My Life-sized 1979 Boba Fett Kenner Action Figure Project

azheat01

Active Hunter
Another project started that I've been wanting to do for a while; a life-sized Boba Fett Kenner action figure. This will be complete with blaster and rocket firing jetpack. I've printed all the pieces, and as you can see I started gluing some of them together, seaming with Bondo, and sanding.

I found the file on Etsy, it's been challenging to say the least. It's an incredible model, but every mortise and tenon joint connector has needed to be heavily sanded to fit. I've also had zero luck contacting the designer of the file because I have a few questions due to the lack of instructions (outside of the jetpack). I've been trying for a month on Etsy, Facebook, and on his website. I really hope the man is OK.

I recently purchased an AnyCubic Kobra 2 Max hoping I could print some of the larger pieces in one go, that was a joke. I had multiple failed prints of the helmet, literally wasted almost 3 complete spools of filament. After days of back and forth with AnyCubic trying to recalibrate and troubleshoot, no luck, so I folded and returned it. I just decided to cut the larger pieces into multiple parts on my Bambu A1.

I have a few more touchups, then I can clean these and start primer / paint. My inner child is going crazy at the idea of a life-sized action figure!

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Another great resource for information is the Project 842 group out on Facebook. There's folks out there who've built this, pit droids, battle droids, R2, etc, etc. and can probably help with your questions. hit me up with specific questions and I'll do my best to assist. Everything you said that frustrated you, frustrated me, particularly the mortice joints not fitting. As far as the legs and arms, I used PVC pipe to run through the torso and into the arms/legs respectively. Fit well, allowed for rotation and provided a more solid base for it overall.
 
Another great resource for information is the Project 842 group out on Facebook. There's folks out there who've built this, pit droids, battle droids, R2, etc, etc. and can probably help with your questions. hit me up with specific questions and I'll do my best to assist. Everything you said that frustrated you, frustrated me, particularly the mortice joints not fitting. As far as the legs and arms, I used PVC pipe to run through the torso and into the arms/legs respectively. Fit well, allowed for rotation and provided a more solid base for it overall.

Thanks, I've given up on contacting him. I went to the Project 842 Facebook page and sent a request to join over a month ago and nothing. At this point I'm just gonna do what you did and use some ingenuity and make it work. For the leg joints, I actually increased the size on all axis' and made it secure with friction. If I glued them in, I just didn't see any way to get the legs to lock into the pelvis. My other thought was to glue the joints to the legs from the inside, but that meant I could never separate the legs from the pelvis, so I went with the friction lock instead. Since this is a static prop, I'm not worried about it moving. When I tested this the joints were nice and tight.

I also changed the dimensions on the arm joints and re-printed those. Now I can glue those joints into the arm and attach them to the torso since there are no clearance issues.

I appreciate the info, glad it wasn't just me. I was wondering if perhaps I had done something wrong!
 
Another great resource for information is the Project 842 group out on Facebook. There's folks out there who've built this, pit droids, battle droids, R2, etc, etc. and can probably help with your questions. hit me up with specific questions and I'll do my best to assist. Everything you said that frustrated you, frustrated me, particularly the mortice joints not fitting. As far as the legs and arms, I used PVC pipe to run through the torso and into the arms/legs respectively. Fit well, allowed for rotation and provided a more solid base for it overall.

Also, did you have an issue with the rocket firing lever binding against the jet pack? That's another piece I had to completely re-designed because the angle which it came out of the jetpack prevented it from working.
 
Also, did you have an issue with the rocket firing lever binding against the jet pack? That's another piece I had to completely re-designed because the angle which it came out of the jetpack prevented it from working.
My rocket does not fire. The spring is in there for display purposes only as I am not versed in adjusting 3D model files so I just made it presentable for display. Rocket firing was a nice to have that I honestly would never use. It "looks" like it'll fire but it won't :)
 
azheat01 When it comes time to paint it, I've got the Montana rattle can colors I used for mine somewhere that I can share. Depending on interpretation and individual original kenner Fett figure, you might find my primary color a little to blue and not grey enough but the other colors feel perfect to me. I like the blue as that's what my original Kenner Fett looks like, but I've also seen some pretty wide variances.
 
azheat01 When it comes time to paint it, I've got the Montana rattle can colors I used for mine somewhere that I can share. Depending on interpretation and individual original kenner Fett figure, you might find my primary color a little to blue and not grey enough but the other colors feel perfect to me. I like the blue as that's what my original Kenner Fett looks like, but I've also seen some pretty wide variances.

