My Firefly/ Serenity Collection

Alliance Fed Troopers Armor

The Alliance Fed troopers are an example movie costume recycling, and I thought it worked quite well. Although the armor was a huge let down in Starship Troopers because, well, yunno, it was supposed to be nuclear powered armor used by small units, not massed human wave attacks by yelling soldiers. But in Firefly, I felt the SST armor looked fairly business-like, even with the purple accents. One of my favorite pictures of the Alliance Fed troopers is the shot from The Train Job below.

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Even at that, tho’ I recognize the reality limitations of the SST armor. In the close ups below, besides a fierce looking Inara, it is fairly apparent that the sides of the SST helmets come down so low that it isn’t really possible to get any kind of decent cheek-weld for sighting a rifle.

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Blast from the past; here is the first set of armor I ever bought, along with my first gray flathat, and my, as-yet-unpainted, resin slush-cast SST helmet. I’m going to be selling 4 of my 5 SST/ Alliance armor sets, but I have no plans of ever getting rid of my first set. They aren’t the best, but they are “mine”.

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I only ever wore it once, to a Can’t Stop The Serenity event near Philly.

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At that point, I was still trying to sort out the colors. Another collector, Justanuthercap, went with this: “The purple was acrylic folkart Outdoor Metallics 1666 Amethyst. The silver was acrylic Decoart Dazzling Metallics Elegant Finish Shimmering Silver. They're both just the flip top 2 oz. bottles. I sponged on a base of the metallic purple, then a bit of silver, then knocked the silver back down with a light coat of the purple.” I think that looks great and will try it at some point. But for now, my armor looks pretty much like this:

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You know you're just not right when: You own 4 sets of SST/Alliance Fed armor and 5 helmets. You see a great condition set of armor come up on eBay and you think, "If I got that cheap enough that would be a good deal and would go with the 5th helmet", just KNOWING someone will outbid you ('cuz you really shouldn't be spending that right now), and...you win it.....sigh... what........was I thinking?

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I got two and two/thirds sets of armor from eBay, one and one/third sets from Reelclothes and one set from an RPF member. I got three helmets from the RPF, one from Reelclothes on eBay and one from a private owner on eBay.

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And now, with no fan film project to be used for, all that SST/ Alliance costuming just hangs around.

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After all the gritty realism of the Starship Troopers armored Alliance Fed troops and the arch military uniforms designed with influence from Imperial Germany, it was quite a shock to see the huge change in direction that produced purple bling troopers and chrome-plated tin soldiers in the BDM Serenity.

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The runway model purple costumes weren't QUITE as outrageous looking on screen, but the chrome plated troopers with their chrome plated paintball guns NEVER looked right to me. Clunky, clumsy, bright; may as well wear a straight jacket with a target painted on it. And for the uniforms, I mean, seriously, solid purple with black leather accents asymmetrically applied and huge, bright chrome blocks on baseball caps?

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Shoot, ya might as well turn the bill of the caps to side to finish off the look. This is one more instance where I wish the television production people had been brought along to make the movie.

For more practical daily wear, I have two Alliance shirts; the Research and Rescue shirt a purchased item, and a FMT character shirt with all iron-on emblems.

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Alliance Fed Troopers Helmets

Refurbishing SST helmets became sort of a cottage industry for me, for awhile. Every one that I bought needed some kind of work, from mostly simple assembly

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to full on fiberglass repair and reconstruction.

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I made some upgrades after I wore my “B” helmet with no ear holes to the CSTS event. I couldn’t hear diddley. The original SST “A” helmets had Stempel mattress vents in the ear holes so the person wearing the helmet could actually HEAR stuff. I couldn’t find a way to buy a dozen or so of the correct vents so, shoot, I just made my own.

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I also made replacement chinstrap snap mounting hardware for the cheek pieces

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and though I haven’t installed any, I made mics for the helmets that didn’t have them.
(I have one “A” helmet and four “B” helmets.)

Original

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and reproduction.

