LittleScout

Nice cuts! That Xacto blade worked really well in that second picture. Those are some of the cleanest scout boot cuts I've seen!

The cuts look good! Based on what I've heard here, a bit of a messy cut is hard to avoid, so don't worry too much about that. All you can do is your best. And considering how you just used an Xacto, those cuts aren't bad at all! I used a hot knife for my cuts, which I picked up at a local Michael's craft store for $16. It's basically an Xacto knife attached to a cord. The heat made the cutting faster for sure, but it was still a little choppy-looking. I did find that pressing the flat of the knife into the carved areas and smoothing it across them helped clean the cuts up a little. They're still not perfect, but it's an option that could help. Again though, your cuts look great already, so using a hot knife would be down to personal preference on your part.

Hello there Micah! I see the Duke has linked my build thread, so feel free to use that as much as you like! I'm basically EXACTLY the same height and weight, so hopefully that thread offers some guidance. I'm almost finished with my build so there's lots of info there, plus there will be updates as I near approval. I'm using SC with great success thus far. That armor should do you well. I'm using Pilot Bay for the helmet and soft goods but it sounds like you're set for those. MC was my second option for the helmet; I've heard they run smaller, so that's good for us short scouts, and local pickup is definitely a great selling point! My boots are mentioned a bit in my thread. I used the same that the Duke used. Not sure about the black stripe but my first thought is that it's okay because it's covered by the vinyl, but I'll leave the experienced opinion to the approved scouts on here. Don't hesitate to reach out here for help... that's what the forum is for! And I'm happy to help with any Ewok-sized scout questions as well. Shoot me a PM any time, or post questions on your build thread and I'll answer so the info is out there for all the short scouts. Best of luck with your build!

Success! Using your ideas, the buckle clears the belt. Thanks @Chopper and @DukeOfNachos!! I was about to give up the entire buckle when the Duke mentioned that removing the buckles' triglides could probably open the space needed to hang the back straps a little further from the belt, getting the box strap buckles further away. Note to self, bulldog-clip the velcro where you want it to go BEFORE sewing, so you can try the setup on properly in advance Like Chopper said, the space is still close enough to about an inch to fit the CRL just fine. To keep the excess strap material in place now that the triglides are gone, I'll velcro it to the inside of the belt. I've attached the straps inside the dropboxes with velcro too, so if the space needs further adjustment in the future, they can be moved around a little: The next task is the second dropbox, now that the first is done properly, and then it's on to the armor elastic in preparation for the soft goods. Woohoo!

I do have a bunch of extra velcro for that! Man, I do love that buckle, but maybe I'm too small to have that AND the right straps. Ah well... Thanks for the feedback! I'll get working on that today. You're right, because looking at it, that does seem to be what would solve the problem. The boxes can be dropped a little more while still sticking close to the 1-inch requirement, so that will help too.

Here are better pictures of the issue. Looking at it, that IS an awful angle... my bad there! Since then, I've been able to improve the issue somewhat, but the back buckle is still trapped under the belt corner. The dropbox is also at a slight slant, with the back a little lower than the front, but having them hang a little lower could probably fix that. The side view: Halfway between the side and the back: And finally, the back, where the issue really is: Thanks in advance for any tips you all have! At this point, all I can think of is having them hang a bit lower, which would help the box's slant but probably wouldn't do a whole lot for that buckle. Sigh, short trooper problems...

Thanks to an armor party last weekend, progress has picked up again! Knee armor is done, and pretty much all the costume's rivets are in thanks to the Duke's help. The tank is now secured to the back, elastic and all. I'm now just procrastinating on applying the decals, haha. The tutorials on the forums have been super helpful, so it's just a matter of sucking it up and doing them. One day soon... This week has been pretty much all strap/elastic work. The knee armor's was easy, but the dropboxes are proving to be a little tricky when it comes to having them hang right. Being a trooper on the smaller side, the straps are shorter, which is not giving the buckles a whole lot of room. I've attached the straps inside the boxes with velcro so they have more adjustability. The back strap of the finished box in particular is being difficult, because the buckle is resting slightly behind the corner of the belt. Some pictures: (The box on the right is finished; the left one is dangling until I can fix the first one) Side view of the finished box: And the back strap, the one having the issue (the top left corner of the buckle is slightly under the belt at this angle, but it's a bit worse when it's hanging normally): Any tips on how to resolve this? The straps are pretty much the perfect length to have the boxes hang about 1 inch from the belt, and the front straps look great. It's the back ones that are a good length but are causing the buckle to get pressed under the belt...

Good progress these past couple days: the knee armor is fully done and just waiting for velcro/rivets, the dropboxes have been sanded and have slots, and today I chipped at the forearm armor pieces to size them down just a little, followed by more shaping via the boiling-water technique. At this point, everything is pretty much set for when the soft goods arrive and it can all be tried on together. In the meantime, I've checked out how the tank sits on the back armor. I know it should have some gaps like it does in the movie, but I wanted to run it by the folks here. Are gaps like this approvable, or should I try getting it to lie a little closer to the back armor?

