How to fit a stormtrooper costume into a suitcase

I have been asked to take some pictures to show how I fit my stormtrooper costume into my suitcase, a Samsonite 125 litre. Here we go! :)

First, you put the blaster in the holster, and put them in the suitcase. Then you cover the blaster and the bottom of the suitcase with a blanket, if you want to save the armour from scratches.
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Next, you put the helmet in the bottom, facing up.


Then you put the codpiece (cod pointing at the helmet), butt/kidney (butt pointing at helmet), chest (shoulders pointing at helmet) and back plate (shoulders facing the bottom of the suitcase)


Next, you put the lower arms inside the shins, and then you put the shins inside the thighs. Place the thighs on top of the torso pieces with the knees pointing at the bottom of the suitcase.



Put the biceps in the shoulder bells, and place the thermal detonator inside. Place these beside the helmet.


Tuck the belts, the undersuit, neckseal etc. in where it fits, for example beside the thighs.


Put the boots in shoe bags, and place them beside the helmet with the soles against the suitcase wall.


Last, you just close the lid careful, and you should be done! :)

Thermal detonator finally fixed!

I got my new TD clips a while ago, and now I have finally fixed my TD! I had some really flimsy and ugly clips earlier, and they were thrown in the garbage bin today! :D

Here's my new clips, bought from a member at FISD.

Easy removeable sound system, all in one helmet!

Me and TK-7060 have done a spring cleaning in our helmets! All of the sound system in my helmet was tucked in with gaffer tape, and it was a pain combined with long hair, loose batteries, wires and all the other mess.

To make the set up with ROM/fX and troopercom a little more snug, I made tubes of lycra with velcro on the back and a zipper in the front. Inside the tube, I just tucked all the boards, wires, batteries and chaos. Then I put a line of velcro inside the tubes in my helmet.



Two tubes with ROM/FX, troopercom, batteries and wires. One open, one closed.





Just connect the mini-jacks to the speakers, microphone and magnet switch in the helmet.



Tada! Tuck the tube inside the helmet, and you're good to go!

New boots!

I have got new boots! I gave up on the dyed ones, the dye (or rather paint) just flaked off. I guess I could have tried to strip all the paint off and dye them again with better dye, but they were also kind of low so my shins popped inside.

I have bought myself a pair of Caboots now. They are huge, but they'll do the job better than the last ones anyway. :)

Kidney and butt plate mod

When I modded my armour for Elite status, I had to cut the kidney and butt plate in two separate pieces. For a girly trooper that can be quite a fun result because, quote from one of my favourite movies Love Actually, "there's a bit of an ass there", hehe. The result was that my butt plate ended several centimeters outside my kidney plate, and that was not a pretty sight. So now I've modded it again, and added abs strips on the inside to keep the pieces together. It looks promising.

My butt and kidney pieces, tight as a granny's hold-in panty!

ROM/FX installed

My ROM/FX is installed and works like a charm. Only thing I need now is to velcro it inside my helmet. I use velcro so that I can easily take it out for changing batteries and maybe even put it in another helmet later on. :)

Here's my setup, with great help from the lovely TK-7060:

TK-8224 is elite!

I got my elite status the day before christmas! It's so nice to finally be there, all the required stuff are done. Now I can enjoy just doing the mods I like for my armour to be better and more comfy. :)

Done!

My AP armour is done! Finally!

Here's some pics:

Blaster resin kit glued on to my Hasbro

My resin kit from Doopydoos is now glued to my Hasbro blaster! I had to do some dremeling to get the magazine to fit, I guess I have an old resin kit because the other kit we have in the house is quite different. Well, eventually it fitted! I added the D-ring and t-tracks for TK elite-standard, so my blaster should be ready for approval as soon as I get it painted.

Left thigh done

My left thigh is done, and my right thigh is glued as we speak. It fits me, but I don't have much room in them...

Holster is done!

My blaster holster is ready for trooping! Yay! It's made out of black leather that I've sewed by hand. I've used rivets and snaps for the details. It's made to fit my Hasbro blaster, and is attached to the belt ANH-style with two snaps hidden behind screen accurate rivets.

Starting to look like something!

I've started to sew the elastic bands to my shoes, and it's looking good! Phew! The process takes time, I hope I can get this done in time for the next event. The problem is that my fingers are getting tired after a few minutes of sewing leather! Well, time will show. At least mine smell better than the caboots! :D

I'll add one more coat of paint after the seam is done, just to cover the black that is showing through the seam.

Coat number five

I'm still painting, and this is coat numer five. I can still see the black leather through the paint. I think I need at least two or three more coats.

Painting my boots

I finally found some white shoe paint today! After rubbing off wax and shoe polish, I added two coats of paint. They will need more coats, so the journey to white boots is to be continued...


After the first coat


After the second coat

Look at my beautiful shin! :D

One shin is done, and the other one is nearly there too! I think it's looking very nice.


The front


The back

One shin glued

Yay! One shin is actually glued! I used ABS weld to connect the two parts before I glued the strip on with E6000, the best glue I've ever used. :)

Trimming the shins

AP shins are funny. They seem so nice and easy, and when you try to put them together you're soon dragged down to earth again. I feel like the whole "try to fit AP shins"-thing is like a whole afternoon with twist and shout. Mostly shouting for a long time before you finally see that you have to twist. I really hope the glue is strong enough. ;)


My right shin, behaving like it should.


My left shin, a different chapter in the book... It wont fit and you have to twist it to make it work if you're not going to cut away some of the upper edge, which doesn't look good.


The shin twisted, let's hope the glue will hold!

Blaster holster on the way!

I'm making a holster for my hasbro blaster, and thought I'd share some pics of it. It still needs a couple more buttons, a seam on the right side and some pop rivets. They are added on the pic, but I have to get some rings to add on the back side before I can pop them on. :)


Still some stuff to do :)


The holster with the blaster in it (well, my lbf's blaster that is) :)

Black helmet interior

I have given my helmet a black interior by adding one coat of primer, one coat of black and one coat of matt satin transparent lacquer. I have to paint the inside of the frown and eyes by hand.



Still have to paint a bit around the frown and eyes :)


Some more painting done, starting to look good :)

Frown cut and painted!

Yay! Finally! I've been afraid of doing this for some time now, and now it's done! I used a dremel and some different needle files for this, and some sanding for a smooth finish. I painted it with Humbrol glossy grey #5. :)