Builder's ESB Bucket

Rangefinder ear piece.....Wondering if anyone else noticed that in Post ESB Helmet pictures that the upper back half of the ear piece appears to be gray or silver and blends with the yellow tone at the top of the piece. In any case I painted ours that way. Just an observation.

These two extreme close ups do show how the extra edge work gets rid of a lot of the liquid mask look. In person the weathering seems pretty natural to me. At least it was fun to do.

I never noticed this detail, but found it in both ESB and SE (post-ESB) pictures. It looks like it is not a blend of the silver into the ear piece, but a grey weathering that is a different color than the aluminum underneath (and the ear pieces do look actual aluminum and not paint based on the pictures... you can see some machining marks, which I think is interesting).

full.jpg


full.png
 
I never noticed this detail, but found it in both ESB and SE (post-ESB) pictures. It looks like it is not a blend of the silver into the ear piece, but a grey weathering that is a different color than the aluminum underneath (and the ear pieces do look actual aluminum and not paint based on the pictures... you can see some machining marks, which I think is interesting).

View attachment 161835

View attachment 161836

If it's good with you I'll throw out a couple of other thoughts on the color of this area of the ear piece.
If you look at the very bottom of the ear piece next to the rim in the SE picture you can see the worn edge (shiny) of the aluminum and a thin slightly yellow paint layer over the rest of it.
That yellow layer is also on the top section as well (very faint) but fades into more yellow as it moves upward to the top of the piece. This very thin paint over the metal changes the reflective quality
of that area and quickly makes it look gray in the light you have in the ESB shot. The combination of the thin transparent silver that I airbrushed over the yellow on our helmet did a good job of mimicking
the original thin yellow over metal that ends up looking gray, and non-reflective, when the two blend together.
You can see this blend,at least thats what I think it is, as non-reflective gray on the top section and the bottom point of the ear piece in the ESB photo.
If our ear piece was made of metal I think that I could have worked it out better.
With a little more thought I may try to do something about it . We'll see.......Great close up of the area...wish I had seen it earlier. I guess the main thing is to give it a gray blend one way or another.
 
Last edited:
I'm one of those people that can't stop thinking about something. So I thought that I would try a little experiment with our helmet to see if
I could replicate the lighting in the ESB photo and what it would do to prove or disprove my ideas about what seemed to be gray on the back of the
ear piece.
Here's what I came up with...
DSC_8437.jpg
Next to the reflective plain metal the silver dusted over the yellow looks very near gray in photos.
Because I'm just working with paint I used some chrome silver on the ear piece to represent polished metal. I'm going to leave it as I think it adds a little something
to the look of the helmet. Maybe an even more unpainted plain metal look like in the reference photo. For now anyway.
 
Last edited:
That whole area NOT just the ear has dark grey weathering over it. Look at the rear panel area of the helmet in the corner. Its not thin paint.... its weathering over top.
 
you can see this here, The ear paint is layered... dark grey under the beige.... and probably the same grey misted over top with the ear attached to the helmet while misting as it carries over into the back panel area
Boba Fett Costume
 
Thanks Fett 4 Real
As I had no gray paint showing through. I simply weathered down the aluminum paint which gave me a gray metal look
as stated on the stencil sheet. Then carried that up the back of the ear piece. The mix over the beige made it look even grayer to me.
It seemed a simple way to mimic the look.. as it might have been when the helmet first appeared. That helmet has sure taken a beating since then.

Another thing is that I didn't weather the helmet by misting or putting a liquid wash and wiping it down or using other overall topical methods because it didn't look that dirty to me in ESB.
I did do paint spatters where necessary,but toned the values down for blending into the existing colors. I also tried to weather each color area separately,as I masked and painted, by spraying and washing in variations in the values (two or three for each color). My attempt at rich color and detail. Labor intensive but I liked the end effect.
you can see this here, The ear paint is layered... dark grey under the beige.... and probably the same grey misted over top with the ear attached to the helmet while misting as it carries over into the back panel area
Boba Fett Costume
 
Last edited:
I think it is dirtier in ESB than it looks like on film. We have much better pictures of it in its current state, and some damage (and hence repainting) has occurred since then. I am having Major do a paintup for me and I am asking for no grease stains even though it is possible and even probable that they were there during the ESB shoots.
 
I think it's good to keep in mind that maybe it shouldn't be as much about whether Bobas' costume is dirtier or cleaner, darker or lighter, more color
or less than it looks like on film. The way he looks in ESB is exactly the way the director wanted him to look. All of the creativity, whatever off camera detail
went into it, was designed to satisfy the image George Lucas had for Bobas' appearance on film. No more no less.
I guess the question I'm asking is....When trooping and fans see your Boba, shouldn't you appear the way he looks to them in the film? If it can't be seen in the film then it's up to the individual builder how much of the behind the scenes weathering to add before it's way too much for normal lighting and real live viewing distances.
Nothing's perfect, just a choice we each have to make.
 
