Joey's ESB Build

[jdrussell2]

Hey there, everyone! I'm Joey. A new-ish guy here on TDH bringing you all along with me on my ESB build. I spent about a year or so researching and looking at others builds on this forum. I will be working from the ground up and showing you guys piece by piece what I did to get my look/style. I'm not going for 501st approval (as of right now) and more just a wandering Boba you'll see at Star Wars Celebration. As a tattoo artist and a lifetime practitioner of drawing, accuracy and detail rank the highest on my list and I'm shooting for that to reflect in my build. As we go along this journey together, feel free to add any feedback/advice/tips you may know of. I'm always floating around here looking for new tips and tricks you guys use to achieve the awesome Boba suits I've seen. Also, I will do my best to list all the supplies I used for each piece. So, now that I've got the thread started, I'll see you all in the next post which will be my boots!

 

[jdrussell2]

Alright, everyone. Today I'm going to discuss how/what I did for my boots. To start, my boots are from Man of War Studios. Right out of the box these things are sturdy, well made, and comfortable. I know he is constantly doing sales on his boots and other pieces so if you need a pair, check them out. For the paint and look I want to shoutout Spideyfett for his awesome step by step tutorial on weathering. I read his thread over a few times and then decided to let my creativity takeover from there.

Below I'll show you the supplies I used for the boots. I got this airbrush system on Amazon for about $150 and it works great so far! The paints are a cheap acrylic brand you can get at Target or any craft store. They didn't have every color I needed so I just ordered them all at once on Amazon for not much more than retail price Pipettes, disposable cups, and a gallon of distilled water to thin out the acrylic paint is the rest of what I used. Distilled water is a good cheap alternative to paint thinner since acrylic is water based.

 

[jdrussell2]

MOW boots come with no black stripe for easy ESB or ROTJ conversion, so, my first step was to paint that black stripe down the middle. It's as easy as masking off the sides and then putting a couple coats of black down the middle. Getting my black acrylic to the right consistency, putting it in the airbrush, and then going to work. Note that acrylic dries very fast on canvas so you don't have to wait terribly long to put another coat on. I ended up doing about 2-3 coats of black to ensure it was solid.

 

[jdrussell2]

I let the boots sit for about an hour before I started on the weathering of the rest of it. If I sound a bit redundant on Spideyfett's tutorial, that's because I followed him for a bit then trailed off. Total credit to him for the inspiration! Anyways, these boots are extremely bright grey, so I needed to bring that tone down a bit. Some charcoal color mixed with a bit of white to give me more a neutral gray did the trick. I wasn't too careful with my movements to give it more of an authentic dirty look. Because I'm sure Boba isn't always careful on what he steps in I did an initial coat on one boot to see how I liked it, and then did the same to the other.

 

[jdrussell2]

With a good base coat on the boot, I decided to move onto the soles. Spideyfett was much more deliberate with his than I was. I followed his color scheme but not his method. Mixing the straw color with some white was what I decided to go with. Did a sloppy tape job to add some jagged edges, and did a coat of that around the back and sides of the soles. After I did that, I dipped a fine paint brush in some of the water for my grey color, and swished it around to add some murky look. Dipped my brush in the straw color as well and hit the spikes to give them a look as though they got hit by some wet sand or mud. Also, just realized this picture was after the next stage so shhhh...

 

[jdrussell2]

Finally, I put some burnt umber and purple into a cup with some distilled water for the highlights/dark spots around the seems. Very lightly pressing on my airbrush I did just some little spots to give almost a grease stain or oil stain. This was a pretty free going step. Just added them where I think they would be and when I thought I had enough, I was done. With that, I was done painting them! Took some pictures to see how I liked it and I think they're looking pretty good. Now, after I was initially done I kept looking at the pictures and thought they were a bit too dark and that I did too much. So, with that being said, I would like to shoutout The Builder for his advice of taking pictures in many different lightings to see just how your piece(s) really look. Since the lighting is never consistent in Empire Strikes Back, there isn't really one good consistent reference to pull from the movie which I think gives us all some room to wiggle with how they look. So, after examining my pictures strenuously I decided to take them outside and take some more and I have to say they look even better with natural lighting. As these convention halls usually have very good lighting I figured natural lighting was a good comparison. Excuse me for using my grey car as a backdrop

 

[Irongladiator]

To start, my boots are from Man of War Studios. Right out of the box these things are sturdy, well made, and comfortable. I know he is constantly doing sales on his boots and other pieces so if you need a pair, check them out.

Hi ya jdrussell2
Welcome to the hunt! I'm a ROTJ Fett myself - and also started with the Boots when I 1st started. My boots are from Imperial Boots, not MoW Studios Boots. But the quality of both looks near identical!


This is a screen shot of what the Imperial boots looked like...

However, the communication that Christian (from MoW Studios) is putting out, is that he will no longer be getting the boots back in stock. Not sure why, because they look great! My guess is that it was a business decision as they probably were not that profitable for him. I know at one time he was selling them for over $300.00.

Best of luck to you in your build! Lookin' good so far!


Best,
-Iron

 

[jdrussell2]

Hi ya jdrussell2
Welcome to the hunt! I'm a ROTJ Fett myself - and also started with the Boots when I 1st started. My boots are from Imperial Boots, not MoW Studios Boots. But the quality of both looks near identical!