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Stepping into the Extended Universe side of building Firefly props, several years back I had hopes of filming a Firefly fan film, “Fool Me Twice”. Despite my best intentions, without a winning lottery ticket, that will likely never come to pass. At the time, it was my intention to be able to put 8 armor wearing Alliance troopers on screen in one shot. Five wearing the real SST armor sets that I put together, and three more in the background wearing cut foam armor and home-made helmets. In the TV show Firefly, the Alliance troopers of the War for Independence/ Unification (take your pick) wore WWII German helmets.

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A little too obvious for my taste, so what I came up with was the use of East German helmets to create a sort of bridging design between the WWII German helmets and the SST helmets.

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I used some foam, machined greeblies and paint to create these in-between Alliance helmets.

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I am pretty pleased with the results.

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Although never used in my film, they did make it into the Firefly fan film, “Browncoats: Redemption”.

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and two sets of armor with SST helmets were used in the Firefly fan film, “Cache”.

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When it was all said and done, I had quite the collection of Alliance helmets.

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Alliance Fed Troopers Weapons

The Alliance troopers carried a mix of H&K MP-5 submachine guns and British L-85 bullpup rifles. The MP-5’s felt a little cliché to me, so I latched on to airsoft L-85’s for my troops. When I got them, they were tail heavy, so I opened them up and put a SS weight around the barrel, which balances them pretty nicely, and gets the heft a little closer to real-life.

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Dipping into EU weapons, I built a pair of drum-fed SMG’s for display years ago, and added them to my fictional Alliance unit’s arsenal.

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I added slings to all the weapons (which to my eyes, is a major reality-enhancer for on-screen military weapons) and I added magazine pouches to my L-85 carrying troop and filled them with wood “magazines”, (the cheapest solution I could think of).

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At some point, phillipes obtained a collection of left-over parts for the Foosh rifles from the movie, “The Sixth Day”;

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which is relevant to Firefly because the Foosh rifle was the basis for the Firefly sonic rifle.

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I picked out the parts I wanted,

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and started making all the missing pieces. And there were plenty of missing pieces

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I created scaled drawings by using the known dimensions of the parts I had in hand, creating a scale on a number of various closeups of a real sonic rifle courtesy of collector F-N-S, taking the known dimensions off the parts I had, and then extrapolating the dimension of the parts I had to make.

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During the build process, I kept flip-flopping back and forth between building a straight up replica from the show, or adding my own touch and making an EU military version for my FMT medic to carry. (I think medics carrying non-lethal self defense weapons is an interesting concept.) Facing the amount of extra work, combined with having to change the contours of the cool translucent buttstock (and scrapping the molded rubber buttpad) swung my decision to producing an EU sonic rifle from my Applied Effects production-made parts. (The real sonic rifles were essentially sculpted from a Foosh rifle stunt casting and then molded for Firefly. I ended up with this,

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shown sitting with the L-85 for comparison,

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and a couple other angles, like front ¾,

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back ¾,

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top,

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and a closeup of the emitter.

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From The BDM SERENITY, The Operative

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 7:57 am The first of three Union of Allied Planets, Alliance panels. A little experimenting with layout.

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Next pic, the items inside the frame are arranged basically how I plan to place them. I'll end up cropping the pictures because I believe blank space is almost as important as layout in the composition. The Mal/Zoe display is a little on the busy side, but I felt it works. I haven't decided on a definite background color, yet; maybe black with gray relief panels.

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Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:04 am I've had the Operative sword and Alliance patch display sitting around FOREVER, (well, since Sun May 10, 2009 7:46 am, anyway), so I've gotten tired of moving the pieces around and decided to push on getting them framed. And that's not a small job. Besides all the matte cutting, I built the wooden pockets for the production-made handkerchief and the replica Operative sword. I also machined up a pair of plastic mounting blocks, which I positioned in the wood pocket, and then drilled and tapped them for 8-32UNC flathead screws to hold it all together.

