As you can see from the picture without any help, this is the breast plate. The highlighted sections on this show a close up
of the grey recess, which I don’t think anyone knows exactly what it is, the breast and back joiner cover, and the strap with press
studs to hold it together well, while still allowing it to be taken off with no hassle.
This page show my set of armour all finished. In certain parts on of the pictures if you pass your mouse over it, an enlarged
picture of that area will be shown. Sometimes it’s just an enlarged image of that particular bit, other times it shows the area
from a different angle.
It sort of helps you see all round, without having to have dozens of pictures of all angles.
As you can see from a few of the highlighted pictures here, one of the advantages of fibreglass is it starts off as a liquid form, so things like the black line and grill can be proper recesses, not just indents. This allows for them to be painted which stays put a lot better than black tape, which after a while tends to peel up.
Also as fibreglass is very strong, the waist belt threads through the actual armour with no fear of it pulling or damaging the slot, as again fibreglass is much more rigid and stronger than ABS. The belt then attaches via press studs to the front section.
So this is the finished set of armour. Stronger and far more durable than ABS, but the downside is it takes far longer to make. A set of all the fibreglass bits can take around 10 days to make from start to finish, compared with an afternoon of vac-formed ABS.
The up side is it will last as long as you want a set of armour, so not a bad trade off.
My aim with the actual belt was to make it pre-curved as being a trimmer trooper; I noticed the ABS belts which are made flat, stuck out more at the front when you bent it round yourself. Having it pre-curved meant it fits without having to do it up really tight, and hence eliminating the sticking out at the front problem. I also made the thermal detonator with a recess to take the buckle, so that while fixing securely in place, the buckle didn’t stick into your back when sitting down.
The blaster was not the hard bit to make, the holster was. Luckily with fibreglass intricate shapes are easy to make, so the
actually part the blaster fits into is shaped perfectly to hold it, right down to the shape of the trigger guard. The detail
on the side also includes the slightly proud ‘L’ detailing, and the detailing on the front which is the bar shaped bit with slats
in it.
The shoulder, bicep, elbow and knees, are perhaps the simplest bits to make, but neither the less, they don’t lack detail. I
tried to make sure they looked as close the screen used items as possible, and as again with fibreglass, things like the slots where
the easiest goes through, are much stronger, and when pulling elastic tight, it doesn’t pull them out of shape.