Completed AP-helmet and comparison with TM

Today I finished the ears and attached them on the AP helmet, and took some comparison photos when I came home.

The ears on the AP-kit are really easy to trim as the have trim-lines that match up pretty good with the finished contour, so I got done with them pretty fast.
I have to say I really like the AP-helmet, it gives me a really good stormtrooper-feeling.
Too bad I can't keep it (well, I can if I want to, but I made it with other things in mind...).

Completed helmet back at Trondheim Armor Factory (our workshop).

Comparison with a Troopermaster-helmet.
Some differences in assembly, but they have been assembled pretty close, one of the big differences being how the ears are trimmed. I kind of prefer the slimmer trim on the AP ones actually.

TM on the left, AP on the right.

I'm really considering buying a RS-helmet next month though...
I've been bitten by the helmet-building-bug.

Building up an AP-helmet

Today i built up an AP-helmet in the course of only a few hours.
Mads helped out by trimming out the ears roughly.
I decided to use the decals that came with the kit and the non-accurate mictips/aerators.
The only things I had to paint was the frown, vocoder and earbumps, which was done in a jiffy.

Only finetrimming and attaching the ears remains, then it is a finished helmet, ready for use.
The downside (and the reason I decided to use decals and non-accurate mictips/aerators) is this helmet is maybe going to become a lampshade at my workplace, paid for by my boss.
I thought it wouldn't be a problem to just build up a helmet and give it to my workplace, but I became a little attached to it...

Looking forward to build the next helmet though!
I really want to get an RS-helmet and build it up as a replica stunt helmet with khaki undercoat and paintchips and the works.

Here are the helmets as is, AP on the left, my TM on the right:

And here's the helmet propped up on the barcounter:

Birthdaytroop at Bari in Trondheim

We were asked to appear at a childrens birthdayparty.
The birthdayboy was nine and a huge Star Wars fan, and the whole birthday was Star Wars themed, with all the kids being dressed in jedi robes, with lightsabers, posters and cardboard standees, Clone Wars on a big-screen and Star Wars music on the speakers.

As I live only a few hundred metres away from the venue, I put on my suit at home and walked through the streets, with only a few people stopping to take pictures, this nice sunny sunday morning.

Our job was to enter the room, deliver a blaster as a gift to the birthdayboy, mingle a little bit, then go outside for a groupshot with all the kids and us four attending troopers, The weather was nice, the kids behaved as well as kids their age should and it was a sweet troop all in all.
The father of the boy was a chef and made burgers for the troopers afterwards.
A nice and short troop!

Troop at Toys'R'Us

Hasbro wanted  the presence of the Nordic Garrison at all (most) of the Toys'R'Us stores in the Nordic countries for the release of new toys to coincide with the release of The Phantom Menace 3D at the movies, and we were only happy to oblige!

So february 20. I took the buss with Aiwei up to the Toys'R'Us in Trondheim where we met up with the other troopers and entered the storage room which became our makeshift changingroom.

We trooped around the store for FOUR hours, with small breaks in between, both to eat and just take a breather.

We had a nice time and did some shenanigans, both amongst ourselves and the kids that were there.

This is what a trooperlunch looks like:

And here we see the rare occurrence of a trooper that has cast his shell, straight from behind the scenes in the seventies (or so it might seem):

Groupphotos!

Premiere of The Phantom Menace in 3D at Nova kino

Trondheim kino contacted us to do a troop for the release of Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D.

Me and Aiwei stood inside the theatre with a picture of the Death Star corridors on the screen and a soundloop of Death Star hum and trooperchatter playing in the background. The rest of the troopers were in the entrance hall welcoming people and taking pics.

A short and sweet troop, and at the end the employees thanked us for our service and some swag was given out by drawing ticket stubs out of a helmet and the winner being picked at random.

Pictures courtesy of Trondheim Kino

Release of Street-magazine Natt & Dag at BrukBar

Natt & Dag had done an article on Mads Eriksen and Nordic Garrison, and had him on the cover.
We were asked to troop at a pre-release at my workplace february 2., so I arranged a small troop.
Here is a link to the article itself (in Norwegian): http://nattogdag.no/artikler/5423/stormflo

We ended up being 10 troopers, well over what the manager initially had envisioned when he first asked me if we might get a few troopers to maybe stand guard. We swamped the place!
Around 20:00 we took a freight-elevator from downstairs to up, and got a photographer to take a group-photo of us before entering BrukBar, the same photographer was there on other official business but followed us most of the time, taking lots of photos, which will be made available to us.

The troop went great, and we had two Sandtroopers awaiting approval having their first troop, both of which looked great, and had a good time. :D

The only "major" task we had was to hand out editions of the paper Natt & Dag, but the paper was late, and didn't arrive until 21:50 (or thereabouts), so we ended up waiting around for it and when it eventually came, we got a few editions each and handed them out to other guest, then we slowly retreated back to our chamber of solitude.

Another thing to note was that there was a great deal of people that are very active on twitter that attended the event, and twitter went wild the couple of hours we were there, official 501st even re-tweeted a video that was filmed at the beginning of the troop when we were outside taking photos with guests: "501st Legion in Trondheim looking for some droids": http://youtu.be/S3XUgvcplcU

All in all a great troop with a lot of exposure!

Star Wars in Concert

In january I travelled to Oslo to attend Star Wars in Concert, where Oslo Philharmonic were visited by conductor Lucas Richman and performed music from all six Star Wars films.
I had my first troop outside Trondheim, and got to meet a lot of new people and had an awesome time.

The troop took place over the course of two days, and day one we met up early to rehearse a few things, mainly entering the theatre to the end of the imperial march, and escorting Vader up to the podium to deliver flowers to Richman at the end of the performance, both of which went great and were well recieved by the audience!

We mingled with the audience before and after the show, there was also a pause in the middle of the performace where we mingled with the audience, and on day one we caused the concert to get delayed because people couldn't get enough of us. :D

I found a random picture of me with a person I don't remember taking a picture with (there were a lot of pictures taken at the venue!), and I had a hard time recognizing it was me, as me and another trooper look almost identical, with the same armormaker and Centurion-grade build, but thanks to a small blob of glue on the coverstrip on the left thigh I managed to see it was me.
Edit: The person in the picture turns out to be Sara, who has later become a member of Nordic Garrison herself!

After the concert on the second and last day we went to a party at a long-time member and Star Wars-afficionado deluxe, I have never seen such a collection with my own eyes.
All in all a great troop, and fun to meet new people!