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I'm now in the process of gluing all the layers together to mount in the frame. There is probably another week's worth of work yet to go. The views of the back show some of the work involved in creating a 3-D display.

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Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:27 am The Operative sword and Alliance patch display is all the way done. (One more project scratched off the list.)

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The Story Behind The Display: The Operative and Alliance Emblems The Source Material: After the Firefly series ended prematurely, creator Joss Whedon took his characters to a feature film, the ”Big Dam Movie” SERENITY. The film’s main antagonist was the nameless “Operative” of the Alliance parliament. Basically a black ops assassin, the Operative’s job was to eliminate anyone who might have or remember incriminating evidence that could harm the current regime. The Operative had a space vessel and troops at his disposal, but his personal weapon of choice was a sword. The Display Items: The centerpiece is a replica of the Operative’s sword. This is a very similar katana style sword purchased from eBay. It has one-too-few blood relief holes and the handle was nothing like the movie prop sword. I did not choose to modify the blade, but I did remove the original grips, machine black plastic replacements, cut down twenty-four 4-40UNC stainless-steel socket-head cap screws for the decorative “buttons”, and wrap the handle with string I dyed black. The black bandanna is an actual production-made item from the BDM SERENITY. It has a single Alliance emblem in one corner. Attached is a COA (Certificate of Authenticity) from the Prop Store of London.

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The patches are a combination of officially licensed products and fan-made items. The multi-colored “hawk-on-the-worlds” patch and the red security patch are commonly available licensed patches. The purple and silver rank patch and the blue security patches were created by a fan group shortly after SERENITY’s release to mimic the patches worn on character Jayne Cobb’s “resume shirt”. The blue Tri-Planet patch was a licensed patch meant to mimic Jayne’s resume shirt patch, but because it was made from pre-production art that wasn’t used, the wording was incorrect to screen-used.
 
BDM Alliance Laser Weapons

And just like the massive silver blocks on the baseball caps, every military designer knows you can never get enough shiny chrome on a uniform; especially combat uniforms. So, the armored bling-troopers are covered in chrome, carrying chrome weapons. And of course, the rifles glow, just in case you might acquire ANY cover in a low light situation. Not in my collection, but this is a picture I took of my TV while viewing “American Pickers”, where Mike and Frank find a prop collector in Florida who had a BDM Serenity chrome laser rifle in his collection. (They didn’t buy it, either.)

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There was at least a LITTLE more story logic that the security personnel guarding Area 54 Project Oracle would carry chrome laser pistols.

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My replica Alliance pistol was built by propmaster2000 and put on eBay. Like some of the Led Zeppelin bootlegs I've purchased from eBay, the listing was removed for some violation. I'm not sure if it was a VERO violation of intellectual property or whether it was for the no orange plug in a weapon with no opening for a barrel. Either way, the listing was pulled once, so when it was relisted, I used the same bootleg-acquiring technique of contacting the seller while the listing was live, so that I could recontact him after it was closed. When the auction was canceled a second time, I offered the builder my max bid and he accepted. I really don't like the converted chrome paintball guns as military weapons, but this is a beautifully done piece that I'm happy to have in my collection without going through the bother to build it myself.

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A little while ago, the Propstore of London offered a production-made, but apparently not screen-used, Alliance holster that looked like it would fit the paintball pistol. They had also been offering the energy packs/batteries/ammo capsules. Both were very reasonably priced (as viewed through the lens of my budget), so I went ahead and got them. I like the holster because it makes the pistol look more realistic. Combined with the ammo holder and the illusion is complete; a logical weapon with the means to bring it to use.

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Independent Soldiers

By way of a disclaimer, nearly all my Independent collection was obtained/ created with the idea of being a part of my stillborn Firefly fan film, “Fool Me Twice”. Because of that, the majority of my Independents displays are a melding of a few, seen-on-Firefly, items with extended-universe props and costumes. All the FMT costuming was aimed at showing post-war Browncoats, who had held on to some of their wartime clothing, gear and weapons. When my son and I decided to attend the Farpoint convention in 2013, I combined my Independent display helmet, an Independent ex-general’s coat, another Independent ex-officer’s weapon and bandoleer and a cut up 3X red T-shirt to make the Independent soldier seen here.

