay but just out of curiosity. I don't plan on actually using them, I want to make my own with the grey vinyl I have on order. -Mounting the fans and battery for the fans. The fan mounting has already been planned and is easy, but the battery I'm having a hard time figuring out where I can mount it in the helmet...more on that in the next update. -Make / mount the visor. The helmet has an internal recess where the visor will mount, so it should be pretty simple. I'll make a paper template that fits the helmet perfectly, recreate it in Illustrator, cut it in smoke acrylic on the laser cutter, heat and curve it to match the curve of the helmet, then mount with super glue. -Figure out the whole chin cup and chin cup strapping situation. Not sure where to start here so I could use some pointers from you all. After the above has been completed, the helmet is done and all I have to focus on is armor! Speaking of armor... Armor Progress: Now that I have more filament I'm making significant progress on MrPoopie's armor files. I've figured out the scaling issue of the bicep armor from my previous update, where printing them at 120% is a perfect snug fit on my arm. A smidge of heating with the heat gun and widening the opening of the curve and it should be perfect sizing for when the undersuit is on underneath it as well. I've also scaled up the Tbit details and printed them again, so now I have the complete set of bicep armors scaled properly! In addition, I've also taken a detour to print the blaster. I didn't do any filling/sanding work on it, and I only did a simple rushed paint job on it. It's going to be tucked in my boot most of the time as I have a DLT-19x I printed a while ago that will be finished and my primary trooping weapon. I wanted to get the blaster out of the way though, as my Wampa Wear gloves came in and I couldn't be more happy with the quality, I just needed the scout pistol to hold with those gloves! I've also printed both of the forearm pieces, interestingly enough they needed no scaling whatsoever. They fit, and are even a little loose on my arm, at 100% scale. So here's an overall shot of my current progress! Printing Progress: I've decided to start tackling the chest and back armor...but because of the inconsistent scaling of the other armor bits to fit my weird body shape, I can't afford the time and filament cost in printing the large multi-part torso armor pieces over and over again until I found the right size for me. That's when I found Armorsmith.... a little Googling lead me to this cosplay tool that lets you create a digital mannequin with all your body measurements and import 3D files, scale them and position them to get an idea of how they'd fit in real life. It was $30 and I don't know how accurate it will be with helping me scale my armor appropriately and save filament costs, but it seems pretty promising. Here's a link of you want to check it out for yourself. I imported the full chest and back files and placed them approximately where I think they should go. Thanks to MrPoopie for including the full chest and back files as well as the cut versions otherwise this wouldn't have been doable. I found that 115% scale on the torso armor seems about right in this software, and this seems pretty consistent with the scaling I've been doing with the other armor bits so I'm going for it. I used this information to scale up the eight torso armor pieces to 115% as well (four chest parts, four back parts). Thanks again to MrPoopie for all his hard work and including both full and cut armor parts! The first part of the chest is printing as I type this post. More updates will come as I get further along! Thanks to everyone who's been reading and helping! I really love the feedback and help you all have been throwing my way 😄

Nice job @Selle! You're moving along a lot faster than I am, I only have one printer running for the large parts and I'm printing at a smaller layer height than you are on them.

Thanks for this! Seriously I'm having a blast working on this and I'm really excited to be a part of the Legion again but being able to help or inspire others is really putting the icing on this cake! The fan ducts I used Tinkercad. It took a lot of time and effort as I don't have any professional modeling skills with real 3D software, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Basically I imported the same helmet faceplate file I used for printing, and modeled digital replicas of the fans I ordered on Amazon. I placed the fans where I wanted them in digital 3D space and started building around them and the faceplate to make the mounting and airflow I wanted. Then I used the faceplate as a tool to cut away the ducts do they matched the curves of the inside of the faceplate perfectly, split the individual pieces up for printing, and printed. A little glue, some paint, some screws, some soldering, and they're ready for install Hope this helps! If it's still unclear I could explore making a video trying to show more in detail how I did it

Okay awesome. I'm going to stick to your originals then

I'm loving the strive for accuracy. Makes me kinda sad though because I love the extra details in the original ones I downloaded from MrPoopie

Thanks for the help Chopper! This saved me from doing something stupid!

