ESB Display Mannequin

Been a while since I have posted to the forum. Finally finished my basement along with my home theater and now my attention can turn back to decorating it with my favorite props. Was able to score two fiberglass mannequins off ebay for 150 bucks for both. One will be Fett, the other a TK. I thought was a very reasonable price for a mannequin with a decent pose. Sectioned the left arm to better emulate one of the reference photo poses. The batting helmet bucket will reside in the theater on a shelf as ROTJ and my FP Premium will be on the mannequin as ESB. Can't wait to get back to painting a helmet again. These phone photos I will update later with better lighting and quality with my other camera. These don't do the weathering justice on the flighsuit but I was excited to be posting again after a long abscence. Now I have to tackle my knee armor and work my way up. The shoes are Cons heavily modified.

Incredible ! Looks like you're gonna spend some great time there watching your favourite episodes. I hope you'll keep posting pictures of each step of your Boba in this amazing home theater ! Would be great if you could add some kind of orange lights to recreate the carbonite scene in ESB.

Happy New Year everyone. Been a good holiday. Got my cod piece and back plate painted along with both knees painted and assembled. For the cod I went with Duplicolor filler primer as a base coat. Have been using this forever because of how smoothly it sands out and its compatibility to a number of paints. I still use Floquil Bright Silver for a base coat. I only have two bottles left so I have went to more of a spot damage spraying instead of all over silver. Rafalfett's templates have helped me greatly in this regard. Went with SP Armor Yellow for the yellow color of the armor. Seems to be a close match to the yellow zinc chromate. For the green I am using Tamiya Olive Green XF58 for a substitute for the MM US medium green. Still can't bring myself to use rattlecans, just not enough control for me. Using Grumbacher Miskit masking fluid throughout. Oversprays of NATO green, Medium grey and Dark Grey. Still cant describe the satisfaction when the masking fluid comes off. The knees I use Bright Silver for the base coat and then masked damage and used Tamiya Desert Yellow for the lighter "primer exposed" areas. Once complete, removed masking and reapplied damage and then applied UP Armor Yellow as a base then oversprayed with Milwaukee Road Orange. Slightly more on the right hand knee. From there switched to Tamiya Flat Brown for the darker sienna areas of the knees and finished up with oversprays of Duplicolor Gray Hot Rod Primer for weathering. Hope to get the knees and cod installed tomorrow on the display. Let me know if you see anything I'm missing along the way or improvements I could make.

Looking great dude

Was able to get the knees and cod mounted on the display. Use 1" white elastic and velcro to mount all three. What is the consensus on weathering of the elastic straps? Do you overspray the same as the flightsuit to keep the weathering consistent? In the reference photos they seem to vary from dyed blue to pure white but neither looks as heavily weathered as the jumpsuit.

Looking very nice there. Will make an excellent display piece and perfect conversation starter.
Never really thought about the elastic, other than the CRL stating that it needs to appear dirty. Never really saw it in the movie, so I don't think much attention is really paid to it, as long as it's the correct width and weathered.

Nice, how did you get your arms in that pose?

The right arm required no modification and the left arm I cut a v-notch in the arm at the elbow leaving a 1 inch band of fiberglass right at the elbow location. I used a heat gun to soften the fiberglass and bent the arm into position. Very fragile at this point. I then used kitty hair to reinforce the join. Mixed it hot and held it in positon until it kicked. I then applied Bondo to the remaining seam and smooth over the repair. Didn't want to try to match the flesh color so rattlecan flat blacked the whole mannequin. For hands I will replace with wooden poseable hands or modify the existing hands and add stiff wire for poseability.

Looks great! Arm positions look good but it's really hard to tell until you actually try to get it to hold a Webley. You may have to do some more adjusting. Getting these things to hold a blaster naturally is one of the hardest parts. Keep up the good work!

SD68 awesome! I Have the same mannequin great idea! I was planning on removing the whole arm! Glad I don't have to and can just the 'V" cut and shape it with heat instead!