This is a screen shot of what the Imperial boots looked like...
View attachment 234435

However, the communication that Christian (from MoW Studios) is putting out, is that he will no longer be getting the boots back in stock. Not sure why, because they look great! My guess is that it was a business decision as they probably were not that profitable for him. I know at one time he was selling them for over $300.00.
View attachment 234436

Best of luck to you in your build! Lookin' good so far!


Best,
-Iron

Oh wow, I didn’t even see that message when I bought mine. That’s a bummer! I’m planning on ordering a few other parts from him as well so I guess it’s a good thing I started with the boots! Thanks for the info and comment!

 

[Irongladiator]

MoW Studios does make some great items! Just a personal opinion is that the MoW Studios Fett Gloves.....in my eyes are not up to par. I had a pair and didn't care for them. I have since purchased a pair from Mike M. And so, for the gloves you might consider hitting up Mike M. via PM. His gloves are widely considered to be among the very best. But it's been about a month since we last seen him. At the time of this writing his profile says he was last on The Dented Helmet on January 30th, 2023.

-Iron

 

[jdrussell2]

Good evening, hunters and hunt-ettes! I'm back with some progress on my ESB build. I just finished painting my knee pieces and wanted to share how I went about that. For these (and for most of my build) I'll look at the 501st requirements and a couple of builds on TDH to achieve my finished look. The 501st states that right knee is more of an orange-yellow while the left is more of a yellow-orange (ya ok). The way I went about this was more of a right knee being a strong orange and the left having orange with hints of yellow throughout. I used Humbrol #84 orange lining, #154 insignia yellow, and #11 silver metallic for these pieces along with #186 brown matt for weathering and for altering shades of orange(s).

 

[jdrussell2]

The first step was to hit them with some #11 silver metallic as a base coat before I mask and layer. This was pretty easy as you may have guessed. After letting the silver dry for about an 45-60 minutes, I masked them based off The Builder's damage on his knees. Getting a good picture from the movie was tricky. Luckily, TDH exists!

 

[jdrussell2]

After masking and letting that dry, I begin with a base coat of #84 orange lining on both of them.

 

[jdrussell2]

Then, it was time to start layering on different values of orange and yellow orange. I hit the left knee hard with some yellow to brighten it up and then go back in later with orange and tone it down. Remember, dark overpowers light! It's important to get the light parts in early and then go with some dark values after and just highlight different areas to give the best look. Patience is a virtue, my friends!

 

[jdrussell2]

I wanted to share a mistake I made on this step of bringing down the yellow. I went too hard with the orange and lost my yellow behind it. Luckily it was still light enough that I could go back in with yellow and start over so to speak. The picture on the right is where I ended up for this step. It's also important to let your previous layer dry to the touch before going back in (you can see my orange running in the 1st picture). As an artist who has worked with colored pencils and some paint, it isn't terribly hard to correct small mistakes when layering colors like this. It also helps that orange and yellow are so close in the color wheel.

 

[jdrussell2]

After correcting my yellow and letting everything dry, I went in with #186 brown matt and started to do some light weathering. Giving that dirty and beat up effect really makes these pop. I went super slow with this step as to not make my brown too dark and apparent at first. The great thing about airbrushes is the control you have with brush thickness and how dark your paint is by adjusting your distance from what you're painting and how far you pull back on your airbrush itself.

 

[jdrussell2]

After getting my brown on where I think it looks best, I left everything to dry for a good 2 hours. Humbrol does suggest a full 24hrs for it to cure, but this amount of time worked fine. After drying, I took my masking off and spent a solid 10 minutes looking at them. This was my first time using mask for anything and I am so happy with the results. One thing I can say about it is that a little goes a long way. For details, use a fine brush and be deliberate with each movement. It sets quickly and dries in about 15 minutes.

 

[jdrussell2]

Finally, I hit them with a satin finish so they don't look so flat and they look awesome! I did have some of my wet layer of orange come up with the mask but that's alright. I need to find a way to paint the rings on my knee darts so I'll do some searching on that. All I have to do now is get some white elastic straps and velcro and paint my knees darts and this part is done! If anyone knows a good way to paint the rim of the knee darts I would appreciate some tips. Other than that, I get my green paint(s) tomorrow to start painting my codpiece/kidney armor! Thanks for looking! See you in the next part!

 

[Irongladiator]

jdrussell2
For my knee darts, mine are metal so I didn't have to worry about my masking and peeling up silver/chrome paint. And was able to lay the red and black down with ease after taping it up...

Since I also had my red and black out at the time, I also hit up my gauntlet darts too. However, I do believe the two outside darts on the ESB are weathered up black in color if I'm not mistaken.

Best,
-Iron

 

[jdrussell2]

jdrussell2
For my knee darts, mine are metal so I didn't have to worry about my masking and peeling up silver/chrome paint. and was able to lay the red and black down with ease after taping it up...
View attachment 234951
Since I also had my red and black out at the time, I also hit up my gauntlet darts too. However, I do believe the two outside darts on the ESB are weathered up black in color if I'm not mistaken.

Best,
-Iron

Right on! My knee and gauntlet darts are metal as well. What paint did you use for them? Did you just mask off the areas you weren’t painting and put paint on? The area that needs painting is in kind of an awkward position so it’s got me scratching my head.

 

[Irongladiator]

jdrussell2
So I use an airbrush, which allows for better control over the rattle cans. In fact, I used an airbrush for pretty much my entire Fett. The knee darts painting scheme (Red and Black) seems the same as the ROTJ version. I simply used masking tape and taped off everything except the exposed metal on the knee darts. It was actually pretty quick to do.