Bucket Visor, Ears, and Weathering

So since the last post, I've painted on the visor, ears, and kill stripes, as well as does some general weathering and micro damage. I feel like Boba gets into a lot of scraps grabbing bounties all the time, so his helmet needs to be pretty beat up. I think I may have put more damage on there than any other bucket I've seen, but I like what I did with it.

For the visor, first applied mustard over silver (per usual) sprayed with grey. Scratched that off and applied mustard again. The red I used Rusto Cabernet, misted with flat black.

The ears are the first layer of Rusto Aluminum I laid down, taped off, and then misted with flat black. After, I attacked it with 80 grit sandpaper. Those will need some silver touch ups.

After all that painting, I started on the weathering. You can see what I mean about the intense scratches, I hit this dome with sandpaper everywhere, x-acto blade, I haven't done the gravel yet. I also used white and black acrylic paints and a paper towel, to get the darker and lighter areas. You can see that the most on the cheeks. I used pure white, and I should have mixed it darker before I put it on, but the black turned out nice. "Scorch marks"

My dad suggested putting a blowtorch to it, but I don't know how it would react with the paint. The helmet would be okay to a certain degree. Aluminum has a low melting point though. So I opted out of that, maybe I'll try it some day.

Here's my method for the kill stripes. The paint reacted bad, so I'm going to have to find a way to touch that up. My stripes are .25x1 inch each, and ROTJ he has 18 of them on his helmet.

This is frog tape layered on wax paper. Drew the stencil on, cut out the black areas that I wanted to paint, and then peeled it off and (painstakingly) put it on the helmet.

My Man of War jetpack is in the mail, so I will finally be getting that Monday. I'm pretty excited, to say the least. That is going to be the most daunting part of this entire build.

-Berry

Helmet Dome, Cheeks, Back, Mandibles. And crappy gauntlets.

Alright, so here's what I've got on my helmet so far. I first cut out the visor with a dremel tool and the taped it off. The inside of my helmet already has a layer of black to keep it dark so people can't see your face as well, so I didn't really want to get paint on that. You can also see my chop shop spray booth. It's literally a bunch of cardboard in my garage.

For some reason, my garage is also infested with hornets so I don't actually go in there anymore at the moment....


I sprayed the whole helmet with primer, and then a layer of Rusto Aluminum. I decided to do the cheeks and dome first, so I taped everything else off with frog tape, and then applied my liquid mask to the parts I wanted to show through as the "metal". I used mustard. Yes, you read that right. A lot of people use Vaseline, toothpaste, mustard, or actual liquid mask. I use mustard because when it dries it flakes off when you scrape it, which is the effect I want. Liquid mask kind of shrinks up on appliance because of the type of surface it's getting put on. I sprayed a grey colour over that, and here it is with the mask wiped off. I didn't like the grey I put on it, so I ended up spraying it with primer later on. I like the grey the primer comes as.

 

 

 After that, I put another mustard layer down, and then sprayed a base of Rusto Camouflage Army Green, and then misted heavily with Rusto Spruce Green and Flat Black. Then scraped off the mustard, and ta da!

I also got my 4x20 scope in, you can see that in progress down next to the helmet. It's not a genuine ASI, but it's pretty close. Still functional, I'm weathering it to match the gun. I'm still debating on buying an actual replica kit though. Just so pricey.

 

 

Next are the mandibles and the back. Once again, taped off, mustard mask. Sprayed grey, scraped. Mustard mask. On this one, I used Rusto Hunter Green, with some Spruce and Flat Black misting. I'm really happy with how this layer turned out. Here's the mustard if you still don't believe me.

  There's going to have to be some touch ups, I will do all of those after I finish spraying down all the layers. I will also have to go back and add some more weathering so make the helmet look more beat up. But it's coming along well. Only about 4 or 5 more layers of paint on this boy and it's soon finished!

On to the crappy gauntlets. I ordered some gauntlets from a guy whom I was told makes reputable props. And then I got THIS in the mail.

 

Obviously, I was not happy with the quality of what I got. The gauntlet halves (not pictured) are all vacuum formed plastic, which were VERY different sizes. One gauntlet is about 4 times bigger than my arm, where as the other is only twice as big. I can't do much about it, I already decided I'm getting another pair, and have already contacted Christian from Man of War about one of his sets. I'm already impressed with his work I've got, so I'm going to be surprised if it's not high quality.

I'll still probably paint these gauntlets up as best as I can and sell them for a super reduced price on eBay. I just can't bear to look at them, they must go.

 -Berry

The cape! The gun! The first WIP!

So far, this is the only piece I have very close to finished. Boba's cape from ROTJ is made from a US Army Shelter Half. I was able to grab the last one at an army surplus store in my area.

Boba's cape requires three sets of stitching, one set you can pull right from the seam on the shelter half, connecting the middle rectangle to the outer triangle.
Unfortunately, the shelter half I got was two toned. The middle section was a tad lighter than the outer triangles.

 You can tell the right side is a big darker. So I had to measure out my cape using the middle section, and simulate the stitching myself. The cape is 36 inches by 29.25 inches. I used chalk to outline it as I can wash it out easier. And then cut it with scissors. 

I am absolutely no good with anything related to fabric, so my best friend was able to stitch and hem this for me (actually all of my soft parts for Boba's costume). Since Boba's cape is partially tattered, we only folded three corners. Fold the corners twice for a nice looking edge, and then sewed it with black threading.We used and iron and (tried) to use starch to get a nice looking crease with the edges.

The same goes for the stitching in the middle. The narrow set falls 5.25 inches from the edge, and the wider set falls 4 inches from the edge. Be sure the stitching is falling longways, along the 36 inch side. I'm not entirely sure what colour the stitching is for the middle, it's hard to say to remain movie accurate. We were going to go with an olive green, that's the colour on the original shelter half, but we forgot to re-thread the machine and stitched a whole line of black before realising! Black it is then.

As for the EE-3, I've got the Hasbro's Boba Fett EE-3 on hand. I'm attempting to convert that into a decent looking replica, but it's a lot of work. Kits on eBay for that are about $150-$200 so if I can save money, I am going to try. The paint on it I've got going on some of the parts is looking great so far, I can't wait until I'm finished sanding down the wood putty on the main gun so I can put it all together.

I also just picked up some synthetic hair from Sally's. I'm making the wookiee braids by hand, I'd rather do it myself then order some. They didn't have a decent brown, so I'm going to have to darken the one I have somehow. Spraypaint maybe?

That's all for this post!

-Berry

The start of the build; orders orders orders.

Boba Fett is my favourite character in the Star Wars universe. So naturally, you're going to want a costume of your favourite character, right? I've always wanted to build a Boba, but the high cost expenses have kept me from starting.

Now I have began the build, and this is going to be a long journey, so I will post my progress for anybody else to look through. This blog might help you make your own Boba in the future, but seeing the kinds of things I'm doing. There are many types of ways to build parts, but these are my methods.

I am creating a Return of the Jedi Boba Fett, so far, these are the parts I have aquired;

Helmet                      Flightsuit
Neckseal                   Cape
Boots                        Spats
Gloves                      EE-3
Flak Jacket               Jetpack Harness

I've got the gauntlets in the mail currently, and the jetpack should be shipping soon as well.
I've also ordered the remaining pieces, chest armor, shoulder, back, cod, kidney, and knee armor all from Bobamaker. Unfortunately those will not be seen until December, he is backed up so far with orders.

I'm going for 501st quality by the end of this Boba, and I'm hoping that it will look as good as I can make it.

-Berry