La Chupacabra

"Battle damaged" Stormtrooper transformation

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Original Trilogy Stormies (sw585 on Bricklink) are still quite expensive, so when I have seen news about 75134 set I was very pleased. How dissapointed I was when I saw "Battle damaged" Stormies on picture which leaked.

I'm huge SW Fan but only OT so I have decided to wipe off "damages"...

I bought Brasso and strong, waterproof masking tape and started my work:

First try:

Before:

23902891806_125004b0fd_c.jpg

After:

23302195393_49367957be_c.jpg

Before:

23561121769_13bc1c9d3b_c.jpg

After:

23846469861_1ee184cfff_c.jpg

Almost finished (comparison):

23561113019_97e39c169f_c.jpg

Edited by Hinckley

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Ho....ly.... Cow. *oh2* So nothing left? The Brasso doesn't warp or disfigure the plastic in any way? This looks awesome, but I can see some of those smaller marks that touch regular printing presenting a problem (like that one below the mouth). But is that gonna stop me from trying this? Heck no. :sweet: Keep us informed!

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No. Plastic is "as new". That "mark thing" under the mouth is original printing. I will wipe that thing also. Those pictures were a quick try to check Brasso and my skills ;)

That wiped off head have a lot of missprints...

Edited by La Chupacabra

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You can also do this with a simple pencil eraser. There was no doubt that those two bigger marks could be removed, but the real question is whether you can remove the one on the air vent (not a mouth). If that one won't come off cleanly then they won't be good replacements for the normal stormtrooper. Also the torso looks a bit more difficult.

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Looks good! Keep us posted as you attempt the torso. It appears that masking tape is very beneficial.

Edited by AFOLguy1970

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It is possible - you must use masking tape with extreme precision.

The most precise method I've found is to use a toothpick dipped into brasso to remove very small or precise areas of printing.

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Kudos to your efforts. I have tried using this technique on some of my custom minifigs. It seems that the most challenging is the printing on air vents. Hope to see the complete make over with every battle damage removed soon.

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Good effort, man. :thumbup: I applaud your courage to attempt this project. Fifteen BPs would give me thirty white Stormies, but I don't know if I want to go through all this trouble thirty times over. :sceptic:

See what you have reduced us to, TLG? Why is it so hard to give us what we want? Your'e good at everything else, but for Pete's sake, would it kill you to include some AFOL input for market research? Maybe have some grownup LEGO fans in your focus groups once in a while? I understand ten-year-old boys make up your LSW target demographic, but ten-year-old boys don't have any money, either. :hmpf_bad:

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I need about one hour for minifigure maybe less but I don't have time now to do it with one single work.

My one year son want to help me too much :wink:

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Great effort! I tried print removal before and I know how hard and time consuming this is. You are doing a great job here.

Might I ask, though... if you are doing this for army building's sake and to add to your stormtrooper collection, why not simply buy set 75078 – Imperial Troop Transport instead? It's the same price and it comes with four regular stormtroopers which you don't need to remove the battle damages from. Is this set not available in Poland? Because here in Austria, there's plenty of them. :classic:

/* Hooray, after years of lurking, it's my first post here today! :laugh:

Edited by Poe Dameron

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Thank you for your kind words. Yes, Im doing it for army building purpose. Set 75078 don't exists for me :blush: I don't like Rebels, only OT counts for me :tongue:

Edited by La Chupacabra

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I can well understand and respect that, I am not too fond of the animated series myself :grin: But as far as I see, the minifigs seem to be identical. TBH, I didn't even realize that it is labeled as rebels until now :look: So I am quite happy with the purchase :laugh:

More on-topic: after removing the print, did you notice any change in the plastic's surface at all? Because when I did print removal from torsos and faces, I ended up with the plastic looking less shiny and a little dull and I don't know how to work around that :look:

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I can well understand and respect that, I am not too fond of the animated series myself :grin: But as far as I see, the minifigs seem to be identical. TBH, I didn't even realize that it is labeled as rebels until now

The Rebels Stormies are drastically different- they have an ugly exaggerated Frowny Face to reflect the goofy way they are portrayed in the animation. This makes them useless as army builders. The only "True Stormtrooper" comes in the Slave I, the ISD, and the 2015 Advent Calendar.

Odds are January 2017 will bring us a Rogue One battlepack with at least one normal Stormie in there. But for folks who want to expand their army now, Brasso modification of the EA troopers is the best foot forward. Many have discussed and speculated on this modification process, but Mr. Chupacabra is the first to actually post the step-by-step Brasso cleanup procedure in detail.

Edited by Darth Caedus

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I see! That's some interesting details right there... I guess I am not that much of a "purist" person in that regard. I don't reall care about the facial expressions... they are wearing helmets after all :D

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With your technique, you could also build up a wide variety of troopers with a lot of battle damage variants, that way you wouldn't need to remove all of the damage from each fig.

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I see! That's some interesting details right there... I guess I am not that much of a "purist" person in that regard. I don't reall care about the facial expressions... they are wearing helmets after all :D

It's not their expression on the face, but rather the mouth vent on the helmet is exaggerated downwards significantly.

sw578.jpg

Lego also chose to do this with TIE fighter helmets. The other Rebels minifigs are fine and don't have cartoony features, unlike TCW minifigs.

Edited by Calanon

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