So happy that the boot cuts are now approvable... thanks to all for your input and help to fix that up! I'll order a replacement pair within a week or two, but at least that one boot is set. In the meantime, back to the armor work. Today... slots!! The Dremel worked like a dream, thanks to some help from the Duke during a little setup confusion. Using the cutter it came with, it chewed pretty easily through the plastic in just about a minute per slot: Did this for all four knee armor slots today. With that starter opening, I slowly hacked away at it with an Xacto knife, followed by sanding it down with needle files, then back to the knife, then files, repeat, repeat. A couple cuts shot out and scratched the armor, argh, but they're faint enough, and inevitable for a first-time slot-cutting job. Truly slow, agonizing work... about a good dozen to go... woohoo But the result is good: When it's time for elastic, I'll gently smooth the slots just a little with some of the 400-grit sandpaper. Otherwise, this one's done! Off to keep cutting, slicing, and sanding these things... and maybe tomorrow, I'll glue some velcro inside this armor piece in preparation for the elastic (unless I'm on a roll with slot cutting, haha). The elastic job itself is on hold though until my suit arrives, so that way the elastic length is measured with the suit's fit in mind.

Boots Day 2... Awesome, thanks @Chopper! The cuts were my biggest worry since you can't undo or redo those much without having to buy a new boot. I'm planning to have PilotBay do the wraps, and they tailor fits, so the rest of the boot should be proportional. But that's a good point to keep in mind. That being said, I'm glad the pattern was a-ok, because I cut that boot today; I had nothing else to do for this costume, and the other boot is a goner, so there wasn't much to lose Kept it to shallow cuts, and followed the patterns of the folks above as well as other tutorials on the forums. Once again the hot knife made it easy to slice through the rubber, so that was a good investment. Now this boot is much more like the others on here: A little scratchy, but based on what I've seen on the forums, that seems difficult to avoid, haha. Otherwise, the TD's rectangle greeblie has been glued and is now curing. And the dremel arrived!! I'll look over the manual tonight and get a feel for it, and then maybe try drilling some slots tomorrow, starting with lower armor like the knees and working up to the more major, easier-to-see stuff on the torso and arms. After getting the hang of that, it's on to the armor trimming once the soft goods get here. A bit rocky yesterday with the boots mishap, but things are getting back on track. Woohoo!

Update: sketched a new pattern on the other boot... how does this look for Lancer? I've copied the previous posts this time for the pattern, and all the cuts will be shallow. I also tried cutting the top squares on the back sole of the already-cut boot to see how it looks: For the top squares, I cut them so they go all the way up; I'd do this for the long bar between the front and back parts of the sole too. It made the cutting much easier. Is that all right? Figured I'd get some input before cutting this time It isn't required for basic approval, but since it's tricky, I'll try to get these cuts finished and Lancer-worthy before submitting. That way if they aren't right, I don't have to redo the entire boots.

Awesome. So same boot, but get a new one and re-do the cutting so there aren't those big notches, and it's Lancer?

Arg, well that's what I get for getting a little too creative, haha. So for you folks who approve Lancers, is this boot design a no-go for approval? They weren't too pricey, so if the consensus is "no," I can toss this one and re-do the design on a new pair. Might as well fix that early on before the wraps and all, even though it isn't needed for initial approval.

Another day, more great progress! Thank you so much to everyone for the feedback. It made it much easier to tackle the bottom design on the boot sole this morning. So with that info, the aim was to reach "good enough" and "clean enough" and so far it looks pretty decent. For the design, I used pictures of the original boot from the Scoutopedia, altering it to match the few extra grooves my boots have and simplifying some cuts that were more complicated. My main reference photo here, for the pro scouts' feedback and for any future scouts using this thread: I picked up a nice cheap hot knife last night from Michael's, and it made the cutting much easier and faster... but still inevitably slow-going. After three hours of work, I got all of the inside sole's bottom bars done. The result for the back: I tried to make the front half of the sole match the alternating big-small grooves of the originals instead of just cutting shallow rectangles the whole way down. I'm trying to make more work for myself I guess! Not sure how approval/Lancer mods will take it, but it looks decently like the originals I think? The full-boot shot a couple pictures down looks more official. A little messy, but could be worse: Even messier inside, but hopefully no one can see much of that when trooping (and I'll clean it up more, plus reinforce any thin spots with Shoe Goo, once the main design is all done): And finally: Overall, not too bad for boots day 1! I'll probably work on them some more after lunch, since I like the Duke's method of using a drill to cut the slots' starter edges and will wait on the dremel to do those. The dreaded slots wait for another day! Thanks in advance for any feedback from you experienced scouts out there. I'm liking how the boots look so far, but of course they need to meet approval and Lancer standards, not mine

Edit: Here's the boots link, for anyone who comes across this thread and is interested in them: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Trail-Men-s-Troy-Boots/876076656 Remembered that I had the base boots lying around and decided to tinker with the sole pattern a little! It doesn't come out well in pictures, but I've started sketching the rectangle cut-out patterns. But I realized that the back side of the sole (in the picture above) has an extra groove in the bottom, so I'm not sure how to go about making the pattern. The Scoutopedia and others' Lancer builds have 4 rectangles in this area, but their boots also have 4 grooves existing in the sole to match (hopefully this all makes sense). In the picture above as an example, my boot has 5. To get this to Lancer standards, do I need to have the correct number of rectangle cut-outs along the sole (so, 4 in this case) or do I just need to have enough to go with each groove? (so for my boot here, 5 for the 5 grooves)