How perfect do you make your parts?

01Hawk

Active Hunter
I haven't seen many completed suits up reallllly close unfortunately and am trying to figure out just how perfect people make their pieces. I have MOW gauntlets and this jetpack. I am filling any little pinhole or indent but am not sure how perfectly smooth/square the rest should be. The side panels need these holes filled but as you can see it isn't smooth- should I fill the entire side panel?
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The beauty of Star Wars (OT, at least) is that everything is friggin wonky. The perfectly finished, perfectly symmetrical stuff looks really odd when you see it next to a screen accurate prop.

Especially with stuff that's weathered as heavily as Fett, little minor issues with castings, paint, or assembly are mostly covered up. We obsess over these things far more than the 99% of fans we'll meet, and if you end up trooping a lot in this suit, it's going to have all kinds of minor issues, eventually (just like the movies).
 
I found myself filling in my MOW jetpack and sanding it to get cleaner lines. Overall it was a great kit though and pretty easy to clean up. Just those few spots that you've shown. But having been on a bunch of troops, the suit is showing some wear in terms of paint chipping, etc. I really am not going to go back and correct this unless it's really noticeable :)
 
At this point I am going to follow the big holes on the side/ back and blend them in better. I will skim coat all the flat surfaces and sand them down to 220 and primer it and see how it looks. Have a coat of filler on almost all those surfaces now and will sand it this afternoon. If someone gets that close to the pack and wants to critique it, they can do so lol
 
I thought this was going to devolve into a debate about what perfect is, as it's so subjective. It's like when someone new shows up and says they want to make a "movie accurate" costume, and everyone's definition of movie accurate can be totally different. There is $300-$500 scratch built movie accurate and then there is $7,000+ found-part accurate. It's all in the eye of the beholder.
I'm glad it was more straightforward :lol:

I didn't paint my jetpack myself, but I used bondo glazing putty on my helmet and EE-3 to cover and smooth out most of the pinholes and imperfections. I hope that helps.
 
yeah very much a personal thing. you can paint those right out of the box and many people will be excited that Boba Fett is at their event. so basic SW fans will be easily satisfied but major Boba or Mandalorian fans will know you didn't put the time or effort into it. now after that the meticulous sanding filling and accurate painting with original parts will only be truly appreciated by us here and maybe only a few fans at cons
 
If you like it perfect then go for it! I started with a build that ended up with a finish that was acceptable for me. After some time I found out that i could have done it better and i invested a lot of time and money. At the moment, guess what... i am working on my suit once again to get infamous level.
You see, it can be a very long journey and first time right is not that easy with Boba (-:

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All excellent advice ! Thanks. And yea, I have worn my scout missing the stitching on the boot trim and the 2 elastic straps on the thighs and even 501st ( non scouts) didn't notice/care. I'm confident no child or fan at a show is going to say " I wanted a pic but now I don't due to your backpack is a bit wavy". I'm not sure what others look like to compare against anyway.

I'm a bit biased in how I look at stuff being around auto body work all day. Bad body work jumps out to me instantly and don't want my suit to get that kind of reaction.
 
The MOW jetpack definitely isn't the cleanest cast jetpack out there, it takes a LOT of work to get it to be smoothed out and flattened, plus filled in. I disagree with the commenter above that the props weren't clean to begin with, if you have ever seen or held originals in your hand like I have, you know that they didn't mess around when it came to making props for the movies as good as they possibly could.

I've put probably 18 hours of work into my MOW jetpack, and I probably require 18 hours more. Thank goodness that my Fettpride jetpack is amazing, the most accurate jetpack out there and it comes primed and ready to paint; no messing around.

I would recommend to you that you make the jetpack as good as you want it to be. I would fill in every pin hole, fill in every one of those pits you find, and make it looking awesome. You will feel better when it's all done, and the jetpack WILL look better.
 
Thats odd i always felt the MOW pack was one of the cleanest and have spent little time cleaning anything up on them. Usually an hour or so just sanading down the seam lines. It does seem his newer packs have those holes which is new...probably a new way he is casting them to make them more evenly cast perhaps.

FP's is fiberglass, and the entire back is likely a separate piece he attaches after casting the pack, so he needs to fill that seam and prime it so it will be a cleaner cast just due to that alone. Of course FP's stuff is super clean to begin with, so that helps :)

Anyways, I would fill the "holes" and that uneven seam on the bottom there and i think you'll be fine. When you spend so much cash and time on a costume to just leave something like that, its counter productive to me. But then, i am usuallu fairly OCD with these things, so take what i say as you will lol.
 
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I am definitely filling all the big stuff and skim coating pretty much the entire thing. I will be priming it with a filling auto primer so the little stuff really won't be a problem. Seeing it will be gloss white, most of the " issues" will only be something you feel when you run your hand on it.

As I said earlier, I haven't physically seen anyone else's pack up real close and pictures from afar only show so much. I went thru some build threads but most don't have pics of how much filling was done. When I bought this ( and all my stuff ) I didn't think FettPride was selling stuff. All the armor is coming from BobaMaker but I had to draw the line budget wise for some of the pieces. This is in no way meant to critique the quality of this piece - I think it will look great when it is done, the service from MOW has been awesome and compared to how much work people put into painting their parts a few hours sanding is hardly something to find issue with. I'm more worried about cutting the dent out of your helmet Darth lol.
 
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Yea i think MOWs stuff is very nice! Hahah! You could just fill it with Bondo. I guess cutting it out is the correct way to do it, but filling it would be easier and less scary i think lol.
 
I think that you are doing an awesome job! The key is to do with it what makes you happy. I am currently building up my own and I can understand wanting to get it right. After all building Bobs is different from building a custom Merc.

Sent from my N800
 
Oh, didn't know you were doing the super... yeah, I change my stance. You want that bad boy smooth and clean, like a ROTJ Vader...
 
Since I usually get call Stormtrooper in the Scout , I am used to it. I got called Darth Vader a few times in my Umbrella Soldier , which I still don't get , but my all time favorite is " Look- there is Star Wars!" One costume and I get to encompass the entire franchise lol
 
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