G'day

[Bullant]

Question, is there much difference between the storm trooper suit in NH, ESB, and RotJ?

Yes, the detailed answer to your question can be found here:

http://www.501st.com/databank/Costuming:FISD_CRL

[Moxxxie]

Welcome aboard, Darq!
My first costume was a Stormtrooper - and I've never looked back. The CRL's are the criteria which your approval photos will be marked against.

Rubies is a bit of an in-joke. Rubies is the licensed product from Lucas, but it's really quite inaccurate. There are a few threads on how to "upgrade" a Rubies into an approvable costume, and the first step is literally:

Step 1: Throw everything you have, in the bin.

There's cheaper & more accurate costumes out there, which are usually fan-made and not a commercial product.

Best of luck with your quest. You wont look back!

[BIDS]

Hi Paul,
As you can see we're all very glad you are doing your research & asked before buying that suit. It's already been said, but again I'd 2nd heading over to the FIDS and signing up as it's a forum dedicated to storm troopers.

Here are a couple of links you might find useful :-

* Main 501st Forum CRL (costume reference library), this will show you the differences between the ANH, ESB & ROTJ suits as well as the requirements for each of the costumes :- http://www.501st.com/databank/Costuming:FISD_CRL

* FISD (First Imperial Stormtrooper Detachment), this thread shows the various vetted armor manufacturers (you'll need to sign up before you can read it). As you will see from the information on here there is no "right" armor, but rather "right for you", meaning that you need to select your armor based on your preferred movie, accuracy level & body size & shape.

My advice would be to choose a costume that you're passionate about (i.e. if you love the ANH scene where the stormtrooper board the Tantive IV, go with the ANH Stunt or Hero ect.) as sometimes these builds can drag on and being passionate about the costume can be the thing that keeps you focused and driven.

Good luck with your research.

Cheers
Craig

[Darqueness]

Awesome.

So from what I have read. I'm inclined to do a RotJ in PVC?

I'll be at the Armour Party next week. Just to see what it's all about and what you guy/gals do.

Question I do have is all armour casted, or 3D printed?

[major payne]

Stormtrooper armour is vacformed plastic, generally in ABS (Acrylonitrile - Butadiene - Styrene). Which means it's plastic sheet, heated till it malleable and placed over bucks/molds and sucked down onto it, till it cools/hardens, hence the name vacforming.

[Darqueness]

Cool, I understand the vacuum forming. Just curious if any of you guys/gals actually have the means to do it?

If not, I have a friend in Toowoomba that has just set up his 3d printing set up and also has a vacuum forming machine. Just needing 3d rendered files then.

[Darqueness]

Hey Everyone. Awesome to meet some of you on Saturday. Got a lot of answers, and yeah I can now see that a fair bit of work will be put into it.

Thanks for your time

[stormraven]

Remember Darq there will always be someone around who can help out if you need any.