It is good to see you back, Ord Mantell, and that you ended up being able to finish this project and absolutely knock it out of the park!
Ord Mantell's ESB build
- Thread starter Ord Mantell
- Start date
RamSkirata
Active Hunter
Just only now reading this thread and I just wanted to stop by and tell you what you probably already know.
YOU HAVE AN AMAZING LIVING ROOM DISPLAY!
Ok that needed to get out. Thank you
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Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
thank you! Except my wife would never let me put this stuff in the living room. If only. Alas, it's my office.
RamSkirata
Active Hunter
Even better, getting to work in such an amazing room.
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Takemetoyourfett
Active Hunter
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
Whoa! Nice! Thanks for that. What can't you get on Amazon these days?
Takemetoyourfett
Active Hunter
Very true and you're welcome! It was hard to tell looking at the picture provided on Amazon if the hole sizing was correct. Definitely has the 3 different hole sizes.
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
looks good to me. The only tool I have for cutting is a dremel and I have a hunch it wouldn't do the job well.
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
The $6.93 borden came today from Amazon.
turned into a useful experiment. I learned that cutting with a dremel was no problem.
The metal took on a brassy hue in the interior, though. However... putting it next to the borden on the MF hero-sized raw helmet...
it's not a bad match. will need a new dremel tip to get a little simulated chamfering on the holes. Interesting. Not a bad 'economy' option.
Looks like this was already done a couple years ago by Fettastic in his thread here: Borden Connector Found Part Orientation . Gino even chimes in to the thread to say he thinks they used custom machined replicas made of aluminum. I'll probably go the route of a machined one, myself, so I can get the proper finish.
turned into a useful experiment. I learned that cutting with a dremel was no problem.
The metal took on a brassy hue in the interior, though. However... putting it next to the borden on the MF hero-sized raw helmet...
it's not a bad match. will need a new dremel tip to get a little simulated chamfering on the holes. Interesting. Not a bad 'economy' option.
Looks like this was already done a couple years ago by Fettastic in his thread here: Borden Connector Found Part Orientation . Gino even chimes in to the thread to say he thinks they used custom machined replicas made of aluminum. I'll probably go the route of a machined one, myself, so I can get the proper finish.
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RamSkirata
Active Hunter
Hi
I would try to get the chamfering done without a dremel first. Being a power tool, making a mistake that causes you to throw away the borden only is all too easy. Just get a drill thats the correct sitze (slightly larger then the holes) and turn it by hand. As if to de-burr a drilled hole. See how far that will get you. It being aluminum?, it shouldnt be too much trouble.
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
Sounds like prudent advice. Not sure I'm going to go further with this piece in particular because the finish is wrong as far as I can tell. However, I think if one wants to have a correct-looking borden and not pay the higher price for a specially machined one, a better approach is to buy this two hole borden:
two hole borden on amazon
and just drill the third hole yourself, as suggested in this thread from 2014: Three Hole Borden Connector, Myth, Mystery or Made?
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
what the??? it would've been great to know about this when I painted my pulce 40 a few months ago...
I had no idea about this line. I'm still catching up on the last 6 years of what I've missed being away. Just read up on all the ArchiveX paint stuff from last year. It's time to buy a bunch of expensive paint.
I had no idea about this line. I'm still catching up on the last 6 years of what I've missed being away. Just read up on all the ArchiveX paint stuff from last year. It's time to buy a bunch of expensive paint.
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Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
Time to work on the boots. I'm doing two pair since I'm giving a fresh set to my ROTJ as well. I have a pair from MOW's 2nd run way back when, maybe a decade ago. This was the first run to have the correct squared toe and is pretty much the same thing as what Imperial Boots sells currently. The second pair is a recently purchased set from, well, Imperial Boots.
Before proceeding I looked at every photo of the boots I could find, and I noticed something I hadn't seen before. I'm sure it's been brought up here many times by others, but it was new to me, since I never focused hard on the boots before. I noticed there was a spot on the upper right ESB boot that looks like it completely missed the weathering process, like it was covered up when they gunked it up. However it happened, the spot shows up pretty clearly.
This is cool for two reasons.
1) it shows the base color of the boot is the same as the flightsuit.
2) it allows us to match this exact boot to the AOSW display below:
So we know the AOSW boots were the ESB pair.
I used the flightsuit color to get my base colors and plan to leave that top inside area on the right boot fairly clean as I weather both sets.
base colors after dye bath and base colorant:
Looks pretty garish. Part of that is lighting. Blue scattered daylight makes blues look bluer. Weathering will mute all of this.
