Luke's Animated Captain Rex Phase II WIP

[Lidocaine]

I really love my TK and being Boba is great, but helping James with his Anovos TK gave me that itch to do another build. I’ve always liked Captain Rex, and the phase II armor is my favorite , and sometimes it’s nice to not lug a Jetpack everywhere… With no crazy deadlines to meet, I'm hoping to actually document most of my build and share my progress...

I’ve ordered most of the parts for the kit and the armor arrives next week, but here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve ordered so far, and what I think of it.

Helmet: KW Designs is the guy for animated phase II clones, should be here next week!

Helmet Fans: EQDizzle – Comes with two small fans and a USB slim battery pack. Really happy with this setup, I tried it out last night in my Fett helmet and the fans are pretty quiet, and the slim battery pack makes fitting it into smaller helmets really nice. Charge lasts about 4 hours, so recharging after each troop is probably a small downside. I bet anyone handy with electronics could build it yourself for cheaper, most of the parts aren't too spendy it seems.


Voice Amp: After seeing a bunch of people use it for their TKs and such, I finally broke down and got the Aker amp and icomm system. Pretty fun so far, and it shouldn’t be too hard to fit into the clone armor. The included Mic isn't the greatest, has anyone found a decent replacement that won't break the bank?

Pauldron: KW Designs

Armor: KW Designs

Kama: I think I’m going to try to do this myself and see if I can enlist some family members to help sew this. Probably attach via Velcro to the belt.

Gloves: Some black Nomex flight gloves from Amazon.

Pistols: Went with Hyperfirm, I love my Hyperfirm E-11 so this was an easy choice. Nice and light, and they should fit the holsters… That’s my only worry so far haha.


Shoes: Might be another homemade item, sounds like the only guy who makes these is really behind on orders and tough to get ahold of. I'm currently looking for some plain white shoes with the right tread pattern and then I’ll cover them in some white vinyl to match the animated clone shoes.

Undersuit: Just reusing my black under suit from my TK here.

Paint: Going to use Rustoleum rattlecans for most of the painting, then weather with some acrylic blacks and greys. Seal with a matte clear coat. Learned my lesson with painting my Fett armor, lots and lots of layers are needed... Going to repaint my Fett armor in a month or so, since some of the colors are showing from underneath already.

[NavySith]

Kevin has a tutorial on imperial surplus about animated clone boots.
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[Sinanju20]

Yay! So exciting! Can't wait to keep seeing photos. Gonna be cool to have a Rex in the group!

[Lidocaine]

Kevin has a tutorial on imperial surplus about animated clone boots.
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Perfect. Thanks Scott!

[CJ49er]

VERY cool Luke!  Excited to watch this build, and who doesn't love Cap Rex?!

[Lidocaine]

Helmet and armor have arrived!

I need to clean all of the plastic, most of it still has some release agent on it.

Pictures of armor to come, but after the troop tonight I'm just too tired/lazy to organize it and take pictures. Here's a fancy hat:

[Lidocaine]

Got a little bit of work done today on Rex's helmet. Lots of dremel tool time in. Still need to a do a ton of sanding an grab a file for the teeth.




Rough cut the cod and butt piece to make sure I'm able to shimmy it on. My wife complimented me on my new diaper.

[CJ49er]

nice!  it is a good looking diaper

[Lidocaine]

I bribed James with lunch and he came over and we had a trimming/fitting mini-party today. Most of the left side of Rex has been trimmed and is ready for glue and made some progress on the chest and back and cod/butt.

It's a tight squeeze into the diaper but it all fits together for now... Picked up some shoes to convert and paint white, might get to that later this week, we'll see...



Lots of work to do on clones, it's impressive.

[Sinanju20]

Aww Yeah!!! So much work, but so much FUN!

[RainTrooper]

Lookin' good, Luke! It's been a while since we've had an animated clone!

[Lidocaine]

Using the link Scott gave me, I picked up the shoes and white vinyl paint and made some progress this weekend! The toes need a little more glue for the center strip, and I need to rivet the plastic pieces to the shoes, but they're pretty close. Might need to cut out the notches a little more too.

We glued the shins, thighs, cod/butt and forearms, biceps and shoulder this weekend. Melting ABS into sludge currently to fill in the seams. Chest/Back need to be joined but we're getting closer.

[Lidocaine]

Slower progress than I'd prefer, but some is better than none.

Running into problems getting the ABS paste to create the seamless look. It's a huge pain to use and I used a bit too much on the thighs. The arms and biceps were easier since they're smaller, but I've got lots of work ahead getting the thighs to look decent.

Here's the load-out so far. A coat of paint on the shoulders and helmet.


Not sure how well it shows up in this picture, but the seams are messy. Hoping that some coarse sanding then followed up by a finer grit will help... Otherwise I'm open to ideas.


Today's small project was getting the insides of the holsters cut and glued in place. This should give the other half of the holster something to glue to. ABS paste the seams once they're together and we're in business!

[Lidocaine]

Bondo saves the day. All of my seams now look 100 times better. Lots of sanding to do in order to prep for paint, but I spent this evening getting the seams a lot better looking.

If anyone else does a clone or a costume I know there's some upsides to using ABS paste, but Bondo is way easier to work with and sand I think... We'll see how it holds up after a year of trooping.

[Pixelito]

How well did the Bondo adhere to the ABS? I've been using Apoxie Sculpt to hide my seams, but with a little flex it seems to pop right off the plastic in some areas. Thinking about swapping over to Bondo in the future.