ESB Rattle Can Armor Colors

[clmayfield]

Someone asked for this, so I thought I would stick this here. This is a pretty good set of colors:

"Base" Green - Rustoleum Satin Spruce Green

Dark Green - Rustoleum Satin Hunt Club Green

Yellow - Rustoleum Painter's Touch Gloss Marigold

Prime and Gray - Rustoleum Flat Gray Primer

Base Metal - Valspar Metallic Brilliant Silver (or equivalent)

Overcoat (optional) - Rustoleum Ultra Cover Gloss Clear

Technique to follow...

 

[clmayfield]

For the base layer, I sand the armor with 600 grit wet / dry sandpaper. Before paiting each layer, I hit with compressed air and then tack cloth.

I start with a base of primer. I actually used white primer, but that is because I didn't know gray was available. I let that dry for a day, sand it down with 600 grit, wipe with tack cloth, and add another coat. Then I add my silver layer, let dry for a day, and do another silver layer. Because I'm crazy like that. Then I overcoat with the Clear Gloss and sand down with 600 grit wet / dry sand paper. Then I hit with another silver coat. Why? Because the overcoated silver looks like crap, but if you ever accidentally put a gouge in your armor, you want to make sure it looks silver underneath. This base layer method will cover up a multitude of sins. Necessary? No. You could probably get away with just a coating of silver over primer with no overcoat and it would look fine. But that silver comes off really easily, even when you let it dry.

 

[Gregory]

Do you use two different yellows? I used Rustoleum Equipment Yellow for my knees and right shoulder, and Premium Decor Sunflower Yellow for my left shoulder. Recently I found Rustoleum Moss Green which I want to use to repaint my guantlets, helmet top and cheeks and justpack with. It's a lighter bluer green than the Krylon Italian Olive I previously used.

 

[clmayfield]

Currently, I am only using that one yellow that has enough orange in it that with a coat of "Go Mango" overspray, but I haven't worked the yellows all of the way out. The colors above are for the Chest, Abdomen, Cod, Kidney Plate, Back, and Collar Plate.

 

[the_man_with_the_ee3]

Very interested in the results. Do you have any in progress photos you can share?

 

[clmayfield]

Here is a left breast plate, not yet fully weathered. The green is primarily Spruce Green, but has an overspray of Hunt Club Green to darken it up a bit.

 

[stormnorman]

What material is the armor?

Sent from my SM-G900T

 

[clmayfield]

It's plastic. ABS, I believe.

 

[Neo Fett]

Is ROTJ much different?

 

[mainst69]

Here is a left breast plate, not yet fully weathered. The green is primarily Spruce Green, but has an overspray of Hunt Club Green to darken it up a bit.

Man, that looks pretty friggin good! Nice work sussing out the rattlecans. I looked into that route but was having trouble finding the (then) recommended colors. I really like that green, I'm debating a repaint because I was dissappointed in how my Humbrols mixed up.

 

[clmayfield]

I really like that green, I'm debating a repaint because I was dissappointed in how my Humbrols mixed up.

Thanks! That green is Rustoleum Spruce Green misted with Rustoleum Hunt Club Green. The color is great. The negative part of doing that mix is that it is difficult to get it consistent with all armor pieces. To get that right, you should really paint all of them at the same time. You can hold pieces to try and color match, but you can't really compare a wet paint to a dry paint. I painted my ab plate twice. Another reason that this piece came out so nice was a fluke. I didn't wait long enough for the marigold layer to dry and ended up with some cracking. I tried to wipe off the green layer with a paper towel while it was drying. After that dried, I went over it with another coat. The result is a weathered sort of texture that you can sort of see in the reflection. That is a combination of the yellow layer cracking underneath the green and the texture of the paper towel.

I did not replicate that with the other pieces, though. I am hoping that any non-uniformity in color will be fixed in the weathering process.

 

[clmayfield]

Here is the whole chest set ready for decals and weathering:

And here is an AB comparison with actual Fett. I tried to apply a blue filter to get the color to better match the original, but I don't think I had enough reference colors to get it to work. Obviously, the armor is not an exact match, but the colors are pretty close.

It is interesting to note that with the LBP and Abdominal pieces, I painted with Spruce Green, then misted Hunt Club Green, then misted back Spruce Green to get the color right. With the RBP, I used just Spruce Green and it looked completely wrong. I masked and misted with Hunt Club Green and ended up too dark, but too dark ended up much better than too light. The third time around, I think I nailed it, at least in reference to the other pieces. What I discovered was that the RBP is actually darker than the LBP while the general consensus is the opposite. I think the misconception about the RBP being lighter comes from all of the grey weathering. The grey weathering is particularly intense on the upper right part of the armor, which happens to be wear it butts up against a relatively clean (the green part at least) portion of the LBP.

 

[stormnorman]

Here goes!

Sent from my SM-G900T

 

[stormnorman]

And did you use a matte clear coat?


Sent from my SM-G900T

 

[clmayfield]

I don't plan to use a clear coat except perhaps to weather the abdominal piece and even then, I will probably use a satin or a gloss and hit it with steel wool or sand paper to knock the sheen down. Clear coats, to my eye, tend to change the color.

 

[clmayfield]

And here is the version with the breastplates weathered. I don't really like the way the weathering came out on the right breast plate (Boba's right). The weathering appears far too dark. It looked gray when I hit some samples, but it looks black here.

 

[Gregory]

I don't really like the way the weathering came out on the right breast plate (Boba's right). The weathering appears far too dark. It looked gray when I hit some samples, but it looks black here.

Looks pretty good to me. It'll look different in different lighting conditions regardless.

 

[PropReplicator2]

Love this list a ton. Very helpful. My armor is cut from a large piece of pvc pipe i had lying around, flattened and heat formed. I am on the first coat of silver right now for the chest armor and it looks good for now.

Thanks,
Alex

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6560

 

[clmayfield]

OK. This is much better. I weathered the right breast plate with Rustoleum Dark Machine Gray. I originally tried with the Rustoleum Multi-color textured Aged Iron. It looked gray on my samples, but when I hit the iron, it looked black, which was perfect for the Left Breast Plate, but wrong for the Right Breast Plate. I started with a sort of stencil, trying to keep the stencil off of the surface for a gentle transition, but the edges of the stencile were still better defined than I wanted, so I ended up having to do very short bursts of spray directly on the surface. With the Rustoleum Dark Machine Gray, I ended up using a makeup sponge to blot and streak the Dark Machine Gray paint on. This looks much better now.

 

[clmayfield]

Love this list a ton. Very helpful. My armor is cut from a large piece of pvc pipe i had lying around, flattened and heat formed. I am on the first coat of silver right now for the chest armor and it looks good for now.

I saw your pics. Looks great!