Ord Mantell's ESB build

Third time's a charm. This will be my third pass on the shin tools. This time all the parts are now vintage correct parts, except the tape. And we still have to find that microphone for the 4th tool.

My previous attempt was still a little too heavy handed on the paint. Besides the orange/rust stripe, there's really just light weathering on it with the white plastic showing through in spots and on edges where the the weathering gets heavier.

The PP1 tools are probably a good guide to go by.
pp1example.jpg


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The weathering is light and subtle. Which is not what I did last time.

I took this photo of one of the squeegees when the costume was on display in Seattle in 2015.

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Is it the ESB with a few extra scratches on it? Or PP3? Doesn't look like ESB because the holes down the stripe are centered nicely, whereas the ESB seems to have those offset a bit. The weathering is slightly heavier on this than the PP1.

ESB squeegee:
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For the anti-security blade tool, for a long while I thought it looked rather homogenous, like it might not have any weathering

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but a closer look, you can see a bit of a bright spot on the edge...

spot.jpg


This makes me think it did get a light dusting as well.

For the stirrer, it definitely has a yellow or gold tone to it,

Screenshot 2025-03-29 at 11.48.21 AM.png


and traditionally people paint it gold with silver bits showing, and I have done that myself in the past, this old one I did previously, as an example...

old.png


that looks cool, more like a real world object, but the actual prop was probably different, judging by the other shin tools.

So here are the fresh tools, vintage plastic and metal parts, before painting...

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The white plastic is so much more appealing to me, even though it largely gets covered up.

This is how they ended up:

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For some reason my phone camera makes the paint look a lot more contrasty than IRL. Very annoying.

I did notice on the side of the squeegee with the long black stripe it seems to have gotten hit harder with another shot of weathering while in the pocket, or seemingly so, because of a line where it seems to get lighter near the pocket top...

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shows up here, too...

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That could be an illusion, but I went with it.

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This is the best reference for the long black stripe on ESB:
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For the stirrer, I decided to go with something a little different. To get the yellow tone I used Dirty Down nicotine color on top of weathering colors like gray, black and weathered black...

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a couple more close-ups...


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Time for a few updates here.

In the homestretch of this build! Back in late September I started painting my final armor, but switched back to finishing my final gauntlets. got those done, then the holidays hit, but as soon as I was able to get the Xmas lights back down, I was back in the shed with my trusty old Paasche H. Everything on this paint job is vintage Floquil paint, unlike my tests which was a variety of Floquil and archive X.

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Amazing find, can't imagine how hard it would have been to acquire, I'm really excited to see how your finished helmet looks
 
I've just read all 29 pages of this and want to thank you for the treasure trove of information you've provided. Even though this forum is pretty dead, I'm very happy you've kept updating this thread. Thank you!
Thanks Martin! You're welcome! I feel like you should get some sort of award for reading all 29 pages.

It's funny, when I started this build at the beginning of covid there was still a lot of activity on this forum. But you're right. Lots of crickets in here now. The golden age of this forum is long past. But I'm glad you've joined in with your helmet paint-up.
 
Lots of crickets in here now. The golden age of this forum is long past. But I'm glad you've joined in with your helmet paint-up.
Social media, especially Facebook has done a lot to kill forum traffic not just here but in general. It’s really sad as I hate social media and Facebook and others aren’t adequate for information and research storage.
 
Social media, especially Facebook has done a lot to kill forum traffic not just here but in general. It’s really sad as I hate social media and Facebook and others aren’t adequate for information and research storage.
Agreed. 100%. I regret getting on IG. The algorithm retrains your brain without you realizing it. Social media is not about community or sharing. It's about getting attention. Which doesn't do much for the advancement of a hobby like this. I'm glad this place is still around and I hope it will be around a little longer.
 


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