Sunday, September 18, 2011

EE3 Boba Fett style blaster pistol built from scratch

I decided on doing a full costume for next year of a Mandalorian Assasin/warrior. My first item to build was the pistol I will have in a thigh holster. I modeled it after Boba Fett's EE3 blaster rifle from Return of the Jedi, which is made from a Webley and Scott flare gun. I started off basically making a replica of the flaregun, and then turning that into the blaster much like the original propmakers for the movie.

I downlaoded and printed a blueprint for the original Webley flaregun made by Alan Sinclair (Wizardoflight) on the Denated Helmet forum and used that for measurements and reference. I cut the main frame of the gun from mdf and the barrel from a piece of pvc pipe.


next I cut the hand grip sides from some 1/4 inch mdf and glued them on, I think in the future with a gun grip, I will finish the grips seprately and attach them later in the build.


using a pattern I made from a piece of cardboard, I cut out the reciever shell from sintra, heated it up some and wrapped it over the barrel, gluing it in place.


I rounded off the edges of the handgrip


I cut another strip of sintra and formed it to a similar shape as the bluprint for the trigger guard





The trigger and hammer parts were cut from.... can you guess... SINTRA ! thet were shaped accordingly and glued into notches I made in the gun frame. after that, it pretty much looked like a Webley and Scott flaregun !

Up to this part in the build I only have a couple hours in this, so things are going smooooooooth !

i used Bondo to finish the reciever shell and fill in the rear of the gun.






me holding the pistol for scale



Next, I decided to lengthen the barrel rather than adding something over it, which was easy enough !



I then decided to use my x-acto knife in an unsafe way.


After applying first aid, (paper towel and duct tape) I moved on. I cut some thin strips of sintra for the barrel fins with my new(ish) band saw. I'm so glad I didn't have to cut those by hand, especially after cutting myself already. I marked out even spacing around the barrel to line these buggers up right the first time.





After that, it got some touch up sanding and a coat of primer


I painted it mettalic silver first, so that after the final paint I can weather/damage it by scraping and sanding down to the silver layer, giving it the bare-metal look. I coated it in a gunmetal gray charcoal, added some grip detail using self sticking black foamies, and made the barrel tip from a conical shaped rubber foot I found digging though my junk boxes. I also took an old cheap rifle scope and cut it down shorter for the pistol. I notice that a lot of pistols in the Star Wars universe have scopes for some reason and I felt staying with tradition would help make this custom blaster more recognizable.


In that last picture I started light weathering and a light inkwash in the details to age the blaster some. I will add a matte clearcoat to it later to dull the finish down some as it is too shiny. Thanks for reading !

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Scarlet Witch costume headpiece

So this is my first comissioned replica ! A friend in Canada wants to cosplay as the Scarlet Witch and I was asked to make part of the costume, This was a really easy piece and was made with scrap stuff I already had so the write up will be short.
The above image does not belong to me and was not created by me, it is a sample found through a google image search and used as a reference in my project.

I was given some basic measurements and guessed at alot of it , I started with a cardboard pattern that was bent and tested to get the shape right.


 I then used the pattern as a template for the real thing made from Sintra which was formed to shape in boiling water, then cooled under the faucet to set it.


I used a spare adjustable headband from an L.E.D headlamp that I used on my Predator mask build. I painted it a deep red first, wet-sanded, then top coated some bright red spray paint before sealing it with a clearcoat.