Alright it's update time. I'll start trying to categorize items to make this thread easier to follow. I realize my excitement for this project will cause me to type WAY too much. I'm so sorry for the novels I will be writing in this thread... Printing Updates: I'm not a ridiculously huge guy but I'm definitely not skinny either. I'm tall and have a thick build, so sizing the armor is going to be tricky, but that's a good reason why 3D printing the armor is a super useful way of making a costume. Being able to scale parts as needed will help. I printed my first bicep piece at 100% scale and it was WAY too small. It dug right in to my skin and there was no way I would have been able to make it work without heavy post-printing modification. So I scaled it up to 115% and it's better, but still pretty tight. I'm thinking printing it again at 120% then maybe bending the curve open a little more post-printing with a heat gun will get me the size I need to fit my arm. I would post a photo of how it's fitting on my arm with the shoulder bells but after dropping my phone a few times I've realized taking a photo of this stuff while on my body is something I can't do with only two arms. I'll try to see if I can get a hand from someone else later. I ran into an issue that I feel silly for not thinking of ahead of time though... Scaling up the bicep armor means my already printed Tbits need to be scaled up and re-printed too... *sad trombone noises* That's okay though, it's 3D printing, this is very easily remedied! I finished printing a healthy amount of shoulder bells, two of these will be finished plain white for approval, and the other four will be swap-out bells with custom paint jobs for special events. One rainbow for pride events, one blue and yellow weathered stripes to rep my garrison at big events like comic-cons ans Celebrations when scouts are a-plenty, one pink one for breast cancer support events, and one more that I have yet to decide what it will be for. I'll attach the same strapping and attachment methods to the custom shoulder bells as the main ones, so I can "hot-swap" them at events if I or garrison members ever decide I need to swap back to the official costume colors for photos or whatever. I also began printing blaster parts to try to get the most out of the last little slivers of filament left on my spools... Blaster scope is on the way! Should be done in the morning... Helmet Progess: At this point I ran out of my Atomic Carbon Fiber PETG... so I focused on the helmet for a while since all I needed to work on that was spray paint and sand paper. After some more filling/sanding I had this (setting the snout details on it loose just to see how it's looking): After my final round of sanding with 400 grit sand paper to get the helmet parts baby butt smooth, I'm now adding a few layers of white primer that will be covered with gloss clear coat later... I'm really happy with how the surface quality is turning out. My excitement for this costume is skyrocketing even more!! I went ahead and completely finished the chin cup, clear coat and all, to get a good feel for how the rest of the helmet paint job will go. I also went ahead and splurged on one of these bad boys because I was too excited to stop thinking about this costume even at work... Now to show you an exciting part of my helmet build... FANS! I know a lot of people say the scout buckets have plenty of open ventilation in them and fans aren't completely necessary...but being a larger guy I get really sweaty really easily. I wanted to have some sort of forced airflow in the bucket. Additionally, during my test fits with the visor taped in the raw prints at the beginning of the thread, the visor DID start fogging up, and that's something that used to drive me insane before I installed visor fans in my stormie bucket back in the day, so I decided fans it is! I used Tinkercad and the STL of the faceplate to model up some fan mounts and airflow ducts to perfectly fit the inside of the helmet. I think these will fit without pressing against my face, but we'll see when the helmet is done painting and I do a dry fit. Some printing, painting, and soldering later and they're ready to install once the helmet painting is done... I picked up some more filament tonight... Now back to printing! Thanks to everyone for stopping by! Still outstanding N00B questions: 1 - The Tbit details MrPoopie has that I printed seem to be even more detailed than screen used photos I've seen. Will this be an issue? 2 - Do the details like the frown, traps, fishhook, etc. HAVE to be decals? Can they be painted? I'd love to paint them on if I can.

Looking forward to it, I'll be posting pictures of my helmet progress tonight as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing what our two helmets turn out like. Two different file designers, two different printers, two different finishing methods...

Interesting... I'll have to give it a try on some of my parts! My build is going to take a while too. The filament I'm using isn't cheap and I don't have much time aside from weekends to work on things... Plus between all the soft parts I've ordered I'll be waiting a few months to have the whole thing together anyways

I didn't realize this was a competition but now it's on...

"Tip of the Lance" that's an awesome feeling! All credit goes to you though for making this possible, I have zero skills when it comes to modelling accurate curvy shapes like this armor. Kudos to MrPoopie for making this possible for us

Following with interest for probably obvious reasons!