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The costume was a success; but the coat was heavy, and as the day wore on, the costume got “lighter”. The weapon was made for FMT character Buddy Lee Creek. I'm a big proponent of the idea that signature characters should sometimes be augmented by signature costumes, props and/ or weapons. Buddy Lee's weapon, which I have described as "an AK on steroids" was in my possibilities-projects pile for over twenty years. It started out as meant to be a belt-fed, Light Squad Automatic weapon. Changed a few times over the years, once I decided on a role for it in the Firefly 'verse, the design went to its final morph with the Bren magazine and red-dot scope. (Here is a picture of it taped together after I decided on its Firefly configuration.)

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And a finished (tho’ still not weathered) view of the opposite side.

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The weapon displayed with Buddy Lee’s rifle is not an Independents military weapon, but a little, silenced carbine I made for another FMT character, Quintan Shang. I felt that Quintan Shang should carry a somewhat flashy, somewhat shiny, but still capable of looking pretty lethal, little weapon. I don’t know if I’d exactly call it “feminine”, but I had a VERY specific vision that Quintan would carry a silenced, revolver, pistol carbine. I bought a Denix Schofeld break-open replica and salvaged the cut off stock from my Zoe mare's leg. I modified the frame to accept my oak Mal pistol grips. A little of this and a little of that…..and I ended up with EXACTLY what I had envisioned. Now THAT doesn't happen too often! Even the small sling and stainless steel sling swivels are perfect. As the final capper, I found a beat up old mutton leg shotgun case that fits the (non) gun perfectly. Very satisfying project!

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Patches and Emblems, Browncoats
Independent Units


One of the scenes in “Fool Me Twice” was meant to take place in a not-Alliance-friendly bar, as I referenced on page one of the thread. In addition to the shot-up and graffiti-ed Serenity Valley poster that is a part of the Serenity Valley display, I also planned to build a number of Independent units displays. Very little was shown on-screen, so the bulk of this rather extensive collection is extended universe; from sources both official and fan-created.

First up would be a mentioned on-screen unit, Mal and Zoe’s 57th Overlanders.

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In the TV pilot episode, Badger disparagingly referred to the 57th as the “Balls and Bayonets Brigade”; but even though some fans have created artwork with that motto, I always considered it an insult and not an official motto; so I never acquired any 57th items with a B&BB logo. All that the audience DID see on-screen were the triangular rank patches. And they were sewn on in both directions, point-up and point-down. (Mal’s was sewn on triangle point up – star in the middle, point down.) Both Joss Whedon and costumer Shawna Trpcic have confirmed that this was a, rush-of-production, seamstress error. The Independents rank patches were supposed to be displayed triangle point-down, star point-up; but this is still a point of Browncoat fan contention. The patches in my 57th grouping are the accurate to screen-used, printed patches produced by Firefly prop collector, Badger. That includes a back view of the patch that Mal pulls off the Lieutenant’s coat for the radio authorization code. The 57th logo seen on the certificate and the patch is an extended universe design created by BDM designer Geoffrey Mandel. The certificate is an official Qmx/ Lootcrate release, but the patch is fan-made, with official input and approval. The two rectangular patches are both fan-made works by a Browncoat who popped onto the forums, produced the patches, and then disappeared. I also have two challenge coins to incorporate into the display; maybe add some ribbon and turn them into campaign medals.


I guess the next display to feature would be the officially sanctioned (entirely extended universe) Independents 12th Cavalry, created by Qmx. As seen below, the artwork created by Geoffrey Mandel was turned into (the back of) a T-shirt and two patch releases. I wrote a review on the Qmx site that first patch, while nice, was a smaller size and the colors weren’t quite as vibrant and impact-ful as the original artwork. Qmx responded by releasing a second, larger patch that better presented the (I thought) very cool artwork. So I have both patches, and I tried to combine them with some rank patches that I felt matched. The little flags are from the 2017 Browncoat Ball, part of the Independents-themed Friday night mixer decorations.

