SupRsloth's ESB Fett Build

[SupRsloth]

Starting a thread for My ESB Fett Build.

I've been lurking on the site for a while now and finally have some parts to get started. Feedback would be much appreciated. This will be a slow going one as I'm buying parts as I can. This is most definitely not going to be a cheap or fast build for me.

I currently have another 501st costume as a ANH Stunt Stormtrooper. You can find my builds on WhiteArmor.net as SupRsoth TK-50613.

 

[SupRsloth]

First parts purchased were the AnimeFan premium Fett helmet kit. Fantastic quality.

Here's a pic of the parts as they arrived.

Started with a trim of the T-Visor area, fixed a few rough spots with some bondo putty and sanded smooth with some medium grit sandpaper and onto some 0000 steel wool to get that awesome shine.

Then gave all the parts a basic rattle can primer.

Lastly I did three coats of plasti dip inside the bucket. Don't think it was necessary but I liked the look inside my TK bucket and I think this turned out pretty nice as well.

 

[SupRsloth]

The work for this weekend was adding the physical damage to the left mandible. Thanks to Cole (a former Fett) for pointing out that I missed that. Also my son and I built a helmet stand out of some used wood I had around for some other projects. Should do the trick I think once I start air brushing even though it's ugly as as could be .

Next is trying to paint this thing...... I'm a bit nervous and excited as I've never airbrushed before. Already got the airbrush and I ordered a bunch of paint and miscellaneous tools today to get started. Hopefully will get started on that next weekend.

 

[SupRsloth]

Finally started a bit of painting today. Took me forever to get the air brush working for the first time. I needed to add quite a bit of thinner to get it to flow. Now I know. Looks pretty bright but once I get the main colors on I'll do a bit of weathering with some 0000 steel wool. Hopefully that takes the shine down enough.

 

[droidbait]

Good job so far!

 

[SupRsloth]

Made some more progress between this weekend and tonight.

Painted the black on cheeks and got the dark red painted around the helmet.

Few spots around some of the edges that I cleaned up after taking these pictures. Didn't do a perfect job of taping evidently.

So that was the easy part but was a pretty big struggle for me as a first time air brusher. Now onto adding the damage. Can't imagine that will be any easier but I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.

 

[SupRsloth]

Good job so far!

Thank you sir!

 

[Artakha]

Can wait for the damage!

 

[SupRsloth]

Got a little bit more work done this weekend again. This is more slow going than I expected and I expected it to be slow.

First got all the ear pieces painted with the main color.

Then did my first attempt at a portion of the damage. Doesn't look exactly right I think. Hopefully will start looking a bit better as I add the other colors on top.

I'm not very good at cutting out the stencils evidently so my shapes are not quite as crisp as I had hoped. Hopefully it will look good enough.

 

[hvacdon]

What I've heard is, positioning the stencils on the helmet, putting carbon paper underneath and tracing over the stencils and leaving the carbon image on the helmet to go by.

 

[Evan1701]

What I've heard is, positioning the stencils on the helmet, putting carbon paper underneath and tracing over the stencils and leaving the carbon image on the helmet to go by.

Can't stress this enough. I would even suggest getting carbon transfer AND wax transfer paper- carbon for the light colors and wax for the dark. You can keep reusing the paper as well. I did my back panels with only a single sheet of wax paper, although I did a fair bit freehand towards the last few layers.

 

[hvacdon]

They also make white carbon paper that might be easier to see for small details.....

 

[hvacdon]

Check out Jayvee's deluxe ESB paint up. Jayvee is one of the Masters, a true artist !! His threads are very helpful !!

*UPDATE-COMPLETE 5/3/12:Jayvee's deluxe ESB paint up (with an awesome BGHunter lid..)

 

[SupRsloth]

Thanks for the feedback! I ended up repainting the green on the back panels to start over. Any brand recommendations on the transfer Paper?

 

[Evan1701]

Thanks for the feedback! I ended up repainting the green on the back panels to start over. Any brand recommendations on the transfer Paper?

You should be able to pick some up from any craft store. I picked up a couple packs of the wax transfer paper from Michael's, the package is pretty generic looking and just says "transfer paper" or something like that. I like the wax since it's easy to see with most colors, although I pretty much couldn't see it at all on the concrete layer and had to freehand it.

 

[TK50175]

I used spray clue to clue the tracing paper on the scaled stencils. Try this so you dont have to deal with to sheets of paper (stencil and tracing paper).

 

[hvacdon]

Amazon has black and white carbon paper available. The spray glue is a good idea for keeping the stencil and carbon paper from sliding around.
The link to Jayvees ESB paint up should help you figure out some of the steps and processes. Jayvee is very talented !!

 

[SupRsloth]

So I gave it another shot using some transfer paper and masking fluid. Nowhere near perfect but defiantly way better than the first attempt I think. You can see that I didn't mask perfectly as there is still some of the transfer paper lines showing. They wipe off pretty easy so won't be there long term. Looking close enough? I still have two more major colors to go.

 

[hvacdon]

Looking Great....Keep up the good work !!

 

[SupRsloth]

Made some progress over the long weekend.

Completed both of the main back panels and started on the red pieces on the back.

Also got the silver and base grey on the front pieces.

It still amazes me how long the prep for each color takes. It's literally hours spent stenciling and masking and about 1 minute painting. Although it drives me a bit batty, I love seeing the progress with each step.