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TD - Sandtrooper
501st Legion Mos Eisley Police Department:
http://www.mepd.net/.
For help with this costume,
please contact:
TD-252
The sandtroopers in A New Hope wear an almost identical suit to the
well known stormtroopers. However, becoming a sandtrooper is not a
simple case of dirtying up a stormtrooper costume and buying a big
gun. There are a few small differences that must be considered.
We will start with showing a before, and after shot of the suit which comes untrimmed for around
$850 + shipping costs.
Helmet
There are two helmet types in A New Hope, the hero and the stunt
helmet. The hero helmet has only 6 vacuum formed holes in the
mouth, the stunt helmet has 10.
On sandtrooper helmets the grey areas with black outline, the black
chin and the blue stripes are all hand painted. It was only in ESB
and ROTJ that they use stickers for the blue stripes on the
stormtrooper helmets. Note that the sandtroopers don’t have black
stripes in the grey areas under the eyes and on the back.
All the sand troopers have flat greens lenses.
Chest and Back Armour
Next up you see the chest and back. The sandtroopers hold these two
parts together with canvas strips, stormtroopers fasten them with
strips of ABS plastic.
Hand Guards
Here you see the storm/sandtrooper hand parts. The first set are
used by the sandtroopers only and are called ”cheese hands”. Number
two are used by both storm/sandtroopers. The third is the hand Han
Solo wears in A New Hope and the last ones are Empire Strikes Back
stormtrooper hand plates.
Knee plate
The sandtroopers don’t have the same knee as the stormtroopers.
Sandtroopers have a diamond knee aka sniper knee.
Ab Plate
Unlike the stormtroopers, sandtroopers only cover one part of the ab
plate with 3 dots. Some kits come with the correct piece but
sometimes it needs to be made separately.
Weapons
The sandtroopers are most often seen carrying the E-11 and DLT-19
blasters. They were also seen with the T-21 repeating blaster. Most
of the weapons are based on real World War II machine guns. It is
possible to buy the real guns and then modify them but they are
becoming more and more difficult to find and import laws often make
it difficult to get them. There are lots of guides on the internet
for making your own weapons.
Backpack
Here you see the sandtrooper back pack. About 60 % of the pack parts
can be found on various internet sites but the last items you have
to find or make yourself.
Ammo Pouches
 Next comes
the pouches. Again these are based on real World War II ammo
pouches. They come from MP40 pouches. The first three in hte picture
are MP40 pouches from the German army. The last three are Wien
Stolla MP38 pouches. These can often be found for sale on ebay.
Pauldron
The pauldron shows the different sandtrooper ranks There were three
colours/rank in the movie:
Black - Private
White - Sargeant
Orange - Captain
Undersuit
Under all this there comes the under suit. You need a neck piece,
gloves and the undersuit. All of them should be black. On set they
used divers suits but that is very hot. Any tight fitting
long-sleeved black top and trousers will do. They can often be found
on ebay. The neckseal can be made easily at home.
Here is a handy
tutorial.
Boots
Mark Cheng V1 boots are replicas of the Jodhpur riding boots. These
boots are no longer made but can be found via the internet.
Weathering
The thing that really separates the sandtroopers from stormtroopers
is the weathering. You can’t be a sandtrooper without being a bit
dirty. You should use a range of brown shades to get the correct
effect. Here is the paint kit we recommend and you can see that we
have mixed our own sand colours.
 
Here is the complete weathered kit.
 
Voice System
If you would like to sound like the real deal, you need a voice system to
add the static burst. There are lots available from various
electronics stores but the best one is the
ROM/FX kit.
Move a long... Move a long...
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