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As part of the 12th Cavalry creative process, Qmx head, Andy Gore wrote a piece of Firefly Fan fiction about a gunboat Firefly after discussions with series ship designer Timothy Earls. He had Geoff Mandel create nose art for the ISV Cerberus that became the front of the 12th Cav T-shirt.

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Sean Kennedy, who had designed a number of CGI ships for the Firefly fan film “Bellflower”, designed some digital art wallpapers of the Cerberus, and also a Qmx poster to be sold.

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And here’s a piece of interesting intersectional trivia: If you check out the female soldier seen in the poster detail pic, you’ll see that she is a direct lift from a photo of an IDF female soldier, right down to the 90-degree double mag holder on her M-16!

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There are still some images and some info about the 12th Cavalry and the ISV Cerberus on the Firefly ship works page, tho’ navigation is a bit of a challenge.




Moving on to fan-created EU Independents units, I created the display board below for the 2017 BCB mixer decorations. (Pieced together out of two pictures in the name of glare reduction.) The patch and info grouping to the left of the display are representative of the Utah Firefly fans, the line of three patches in the middle are real world patches that I felt looked the part of in-’verse artwork, and the top two patches on the right were created for a Firefly Freefall airsoft LARP played out in Wisconson.

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Local Browncoat fan group, the Utah Browncoats created the 47th Division as part of the 4th Independent Interplanetary Forces. Gonzo Firefly graphics whiz Yellowjacket is the driving force behind the designs of the 47th and its various Brigades. The patches were made for ‘verse-building and costuming, and Rogue Digital filmed a promo short for the local CSTS on a 47th camping outing.


At some point I will create a 47th display using some of the still shots taken out in the amazing Utah landscape.
The center row of patches are from here-and-now, Earth-That-Was, real world sources, with the top two patches being Taiwanese in origin, and the bottom patch being a Vietnam era patch. These will be divided up into other displays at some point, essentially meant to be background filler.
The Atraxia patch and 117th Red Hand patches were created for the Firefly Freefall airsoft LARP. An Alliance patch was also created for the group, with the patches used for promotion, fund-raising, and in-game character building.

I went searching on eBay for anything 'verse-y patch-wise, and found a cool little fire-breathing dragon patch. I got it and it really looked good with my Independents helmet. If you look carefully, they can be seen in front of the two Independents helmets.

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I bought a bunch more of the fire-breathing dragon patches to use on some Independent's gear. I searched that same seller and found phoenix, griffon and crab patches I liked. They can be (barely) seen down the right side of an earlier collection picture.

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I'll be putting the dragon patch on the back of my helmets and incorporate the set in a framed display of some type. I figure I have as much right as anyone to grow the EU Firefly 'verse, since nothing official is going on.

Independent Medical Units

The Independents Medical patches are largely the brainchild of Yellowjacket, with some input from the members of the fireflyprops.net forum.

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The two “rank” patches on the lower left are meant to indicate; medic or nurse-tan corner, doctor-red corner. Keeping these simple was a topic for discussion on ffprops, for both military reasoning and making it viable to do a patch run. The 98th Medical and 172nd Medical were Yellowjacket’s designs, the 77th Medivac was my contribution. The large Red Cross was created to serve two goals; one, to be a large “Medic” image for combat uniforms, and two, to be a counterpoint to the large Alliance caduceus medical emblem as seen in the Firefly episode, “Ariel”. Being a graphic artist, Yellowjacket was compelled to make some documentation to go with the patches. I forgot the function of the small square and shield patches, but creator Yellowjacket let me know that, "You mention the small square and shield patch in the thread. These are from a film project concept that hasn't been turned into anything yet. They are insignia patches from the 'Paladin', deployed as part of a medical vanguard for the Independents. The Paladin is a small frigate that ran the orbital blockade at Shadow and protected departing civilian vessels just prior to the bombardment." So, it looks like the Paladin patches need to go with Independent units rather than medical. The Ariel Ambulance patch is from a crowdfunding campaign; I'm still debating whether it belongs with this grouping...