Looking pretty epic so far, can't wait to see the finished piece!

I am using the same mannequin for my stormtrooper and had to section arm off completely in order to get the hand to grip the folding stock. The Fett
Pose I am going for is the carbonite escort photos where he has a clinched fist under the barrel. Hands are much closer together and easier mod of the mannequin as well as not having to grip the Webley with the left hand.

SD68 could you post some pictures of the Fett arm mod?

See above post for diagram of modification. Don't have any in progress photos of the mod. Fiberglass is only about 1/8 inch thick so once you cut out wedge the remaining piece will be flimsy and fragile until you get the reinforcement in place. Once reinforced it is up to you to make it as pretty as you like with bondo, sanding, and primer. I wanted it to look like it came that way so I spent a couple of hours getting it smooth. I know you don't see it but I knew it was there.

Small update. These were older FP shoulders so added additional damage by heating with heat gun and adding larger dent to right shoulder. Waiting to add white/silver scrape to left shoulder. Would like to know everyones consensus on color. Is the larger stepped scrape white or silver? I am leaning towards white and will probably add with white or very light gray pastel chalk simulating the scraping action. Still have to add grey streaking and more weathering. Used Rafalfett's templates to spray the left shoulder using flat white and caboose with a small amount of ATSF red (Floquil) to make the skull slightly more red. Finally able to get the rest of the armor ready for green paint. SP Lark Dark Gray on collar, backplate and right chest and SP armor yellow on the ab and left chest plate. Sprayed some of the lark dark gray in a mottled pattern as a preshade to break up the initial green base. Plates shown with masking fluid applied. Backplate ready to go also. The backplate is also an FP piece. The rest of armor I purchased from member a few years ago. It was undamaged and I used pictures of FP's armor to add dents in appropriate places with the majority created with a small torch to isolate area and pressed in with various sized ball peen hammers to create dents along with a teaspoon to create the dent within a dent look.

I used white for the scrape on the shoulder. Looking good! Can't wait to see more.

Was able to get the green on the armor this weekend. Started with a base of Model Master US Medium Green. I actually had two bottles in my stash. I used this as a base coat and then overcoated with the Tamiya XF-58 olive green. The MM enamels seem to go a lot further and cover better than the Tamiya colors. I am a new convert to acrylics. I love the ease of cleanup but I still fight getting the same even coverage as the MM w/ lacquer thinner and the Floquils. Old habits are hard to break. Used various oversprays again using Euro Dark Green, Field Grey, and RLM82. I agree with others that RLM82 is a great accent color. Once I unmasked the damage, I sprayed the emblem on the right chestplate using RafalFetts' template using Flat White and Polly Scale US Sea Blue. I hand painted the "wheat" with Vallejo white and symbols with Vallejo crimson. Once complete I came back with oversprays of Grimy Black and Reefer Gray. Heavier on the grey on the right chest plate following reference photos. Used 0000 steel wool and a green scotchbrite to knock back and blend these oversprays. The green scotchbrite added some of the surface scratching seen in the reference photos. Added other various damage with mechanical pencil nib and sanding through paint on the edges with 400 grit paper. Once again trying to follow the reference as closely as I could. After this I used Vallejo black-grey and extra dark green to add the various topical variation areas throughout the armor. The Vallejo is very forgiving and allows you to add the damage by building transparent layers. Finally I used duplicolor gray hot rod primer overspray to darken and add some randomness. I knocked this back some with steel wool and scotchbrite again before sealing with MM flat clear. Will turn to finishing the shoulder details and get them mounted later this week. Mounted the cape using just computer keys painted with floquil silver. Not exactly accurate shape wise but I am making some concessions to accuracy in order to finally finish the display. Overall I am more concerned with it having the "look". Question about chest display. Is everyone using a smoked plexi to mount the display behind or clear? Will try to take some better photos with my good camera later this week after I complete the shoulders.

Lookin great

This is looking great. You have a keen eye for proportion.

That's looking so cool. And your home theater looks seriously awesome. The Fett display is really going to tie the room together.