The boots are prepped
for the leg armor. I'm using 21st Century's boots because they're so ugly.
In order to keep the armor from being too bulky, I cut out the bright
green panels and replaced them with fabric. This will make the boots more
compressible. In addition, I've cut out the front lace section to make
it easier to put the boots on. Since this will be covered by armor, I
don't care about beauty-- I've made a metal "staple" closure using piano
wire.
03/10/98- The leg armor
was fun to make. The knee piece is connected to the front piece with flexible
vinyl, and has a working buckle (with a tine) made out of brass wire.
The back piece has some flexible vinyl extensions glued to the edges.
The front piece has straps glued to the inside and they connect on the
other side with some of those styrene box buckles. These are short rectangular
channels into which the styrene "tongue" is inserted: The buckle is held
closed by friction. The boxes are made out of 4 strips of styrene, and
glued with Tenax ("Space-Age Plastic Welder"). This makes a stronger
buckle than Superglue, since it actually dissolves the styrene at the
joint. When it hardens, it's strong enough to withstand the pressure that
the tongue is exerting. The friction box buckle is not an ideal fastener
(since it will wear down), but a hidden hook fastener would have added
more bulk and looked weird. Besides, (as I said) it was fun to make.
03/12/98- An artsy shot
of the helmet's rear armor panels and (barely visible) the front armor
panel. The rear panels were done like the rest of the armor-- clay sculpts,
cast in rigid resin. (They're too thick, but what the heck.) They're attached
by vinyl straps. The front panel was formed by heating clear packaging
plastic (heat gun) and stretching it over a stock helmet (a poor man's
vacu-former?). The piece is then trimmed and glued to the helmet. There
are a few rivet details missing (shoulderpads & helmet armor) that I intend
to add later. 
03/13/98- The helmet-mounted
camera, as near as I can guess it to be. So far I've used up a huge chunk
of time scanning through the videotape trying to flesh out details--I'm
getting a little sick of the film! Although there is a closeup of the
camera in the film, it's only good for filling in a few details. Unless
you integrate that shot with other views, you're liable to misinterpret
the distortion inherent in that closeup. In other words, I saw what I
could, and made up the rest.
03/14/98- Here's the
helmet's comm assembly. Lots of good reference pictures for this thing...
I dunno, it's not as much fun if it's too easy, so I lazily slapped this
together. The unit is two sections (outer and inner) sculpted in clay
and cast in resin. The outer section should be thinner and have a more
rounded & "stamped metal" look-- I think the vented section looks too
separate from the outer flap. The microphone is constructed of a brass
wire and...(you guessed it)... brass parts from a Bic lighter. And no,
I didn't hinge the earflap... 
03/15/98- More helmet
work... I added the "infrared eyepiece" which is the black thing tucked
up into his helmet in the front. I refuse to swivel it down, because it
looks really dumb. It's a piece of textured clear acetate, tinted
red, with an engraved reticle. The frame is painted on it, and it swivels
down with a corner pin. Yuck. However, this picture also shows the comm
assembly from the front with some paint added. The "ear foam" is a rubber
O-ring. Also, notice my attempt to "foam-coat" the microphone. Real ground
foam would have been too coarse, so I grabbed my electric razor and removed
some of the unnamed organic matter contained within, and mixed it with
black paint. Gross, huh? You can also see that the camera lens really
does look shiny, like a lens. I also put some more curvature into the
back helmet armor, but you can't see it here... 