There are still other EU projects on the horizon, but as the original run of Firefly and the BDM Serenity recedes further into the past, the less active the fandom is in general.
 
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Firefly Alliance Law Enforcement

Firefly Police as seen on the Eavesdown Docks in the TV pilot, Serenity.

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I was recently lucky to get one of these helmets from a member here on the RPF.
It needs a little work as far as the liner and a chin strap, but the outside looks show-ready!
IIRC, the patch was the work of Keelhauler and Yellowjacket; or maybe Sean did this one on his own. I'm not sure, but if somebody fills me in on the correct origins, I'll make sure this description is corrected.
The jacket is just for display. I may or may not invest a little more time and effort to correct the uniform. Likewise with the weapons; I haven't been doing much new and only a little bit towards finishing the many incomplete projects I already have.

The sheriff's jacket shown here is one from FMT.
Not exactly screen-accurate, but true to the feeling of the source material.

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From Left to Right:
The badge on the left is one that film industry professional Badger cast from a screen-used example, and the badgeholder was likewise made by him.
In the center, the top badge is pinned to the jacket and is one of two I got from Etsy. The resin is infused with brass powder and will polish up a bit, or so the listing said. I haven't bothered to polish it yet, because it is mostly stored away.
The two resin Sheriff's badges were cast by Blad many moons ago. I bought three of his badges and painted one in silver and steel for a Lt. Womack type Fed badge. These other two are waiting for a suitable project.
Finally are the two patches. The upper one is affixed to the jacket, the lower one is more accurate to the original pre-production artwork, but I had already bought a number of the upper style and attached them to two FMT character jackets, so I was committed. The un-used one will possibly end up in a display.
 
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Firefly Alliance Emblems, All

This is a grouping of all the TV series emblem-ology I could find for a group picture. (You know how it goes; some time from now I'll find another one or two I should have included...)

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First is a far-away shot that shows off the Alliance flag I found. This flag is based off the little emblems found on the medicine containers from the episode "The Train Job", rather than the actual Sino-American flag that was created. Not sure of the "why" on that choice, but it is literally the only TV series Alliance flag I've seen, so I latched on to it.

After that is a slightly better close-up.

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The six Sheriff's emblems are a repeat from above.
The next row is the Sino-American flag patch, The Eavesdown Docks police patch, and the cast from screen-used Alliance Fed badge.
Next are the Alliance Fed trooper shoulder patches, the red and yellow Alliance symbol seem on the walls of a police station and on the IAV Dortmunder city ship. Below that are two cast from screen-used TV series Alliance badges. The small one has a double pin back, and was used for hats and collars. The larger one was used for a throat emblem and in a holder on a belt, if I saw that right.
Below the two pins is a Yellowjacket created patch that was seen as a shoulder patch and on the Italian bustina style hat that some crewmen were seen wearing. On the far right are two pressed leather patches and the Delrin tool used to make them. I got these from Badger, also.

At the bottom are patches to be used in FMT. I found the dragons and "Honor" patch on eBay, and I had the velcro-backed IAV Dortmunder name tag made for the armor. My plan was to use the small dragons for temporary shoulder patches for the lead character's unit, and to use the removable cog-and-lightning shoulder patch for the "bad-guy" commander's unit. I had (I have sold three and am selling one more) 5 sets of SST Alliance armor and I had three East German helmet/ crude foam background armor sets. This meant I could have shown 8 Alliance troopers on screen at one time, and a total of 13 individual troopers would have been seen. To paraphrase Led Zeppelin; What is and what will never be.