Last edited:
I think it's good to keep in mind that maybe it shouldn't be as much about whether Bobas' costume is dirtier or cleaner, darker or lighter, more color
or less than it looks like on film. The way he looks in ESB is exactly the way the director wanted him to look. All of the creativity, whatever detail
went into it, was designed to satisfy the image George Lucas had for Bobas' appearance on film. No more no less.
I guess the question I'm asking is....When trooping and fans see your Boba, shouldn't you appear the way he looks to them in the film? If it can't be seen in the film then it's up to the individual builder how much of the behind the scenes weathering and detail to add before it's way too much.

Going after what you feel is right is all that really matters at the end of the day. Some people want to make the suit exactly as it was on set(or as closely as possible for them). Some dont care THAT much and will make thiers good enough to the extent theyre happy be it they have resin parts in place of ali parts, leather belt instead of a vinyl belt, etc... A leather belt for example is going to look right in person, while a vinyl belt painted is going to look like crap really... but some people want to go the extra mile if you will to be accurate to the prop itself not the real like depiction you see on screen.
 
Feet 4 Real...I am so happy to hear you (someone on the staff) say "the real depiction you see on screen".I have read the forum,over the last 2-3 years, and throughly
enjoyed each new thing that has come to light about the prop costume. At first, like many, I wanted to "do it all" and could easily have done that. The result, for me, given the state of the original costume,would be revisions with no end in sight. Just not my cup of tea.

From what I could gather on TDH the original costume lacked comfort and needed quick repairs during filming. All possible to put up with when making film into art. We're not on film set and very much need to improve comfort and
durability for trooping unless you're just making a display piece,then I say "more power to you for inside and out prop accuracy".
We decided that to compromise some things, that couldn't be seen in the film anyway, was a good thing for us and more fun trooping.

But new finds and information keep the forums alive and well and that's great too.
 
Last edited:
So a friend of mine an old member Booboo Fett always did his stuff in a way that was good looking but not screen accurate to the T. He made his belts that MANY of us use...theyre Leather theyre functional but arent the vinyl belts like that used on screen. For my display SE suit I really want to get a vinyl belt from woody and paint it brown. For trooping and such I will go with a leather belt. Its going to hold up alot better and be realistic to the audience of people... there are several comprimises I make for trooping for sure. As does anyone who is trooping. But there are people who will go all out and troop a vinyl belt, with the baclava head thing that makes it 20 degrees hotter inside the helmet. And thats cool cause it makes them happy!
 
Everyone has different mind sets and skill levels.I set my sights high when I saw the really fine Boba builds on the forums.TDH provides enough information and encouragement through it's members to satisfy and be happy with any build level you want to achieve.
It certainly has for us.
There are revisions that I'll be making in the future. Small details and adjustments that probably no one but us and Bobafiles will notice. Hopefully all for the better.
 
Last edited:
There are so many good helmet paint ups described on TDH that to do another would be somewhat repetitious. I'll just skip around on a few things about our helmet that
might interest a newer builder.
This helmet is painted about 90% layered and 10% topical. I'm including light wash as well as opaque as topical. The base after priming is Testors Non-Buf Aluminum. The rest is Humbrol enamel.
Like most I used Rafal Works Hero Helmet Stencils.It's buy no means the only way but here's the method I used to fit them to my helmet. I'll use a back panel as an example.

View attachment 160900 First size the printout as near to either hight or width as you can, keeping it inside the working area.

View attachment 160901 Once cut out it did not fit very well to the panel edges, especially the bottom edge.
In order to improve the fit I made cuts through the broad areas of the background,in this case the blueish tone, so as not to disturb the smaller details of the stencil.
View attachment 160902 Here they are opened up View attachment 160903 and now fitted to the panel.
Now it's an easy matter to transfer the cuts to each layer of the other stencil colors to match the panel you're working on.
View attachment 160904 These are the first paint layers before the wash and other topical work.
I used this method on all of the stencil work. Made my own transfer paper using a soft graphite drawing pencil on vellum drafting paper....tracing paper will do.

Some work in progress....nearing the half way point of the paint up.
View attachment 160905 View attachment 160906 View attachment 160907 View attachment 160908 View attachment 160909 View attachment 160910 View attachment 160911

This shot shows some of the prep work research photos and color testing that kept me inspired. Been at it about a year and a half at that point.
The helmet was the final piece of the build.

View attachment 160912
Awesome I am having the same issues with the stencils. Going to make the cuts. And apply the stencil. I thought I was going crazy no matter what percent the size was I wasn’t fitting. Nice work.
 
This thread is more than 5 years old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

  1. This thread hasn't been active in some time. A new post in this thread might not contribute constructively to this discussion after so long.
If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top