Lidocaine's ROTJ Build

I've been gathering pieces since January, and it's finally that time to actually do some building!

I always find it interesting to see who people got their various items from, so here's who I've used for my ROTJ build:

Chest Armor, Shoulders, Knees: RKD
Helmet: RS Props
Jetpack: Man of war
Jetpack Harness: 3D Printed using FettToolGuy's shapeways files
Metal Jetpack Beacon/Stabilizer: RS Props
Jetpack Hooks: Full Metal Fett
Jetpack Straps: Strapworks
Girth Belt: Mar of war
Ammo Belt: Delta13Mike
Flight Suit, Flak Vest, Pouches, Neck Seal: Arkady
Gloves: Saint Nasty
Chest Electronics: Fettronics
Boots: Man of War (bought used and pre-weathered)
Metal pieces: Mostly MachineCraft replicas, jetpack collar by DarkSide
Cape, Hosehair Braids: Woodman
EE3 - MLS
Shin Tools - Darth Voorhees

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of parts from folks, no slight intended, but there's a lot going on right now!

Originally I had commissioned Sleepalot to paint my armor, but a bunch of unfortunate delays, I was bumped a completion date from June to not much done come last week. Rose City Comic Con is in a week, and I was hoping to debut it then, maybe even get the bounty on Carrie Fisher who's visiting the Con too. So, I decided that myself and my dad would get to work on it for a bit of an all week long Fett party.

I spent most of last night and this morning trimming armor and sanding. I think I've hit most of it pretty close to where it needs to be, but feel free to provide input at any point! I wasn't expecting to be painting and trimming so some of my research into that has been pretty rushed!

I'm not super thrilled with the electronics cutout on the chest armor, is there a good way to ensure square ends? I've been using a dremel tool and well, it's round. Maybe I'm missing the obvious, but any tips would be awesome.

First set of pics is my armor after trimming, washing and sanding waiting to be primed. My lovely backyard workshop...


Gauntlets have been trimmed a bit, and we're going to try the hinge method that Cruzer's detailed so well tomorrow. Do most folks enjoy prefer having slightly larger gauntlets with some padding, or trimming them down a bunch?

I tried a test fit of the armor using some magnets last night, and the vest is a good 2" too long at the bottom using this positioning. I've tucked some of it underneath me, but a trip to a seamtress is probably in order.

Other than the length at the bottom, is this a decent spacing? Once the painting is done we'll do another test fit with magnets before going the chicago screw attachment route.



And yeah, I apologize for the bathroom shot...

The first thing I notice is the arms of your flight suit look like they are bulky under the vest. They may need to be tailored down a bit.

The bagginess of the flight suit and vest make it a bit tough to truly see the sizing and spacing of the armor. I think that you are pretty close though.

Lidocaine a trip to the tailors is well worth it, your suit will look great after. The arms are baggy, but nothing your tailor cant handle. Remind your tailor when they hem the vest to ensure the stitching is no show bottom. Mine mistakenly added a seam on the bottom and he had to redo it.

Yup, a trip to the local seamstress is definitely in order. The hazards of losing a bunch of weight since sending my measurements to Arkady I suppose. Vest is actually a bit snug, I do imagine getting rid of some of the loose flight suit fabric will help with that. With the harness underneath it feel like a snug fit. (I didn't have it on during the picture).

Jetpack is just about ready to get dirty. Need to add the symbols on still.



Armor has a layer of yellow, letting that dry tonight and then it's the first round of green on the armor!

Nice build so far, keep it up.

Im in the same boat as you with the jumpsuit. I lost a good amount of weight.

JP looks sharp! I think a lot of us are in the same boat with the jumpsuit. Even with the custom fitting from Arkady or whomever, if you really want to take your Fett the "extra mile," tailoring can help get you there.

T-minus 24 hours before the con.

We've been using Stormtrooperguy's rattlecan color guide, and the armor colors have been pretty good, but we've struggled pretty hard with getting the shoulder/knee colors right. My dad actually ended up decanting the yellow and orange into airbrush vials and then slowly combining them into what we thought was the nearest color. Looked great in the vial, ended up with something not quite what we we after I think.

After the dull coat it's a little better, it's still a little too "traffic cone" orange I think, but we'll weather it for now, not enough time to restart which is a bummer.

I do have the really awesome stencils from Darth Voorhes, but we opted to go with Lucksy31's decals to save us some time. When we repaint the shoulders to get a better color match we'll go with the stencils and see how it goes!



Learning a lot in trying to get everything done in such a short order... The good news is, the checklist for completion is getting shorter! This morning is the weathering extravaganza, then later today we'll putting this all together.

Lookin' Good Lido!

I plan on using Stormtrooperguy's rattlecan methods as well! Did you run into issues finding the specific paints that he had listed...? Also, what colors did you end up using on the JP (looks awesome, BTW)

Thanks! I was able to find all of the rattlecan colors listed in his post at either Home Depot or Lowes without too much hassle. The line striping yellow did react poorly with the humbrol maskol we were using and stained a little. However, I do think that once we weather the armor, I don't think it'll be too noticeable. The orange I think is listed as "True Orange" and I think they call it "Real Orange" now.

For the shoulders/knees, we mixed the squash yellow and true/real orange. When we repaint those later I might go ahead and find a matching airbrush color and try that out.

For the Jetpack, we've been working on that for the last 4 months using airbrushes. I grabbed all of the Humbrol colors directly from their website and just used the color guide found here: https://www.mindmeister.com/113525354/boba-fett-paint-colors

We just noticed that there's some crazing on the knees since we rushed to dull coat it, bah. Lesson learned, don't rush paint. It listens to no man.

Well, we made it! Just barely, and there's a ton of fixes and tweaks needed.

Here's a quick shot my brother in law snapped before we headed out onto the con floor.


Knees were super wonky, I had some velcro on the knees, but with the flight suit being baggy, they kept wanting to sag into the shin tools. Sewing some vecro into the knee area and tightening the legs and arms is a must.

Things I'm looking at fixing in the next week or two:
1. Flight suit tailored and trimmed up, get rid of the baggy arms and legs.
2. Hem the vest so that it's only a 1/4" or so from the bottom of the armor.
3. More weathering on the flight suit.
4. Thong it. Ran out of time to get a thong on the cod/kidney plate. Tailoring the flight suit might help the crotch sagging below the cod too.

Shoulders and knees I'm still not super pleased with, but the pictures do help wash out the brighter orange a little. One of the knees still showing some crazing on the side, and the left gauntlet had a little bit that I'll sand down and repaint soon. Might try and rock those for a little bit to give myself and my dad a break from painting for a month or so.

I'll get suited up again and get some side/back pictures for better eval, any other suggestions in the meantime?

Not bad at all. Colors look real good. I think once you tailor up your soft parts it'll look killer.

Armor doesn't look bad at all. Just get that flight suit tailored. Make sure to bring the thigh pockets up also. That will help with the knees.

Got my flight suit and vest back from the seamstress today, got rid of a ton of that extra flight suit... For the vest, I think the arms needed to be tugged down a bit, they got a little hung up on the flight suit.

A few steps at a time I guess eh? Not the greatest light, and we were in a rush to get pictures done and kids in bed...






Any and all feedback is welcome!

Hah, just noticed we screwed the jetpack thrusters on backwards... Guess I can showcase the system my dad came up with for the thrusters.

Sunk and epoxied an bolt into the thruster, and there's just a wingnut washer on the inside of the jetpack. Pretty easy to take on/off when a little bit of extra space is needed for transporting gear.



Bonus internet points if you can spot the fairly major oops moment with the gauntlets we had during the build...

Looks awesome! Great job!