BDM SERENITY Alliance emblems, All

Shown on the purple back ground are Simon's baton and a spare topper, a couple of challenge coins, five different styles of Alliance patches, rank patches, an Alliance med patch, Alliance pins cast from screen-used by a Browncoat named Tammy, an Alliance key ring, and EU patches; the Vargo is from a Firefly LARP and the Twelve Star Police patches are from the "security" at the Salt Lake City Browncoat Ball. The swatch of purple fabric under the two Alliance patches is supposed to be a duplicate of the material used to make the uniform Simon wore in the BDM.

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The security patches on the lower right are the left overs from the ones I placed in my Operative display.
 
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Firefly Blue Sun

I wonder if anyone here remembers the old days of Propcircle? It was another prop website that was the playground for talented graphics artist Whitefall, aka Ben Mund. As I mentioned earlier, Whitefall posted a number of paper props including money, telephonix cards, maps, star maps and Mal pistol cutaways. There were also a TON of Blue Sun products posted by a number of contributors now, unfortunately, unremembered by me. HOWEVER! ; at the 2017 Browncoat Ball a Firefly fan, tiamdala aka Maer (short for Mary), passed on all her old Propcircle files to me on a thumbdrive, and they were all sorted by contributor. Amazing... So, I think I can properly credit the originators of the graphics shown here.

On to the collection:
The graphics shown here are from one of the SusQ Brigade (of the PA Browncoats) shindigs. The theme was loosely "Live Life With Blue Sun". I offered Pepsi and Mountain Dew wrapped in the labels shown below, and I had a number of empty boxed products laying around, like the cards and cigarettes shown below. I remember these not creating as immersive an experience as I anticipated, and so I never bothered again. But I still think they are pretty cool. These are a few of a number of different Blue Sun paper prop products.

First is the cola label created by namebrand, which I wrapped around a Pepsi bottle because it had the blue cap. For the life of me I can't remember what size, but I'm pretty sure it was bigger than the 500ml size.

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Then, because Mountain Dew was (actually still is, but I had to switch to diet) the only soda I drink, I modified the label to a Blue Sun Caffeinated Citrus Drink.

Blue%20Sun%20Mountain%20Dew_zpsfkjcx1ow.jpg


The playing card box is my modification of a design that might have been by starfighter66. The original had Blue Sun, Alliance and Independents emblems on it, and I felt that both Alliance and Independents wouldn't be on the same product. (I can see Blue Sun supplying both sides during a war, but not marking their products as such.)

blue%20sun%20CardBox02_zpsocik9ahq.jpg


And then two cigarette boxes (even though none of us smoked), one by blubeetle3

blue%20sun%20cigs%20style%2001_zpsb0avuk3x.jpg


and one by phoenixvader

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I also acquired a number physical Blue Sun items over the years, including pins, patches, notepads and bags.

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The regular Blue Sun patches are source-unremembered, but the postal and equinox patches are from Yellowjacket.
The patch and two pins shown on the yellow notepad sheet were meant for a Blue Sun lab coat, with the patch on the chest and the pins on the collars.
Likewise, I think at least one style of the coffee bags are from Yellowjacket, and the generic Blue Sun bag is from the now-gone Blue Moon Stuff.
 
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Firefly Business

That's Firefly/ Serenity business that ISN'T importing, exporting or smuggling.

To start off, we've got EU patches for mining companies.

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Tiamdala and Yellowjacket are responsible for patches and back stories for mining operations on three different planets.

I bought some Fruity Oatey Bar shirts, but that hasn't worked out all that well. The first shirt with the simple graphics is just, well, kinda dull. But I got it when nothing much was available. The second licensed shirt is made of such incredibly thin material, it is only fit to wear on 90 degree days, plus the graphics are kind of washed out.

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Now I have to do a little more digging to see what other 'Verse business entities I can uncover.
 
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Firefly/ Serenity Transportation including Firefly Shipworks

The first batch of items are inspired by the episode, "The Train Job".
In that episode, the crew robs a hover train, artifacts for which are shown below.