The MOW's below will be the ROTJ pair. Weathering mostly done on the right boot. Still playing around getting all the complex tones correct. Will do the rest tomorrrow.
Before proceeding I looked at every photo of the boots I could find, and I noticed something I hadn't seen before. I'm sure it's been brought up here many times by others, but it was new to me, since I never focused hard on the boots before. I noticed there was a spot on the upper right ESB boot that looks like it completely missed the weathering process, like it was covered up when they gunked it up. However it happened, the spot shows up pretty clearly.
This is cool for two reasons.
1) it shows the base color of the boot is the same as the flightsuit.
2) it allows us to match this exact boot to the AOSW display below:
So we know the AOSW boots were the ESB pair.
I used the flightsuit color to get my base colors and plan to leave that top inside area on the right boot fairly clean as I weather both sets.
base colors after dye bath and base colorant:
Looks pretty garish. Part of that is lighting. Blue scattered daylight makes blues look bluer. Weathering will mute all of this.
The MOW's below will be the ROTJ pair. Weathering mostly done on the right boot. Still playing around getting all the complex tones correct. Will do the rest tomorrrow.
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RamSkirata
Active Hunter
Me being new here, I dont know whether anyone actually observed that before, but with the level of detail-mindedness present here, I guess so.
Nonetheless: Good catch!! I think you work looks really good!
Nonetheless: Good catch!! I think you work looks really good!
RafalFett
Well-Known Hunter
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
ROTJ boots complete, sans toe spikes
For the ESB I had a bit of a decision to make... how much weathering should there be. If you examine the producion photos in shooting order, you begin to notice the initial weathering wears off quite a bit from the beginning of the shoot to the end.
The start of shooting Fett's scenes began in early April 1979, starting with the Bespin corridor with Fett escorting the HIC and confronting Luke. The weathering was fresh and thick and the boots looked mostly like this:
Later near the end of April, in the Executor scene, they looked like this:
Already a lot of gunk has worn off and the overall colors are starting to even out, as well as the black strip down the middle losing some of its contrast. Also the sides of the soles have lightened up considerably. Maybe lighting is playing some tricks to add to the differences. Really hard to know. I'm pretty sure these are still the same boots because a tiny bit of the unweathered spot is peaking through on the right boot.
Then by the time they shoot the carbon-freezing chamber scene in late June 1979, a lot more has worn off. The soles almost look white again. In fact they look so clean, I'm not even sure these boots are the same as the other scenes. But certainly someone on here probably knows and said so before (Rafalfett?):
So I want to make my build to approximate scene 371, outside the torture chamber when Fett confronts Vader ("He's no good to me dead") which was shot in mid May '79. I don't have any shots of the boots from that scene, but they are close in time to the executor scene so that served as my main reference. The trouble is, those pics aren't great and still leave a lot to the imagination.
I'll definitely refine both pairs more as I put the rest of the ensembles together, but this will do for now. I seem to be missing the screws for the toe spikes so I'll have to do those later. I have about a billion screws laying around and none of them are the right size. bother.
For the ESB I had a bit of a decision to make... how much weathering should there be. If you examine the producion photos in shooting order, you begin to notice the initial weathering wears off quite a bit from the beginning of the shoot to the end.
The start of shooting Fett's scenes began in early April 1979, starting with the Bespin corridor with Fett escorting the HIC and confronting Luke. The weathering was fresh and thick and the boots looked mostly like this:
Later near the end of April, in the Executor scene, they looked like this:
Already a lot of gunk has worn off and the overall colors are starting to even out, as well as the black strip down the middle losing some of its contrast. Also the sides of the soles have lightened up considerably. Maybe lighting is playing some tricks to add to the differences. Really hard to know. I'm pretty sure these are still the same boots because a tiny bit of the unweathered spot is peaking through on the right boot.
Then by the time they shoot the carbon-freezing chamber scene in late June 1979, a lot more has worn off. The soles almost look white again. In fact they look so clean, I'm not even sure these boots are the same as the other scenes. But certainly someone on here probably knows and said so before (Rafalfett?
):So I want to make my build to approximate scene 371, outside the torture chamber when Fett confronts Vader ("He's no good to me dead") which was shot in mid May '79. I don't have any shots of the boots from that scene, but they are close in time to the executor scene so that served as my main reference. The trouble is, those pics aren't great and still leave a lot to the imagination.
