UltraBOLTZ

GUYS IT’S DONE!! I am so excited to be able to finally show you all the complete suit. It was quite a journey, and I’m super happy with the results. Hopefully going to get a pro photo shoot of this suit soon. CHEERS!

Boba Fett has a little digital readout on his left chestplate. Here’s some of the process I went through to simulate it!

(Above) first, I learned just enough electrical engineering to modify what’s called a trace circuit to match the timing and sequence of the blinking LEDs on Boba’s chest display. You can find tons of tutorials and breakdowns of trace circuits online. I also bought all the components I would need (plus a biiiit extra)

Next I made a mock-up using a breadboard, which lets you test circuits without doing any soldering, to make sure my design worked—it did! Once I knew it worked, I got to soldering. There are actually two boards connected with some standard network cable (just needed something with at least seven wires). This way I could keep the board with the actual LEDs small enough to go behind the chest plate unnoticed. Above is the LED board made with some generic prototype board. I accidentally fried the first timer board, so for the second version I went a little fancier:

For V2 of the timer board, I decided to try a free online electronics CAD program to make a schematic for an actual PCB. In the future I will absolutely do this for any electronics I make, it is very cheap to order the boards, and they are SO much easier, sturdier and potentially smaller than a cobbled together prototype board.

Then I soldered all my components to the PCB. After testing it and making sure it all worked, I made a little enclosure to hold the battery, timer board, and a switch. This enclosure goes into one of my utility belt pockets, and the wire goes up underneath the bodysuit and vest to connect to the board on the chest plate.

Hey friends! I’m just finishing up Boba’s Blastech ee-3 blaster carbine, so it’s time for another summary post. For more regular updates, find me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/ultraboltzinsta/) or twitter (https://twitter.com/nate_bolton). Anyway, step one (above). Come up with a plan! Decided I was going to lengthen the barrel by 2″ and create a new stock. The grip is slightly too small, but I decided to leave it as-is for structural reasons.

(above) Hey and here we go! Blocks are starting to come together. PVC pipe to lengthen the barrel and MDF for the stock. The connection between the stock and the grip will be made of three layers of sintra glued together.

(above) With the stock and barrel extension in place, it’s ready for primer (I use Krylon Fusion primer/paint as a base as I find it has the best plastic adhesion) and a base coat of matte black. Next, weathering and age!

Once upon a time I made a little logic board that controlled the pretty LEDs in Boba’s chest display. Then one day, an evil spell overcame me and I accidentally connected the battery with the wrong polarity. TRAGEDY. The board was fried. Lo, there was hope on the horizon! Why just remake, when you can remake BETTER?

Alright, here’s a quick summary of the painting process for the rocket pack. First, primer. After primer, lay down some silver/aluminum wherever you think you’re going to want the fancy paint chip. I just do it for high-visibility areas, and anywhere where I need a lot of metal to show through. It’ll make more sense later. Read on!

Step 2: With the silver on, I use Crayola kids “Project Glue” as a masking substance. Just paint that stuff right onto the prop wherever you want your simulated paint chips and scratches to show the silver underneath. Definitely test whatever glue you use before you put it on your prop! I use kids glue because it peals off super easy.

Step 3: So once the masking is all done, it’s time to start laying down your base colours. Boba’s rocket pack in ROTJ actually has the most preschool color scheme you’ve ever seen. Thankfully, weathering is a beautiful thing.

Step 4: details, stencils, stuff. These are just made by verrry carefully cutting stencils out of painters tape--though there are a million ways to make stencils.

Step 5: The good stuff! I start with a “grunge” pass. I’ll do a wash with a sort of oily black-brown, and then airbrush on the accumulation of dirt, dust, carbon, etc. Remember, weathering tells the story of your prop, and it shows if you just put it on randomly. Story is king!

Sprayed a whole bunch of blue last night. 

Also on the topic of airbrushes: thinners! A good thinner is a must if you want to use off-the-shelf acrylic craft paints (which I often do). While I have a lot to learn about airbrushing still, I have discovered a few things that might be useful to you, too! 

I haven’t fully tested these two thinners side by side (which I will do and post the results), but for now I’ll post the recipes and you can try them out for yourselves if you like.

Thinner option #1: Pledge Floor Care with Future Finish

Pros: This seems to give the paint a fairly hard and durable surface. 

Cons: Have to test this further, but doesn’t seem to completely dissolve the acrylic paint, which has lead to a verrry slight orange peel texture, and adds a low level of satin/gloss to the paint.

How to make it: Go to a store that carries it (I got mine at Wal-Mart in Canada), buy it.

Notes: This seems to be more commonly used as a top coat, which it does very well. It will protect the paint beneath and gives a satin/low-gloss finish. Here’s a video on that and some other top-coat options.

Thinner option #2: Make your own

Pros: Crazy cheap, thins acrylic paints beautifully, can be used to flush your airbrush between colours. Seems to Retains original sheen level of paint (satin stays satin, matte stays matte--though more testing is needed on this).

Cons: Paint needs a topcoat, as this does not add strength to the finish.

How to make it: First off, this is not my recipe! I directly followed this video from Luke’s APS on Youtube. Go check it out! Ingredients: Distilled water, glycerin, 91% isopropyl alcohol, thumbs up.

Directions: In a vessel of your choice (I used a 500ml water bottle) mix 2/3 distilled water, 1/3 isopropyl alcohol, and 1ml glycerin (more/less if you’re making more/less than 500ml). Shake it up a bit and you’re done. Thumbs up!

Notes: So far, I love this mix. I want to test it on a few different brands of acrylic paints before I totally leave Pledge behind, but so far it seems to really do a great job of thinning the paint, and I love that I can use it to clean up afterwards. It’s so cheap that I don’t sweat using it to flush my brush frequently or clean out jars etc. You can also make a variation of this that includes ammonia-free glass cleaner to act as an airbrush cleaner.

More paint on the rocketpack, and also more sass in the workshop.