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In addition to the Sean Kennedy print from a CSTS event and the Yellowjacket patch and paperwork shown here, I also made tickets for Malcolm and Zoe Raymond and a baggage claim stub that I included in the Zoe display. These are modifications of someone else's work from the propcircle days.

Altrans%20tickets_zps7aeyyruv.png


To be found back at the Eavesdown Docks on Persephone is small-time crook Badger's front company, TG Freight.
Included is Badger's Flamingo pin, a signature Easter egg from costumer Shawna Trpcic.
To the lower left is the leather folder and boarding pass from the FOX Firefly promo crate. I honestly can't remember if the pilot's license is fan-made or part of the FOX promo set, but the patches are definitely Yellowjacket creations.
Essendon Docks would be a location from the Firefly fan film, Bellflower.

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From back in the early days of unlicensed Firefly merchandise, Blue Moon Novelties had a number of the nicest items, including the TG Frieght T-shirts, hoodies, and a laundry bag. The laundry bag is still packed away, but here is the hoodie and one of the five T-shirts I bought, and subsequently wore out! I washed them inside out to preserve the graphics, but the underarms tore out of them (and really, all my shirts that are over six years old and worn a lot). But I can't bring myself to trash them, thinking I can find a way to repair them and wear 'em some more. I've looked for replacements, and never found any where the graphics are as nicely done.

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Then, taking to the sky, are Firefly-class mid-bulk transport drawings and blueprints.
First are the real ship; a set in a movie studio. The bigger drawings are copies of the production drawings from the the same source as the Niska Skyplex drawings, the roughly half-scale prints are copies of the promo crate drawings, and the photo is the back cover of the small QMx prints and drawings booklet.

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And then the drawings for the "real" ship

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as we the audience saw her. The QMx reference pack is a nice presentation and fairly handy size version of the 10 blueprint set that they sold. I did have one of the blueprint sets, but sold it because I knew I would never hang them, and they were a pain to un-roll to look at. The smallest booklet is a Lootcrate item, and actually the handiest of all. The data plates are the work of namebrand and sold many, many moons ago.

Display%2013%20Firefly%20Ship_zpsflmheafp.jpg


Well, those space craft don't build and fix themselves, so there are patches and plates for the shipworks. I'm not sure what type of ship the Timpanogos is, and the Capissen 38 is dissed by Kaylee and seen in Bellflower.

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and EU patches for the mechanics and systems servicers who keep those Fireflies flyin'.

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and I had the start of two costumes for the worker/ card players for a scene in FMT. They were to represent to technical specialties at the shipyard; in orange a sort of general life support tech,

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and in yellow, a radion core tech.

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I was also working on a TG Freight material handler, but he fell by the wayside with the discontinuation of the project.

Finally are a couple of EU-but-still-fit-in-the-'verse T-shirts; one for the salvage yard where Mal got Serenity, and one for a United/ Pan-Am/ Firefly mash up.

DSCN1839_zpsrgr04evh.jpg
 
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OK, I've been totally delinquent in responding to the folks who have reacted to my re-posting of the Firefly/ Serenity collection thread. I'm absolutely awful at the Facebook-style liking and replying. Also, like nearly everyone else, I just haven't been very active in the Firefly prop world. Every now and then something sparks some interest and I'm active for a short burst (like now) and then everything else pushes Firefly to the back burner. I do want to thank everyone for the positive reactions, and it has been nice to see some of the names I remember from the heyday of Firefly/ Serenity prop and costume collecting.
 
Nice collection.
The "Eavesdown Docks helmet " is the helmet we made for the Kurt Russell move "Soldier".
Thanks!
And yup, the helmet is rental item originally created for "Soldier". On Firefly, Global Effects also supplied the space suits. The crew suits were modified "Soldier" suits and the yellow space suit that Jayne (Adam Baldwin) wore was originally used by Dolph Lundgren in a film ("The Peacekeeper"?). I wonder what other Firefly items were supplied by Global Effects?
 

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