Yes, that would be awesome if you could share the colors, thanks! I was having a hard time with the blue, tying to find a blue / grey that wasn't too blue or too gray. I tested a few but didn't like them, but a few days ago I found this French Blue at Lowes and will give it a try shortly. I fear this is also going to be too blue, but my options are dwindling. I definitely want to go with a less prominent blue.

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I'm glad I got the rocket lever fixed, I really wanted the missile to fire. I'll post a video when I get to that point.

Thanks!

AZ
 
Got some more sanding done and one final mockup before everything gets washed, primed, and painted. I still need to install the rocket firing spring and lever. Not gonna lie, this build was much tougher than I was expecting, but seeing it at this point is incredibly satisfying........

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So today I tried to finalize everything before I prep for paint and ran into yet another issue. When I assembled the jetpack to test the rocket firing mechanism I noticed the rocket would not lower into the jetpack. It seems, for whatever reason, the opening of the top "cap" of the jetpack was too small for the missile to go all the way down. Also, the back wall of the jetpack was canted in a manner that even after opening the bottom with a Dremel, it still wouldn't lower.

So I also Dremel'd out a section of the back wall and that worked, but it looked like hell. So, I modified the file and I'm reprinting it.

Below you can see in red the ideal amount of material I had to remove...............

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And how it looks modified.............

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The lower lip is still maintained so the plunger will still stop when firing the rocket and won't come out the top.

Another solution would have been to just resize the rocket and reprint it. But I didn't want to do that because 1), I already had the aluminum rod and spring and those would have needed to be replaced and 2) I wasn't going to be happy with the proportionate size of the new rocket to the size of the jetpack, it would've looked too small in my opinion.

A second issue was the hole size in the rocket itself. The hole didn't extend enough to the top, so when I pulled the lever and plunger down, the missile would hang on the aluminum guide rod. If I let the plunger go it would just collide with the bottom of the rocket instead of smoothly pushing it out the top; and it didn't launch but a few inches. Having the plunger smack the rocket was not gonna work for me. I could have cut the rod down some but I wanted to keep the original length to help keep the rocket straight, and it also makes it easier to load.

The red line below is the original end to the hole, the green line is the new one. Now the rocket will stay on the plunger when it's pressed all the way down.

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Anyway, I thought I would share in the event anyone else was going to take on this project. Still no response from the original designer, but if anyone wants these files I'd be happy to share.

Thanks......AZ
 
These are the colors I used. They're all Montana rattle cans. Montana Black or Montana Gold. The Black Trout (image pasted below) still feels a tad blue to me but I like how it looks. The Black Irmgard looks pretty purple but when I compare it to the actual vintage figure, it's darn close. The green, red, yellow and browns are spot on IMO. The Vampirella for the cheeks and visor is a very deep purple that almost looks brownish-black. Another option someone else did was made the visor and cheeks the same color as the brown...but I didn't like that. Also, the red for the rocket was a different red, more tradition fire truck red. Again, matched pretty close to the original figure. Good luck!

BodyBLK Trout
Jetpack HighlightBLK Irmgard
GreenGold Reed
RedGold Royal Red
Cheeks and VisorGold Vampirella
YellowGold Golden Yellow
BrownGold Shock Brown


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These are the colors I used. They're all Montana rattle cans. Montana Black or Montana Gold. The Black Trout (image pasted below) still feels a tad blue to me but I like how it looks. The Black Irmgard looks pretty purple but when I compare it to the actual vintage figure, it's darn close. The green, red, yellow and browns are spot on IMO. The Vampirella for the cheeks and visor is a very deep purple that almost looks brownish-black. Another option someone else did was made the visor and cheeks the same color as the brown...but I didn't like that. Also, the red for the rocket was a different red, more tradition fire truck red. Again, matched pretty close to the original figure. Good luck!

BodyBLK Trout
Jetpack HighlightBLK Irmgard
GreenGold Reed
RedGold Royal Red
Cheeks and VisorGold Vampirella
YellowGold Golden Yellow
BrownGold Shock Brown


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That's great, thank you! Yours came out great. I appreciate the info!
 
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