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A fantasy come true.
Feb. 8th, 2006 04:37 pmSee, I once bragged to a friend how I married the perfect woman -- a Star Wars fan on top of all her other great qualities. I joked, "The best thing I can do to turn her on would be dress in Stormtrooper Armor while singing "Fett's Vette".
To which she overheard and replied breathlessly, "Could you???"
With that, we began down the road of seeing me in the white armor someday. Yesterday, we made a major step in that direction, and bought a set of second-hand Stormtrooper armor from someone local here in Casper.
He was in the process of converting his suit to a Sandtrooper costume so it was a tad dirty. This is how it looked when we recieved it.
( Armor Before )
I ofcourse tried it on. The guy I bought it from also portrays Darth Vader, and is large enough to pull it off convincingly. The armor is too big for me, and will need to be trimmed. Plus some of the straps are broke so it doesn't all go together yet. So there will be some work ahead of us before I can start trooping and join the 501st. The first thing we have to do is clean it up, so I can get it in shape as "TK" armor. So last night, the entire family pitched in, and rubbed off the paint with dishrags. It worked pretty good, but the armor still looked a little dingy, and where there were scratches and weathering, the paint stuck.
Then today we went to Target to buy things to help clean up the armor more. We were thinking white shoe polish might buff out the scratches, but alas, they did not have white shoe polish. Then my wonderful wife came up with a brilliant idea: Those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. They worked like a CHARM! My armor is now shiny-white, and we were able to get the leftover paint out of the scratches. Here are the results:
( Armor After )
Next step is now to repair the straps and trim it to fit me better. I'm gonna need some help. Thankfully the guy I bought the armor from is willing to help.
One last picture. I HAD to try on the bucket...
( bucket-head )
This is all a little sureal to me. I never thought I would have a professional quality costume. I thought it was beyond my means. But here we are. We saved out pennies and made it happen. We got a great bargain on the armor, but it was still a lot of money. And we paid another third of the price for a pair of stormtrooper boots (should be delivered tomorrow). I look forward to being part of the 501st, esepecially if we can do some local troops to help bring awareness to local charities, like the homeless shelter where my wife works.
To which she overheard and replied breathlessly, "Could you???"
With that, we began down the road of seeing me in the white armor someday. Yesterday, we made a major step in that direction, and bought a set of second-hand Stormtrooper armor from someone local here in Casper.
He was in the process of converting his suit to a Sandtrooper costume so it was a tad dirty. This is how it looked when we recieved it.
( Armor Before )
I ofcourse tried it on. The guy I bought it from also portrays Darth Vader, and is large enough to pull it off convincingly. The armor is too big for me, and will need to be trimmed. Plus some of the straps are broke so it doesn't all go together yet. So there will be some work ahead of us before I can start trooping and join the 501st. The first thing we have to do is clean it up, so I can get it in shape as "TK" armor. So last night, the entire family pitched in, and rubbed off the paint with dishrags. It worked pretty good, but the armor still looked a little dingy, and where there were scratches and weathering, the paint stuck.
Then today we went to Target to buy things to help clean up the armor more. We were thinking white shoe polish might buff out the scratches, but alas, they did not have white shoe polish. Then my wonderful wife came up with a brilliant idea: Those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. They worked like a CHARM! My armor is now shiny-white, and we were able to get the leftover paint out of the scratches. Here are the results:
( Armor After )
Next step is now to repair the straps and trim it to fit me better. I'm gonna need some help. Thankfully the guy I bought the armor from is willing to help.
One last picture. I HAD to try on the bucket...
( bucket-head )
This is all a little sureal to me. I never thought I would have a professional quality costume. I thought it was beyond my means. But here we are. We saved out pennies and made it happen. We got a great bargain on the armor, but it was still a lot of money. And we paid another third of the price for a pair of stormtrooper boots (should be delivered tomorrow). I look forward to being part of the 501st, esepecially if we can do some local troops to help bring awareness to local charities, like the homeless shelter where my wife works.