I'll definitely refine both pairs more as I put the rest of the ensembles together, but this will do for now. I seem to be missing the screws for the toe spikes so I'll have to do those later. I have about a billion screws laying around and none of them are the right size. bother.
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RamSkirata
Active Hunter
If we could just step back for a second and appretiate the out-of-hand detail-mindedness of choosing a specific scene to represent. I love itROTJ boots complete, sans toe spikes
View attachment 194954
For the ESB I had a bit of a decision to make... how much weathering should there be. If you examine the producion photos in shooting order, you begin to notice the initial weathering wears off quite a bit from the beginning of the shoot to the end.
The start of shooting Fett's scenes began in early April 1979, starting with the Bespin corridor with Fett escorting the HIC and confronting Luke. The weathering was fresh and thick and the boots looked mostly like this:
View attachment 194956
Later near the end of April, in the Executor scene, they looked like this:
View attachment 194957
Already a lot of gunk has worn off and the overall colors are starting to even out, as well as the black strip down the middle losing some of its contrast. Also the sides of the soles have lightened up considerably. Maybe lighting is playing some tricks to add to the differences. Really hard to know. I'm pretty sure these are still the same boots because a tiny bit of the unweathered spot is peaking through on the right boot.
Then by the time they shoot the carbon-freezing chamber scene in late June 1979, a lot more has worn off. The soles almost look white again. In fact they look so clean, I'm not even sure these boots are the same as the other scenes. But certainly someone on here probably knows and said so before (Rafalfett?
View attachment 194958
So I want to make my build to approximate scene 371, outside the torture chamber when Fett confronts Vader ("He's no good to me dead") which was shot in mid May '79. I don't have any shots of the boots from that scene, but they are close in time to the executor scene so that served as my main reference. The trouble is, those pics aren't great and still leave a lot to the imagination.
View attachment 194959
I'll definitely refine both pair more as I put the rest of the ensembles together, but this will do for now. I seem to be missing the screws for the toe spikes so I'll have to do those later. I have about a billion screws laying around and none of them are the right size. bother.
That said, what made you go for that very scene? Why this exact version? Pragmatism? You just like the scene? (and if so... why?) A nod to John Morton?
Just curious
Regards,
Ram
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
That's actually a really good question. First, I should say, I'm not going to be trooping in this costume. It's strictly meant for display. So I can dig into details and not worry if this or that will fall off or get weathered with use. From there, it's basically a philosophical choice about how best to represent the character. Since this costume morphs through the production and details are different from scene to scene, you can choose one of two options to recreate the character:
1) an amalgam, where you take the details you like from the various incarnations in the whole film and put them together in a unique or generic way, or
2) choose a specific scene or shot and replicate that as faithfully as you can as the character exists for that particular moment of the film
One advantage of #2 is that it keeps you focused on a certain combination of details and reduces the amount of decisions you have to make. Another plus to #2 is that you are recreating the character as he actually appears in the film (to the best of your abilities). #1 can only ever be an approximation at best. Why I chose scene 371 in particular is more of a gut feeling than anything. I love the close up on Fett in that scene. He's in his best lighting there. The whole scene palette seems designed around him. The burgundy walls really brings out his armor. Plus, the character is particularly present in this scene in a way he isn't in any other star wars scene: first staring down Lando and then standing up to Vader. All that said, I never made a rational decision about it. Just thought, 'I want Fett to look like that in my office.' Not a nod to Morton, although it is kind of cool to think about Dak being behind the mask.
RamSkirata
Active Hunter
Wow! That was a philosophical and deep answer to what on the surface seems like an easy question. Thanks for putting in the effort!
Now regarding your thoughts you layed down, its a good analysis of the options you have. And with that thought process behind it, I would have gone for the scene-specific variant as well. Mainly also because a big part about what I like in this hobby is that it is incredibly close to archeology.
My wallet can be glad, that I am not attempting a build at the moment. I already felt it sinking deeper into my pocket to hide from my spendy thoughs and wishes
The reasoning for choosing Bespin Boba is very thorough, too, even if it was unconcious at first. And you are right... I do like the way he looks in that scene, too! Pretty much the only thing I dont like is that it is not actually Jeremy Bulloch playing him. Thats nothing against Morton. Its only that I had the priviledge of meeting Jeremy Bulloch and having a chat with him.
And honestly.... I cannot think of a way that he could have been more friendly. Truly one of the nicest and kindest gentlemen that you are ever going to meet.
Aaaaand... I sure would like to see that office!
Do you have colleagues or even client meetings in there?
Ord Mantell
Well-Known Hunter
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