WOW! 
3P0 variant
- Thread starter GKvfx
- Start date
Still wet sanding -
For some reason, even using metal etch primer, the paint is not sticking to the brain core ring I attached to the piece -
I soaked it and degreased it, and it looked OK with the black primer. But as soon as the white paint went down, it flaked off in areas. I've sanded it down and will hit it with a last coat of Tamiya White Primer (aka: the Primer of the Gods). If that doesn't worked, it's gonna be weathered......
Washing the head in preparation for the final white coats to go down -
The "washing" turned into something of a droid waterboarding session :confused -
Wonder why Jabba didn't think of that?
:rolleyes
Gene
For some reason, even using metal etch primer, the paint is not sticking to the brain core ring I attached to the piece -
I soaked it and degreased it, and it looked OK with the black primer. But as soon as the white paint went down, it flaked off in areas. I've sanded it down and will hit it with a last coat of Tamiya White Primer (aka: the Primer of the Gods). If that doesn't worked, it's gonna be weathered......
Washing the head in preparation for the final white coats to go down -
The "washing" turned into something of a droid waterboarding session :confused -
Wonder why Jabba didn't think of that?
:rolleyes
Gene
clancampbell
Sr Member
One of my fave builds of all time now! Staggering work!
Rich
Rich
Got the last coat (I hope) of white down this morning. The neck/collar is going to be a metallic finish, but I'm trying a technique I stumbled across when I re-did my IG-88's eyes. The base coat is Alclad Chrome. That paint requires a nice glossy black surface prep. All that is done and cured, so the rest of the weekend should be spent layering on the other shades.......
Gene
Gene
When it comes to Threepio's - I am way out of my league. Bashing stuff and covering my mistakes - that I have experience with.......
On to the weathering. It's a little hard to paint and photograph at the same time. Hope this makes sense.
Generally speaking, I like to vary my finishes. Unless totally called for by the subject, I like to mix tones, colors, and sheens. Very few things are ALL shiny, or ALL flat, or ALL monochromatic. So this weathering incorporates a bit of everything.
Starting with the "ear" disks -
These pieces were the only features of 3P0 to be heavily weathered. I thought an area of heavier weathering would contrast nicely with the overall lighter weathering I'm going to do on the rest of the face.
The base coat is just Tamiya white primer over the black etch primer. I added a semi-gloss clear coat (Gunze) and let it dry.
For this portion of the weathering, I used Tamiya Clear Smoke and Tamiya Clear Yellow, as well as their Acrylic Thinner. Since the Tamiya stuff is Acrylic, and the base colors are lacquers (or Tamiya's synthetic lacquer), there will be no interactions -
First step is to take a clean brush and just wipe some clean thinner over the part -
With a different brush, I mixed up some Clear Smoke and some Clear Yellow till I had a "gunk" color. Not quite black, kinda brownish, but with some color -
That mixture was pretty heavily thinned. That loaded brush was just dabbed in a few places on the ear disk -
The thinner that is already on the disk takes the paint and puddles it up - especially in areas with lots of surface relief (corners, ridges, etc) -
This is what it will look like at this point. It's heavy, it's runny (it will drip down if you tilt it), and it will dry this blobby if you set it down and walk away -
At this point, I dragged out my airbrush and blew some clean air on the runny paint, breaking up the blobs into more random areas -
You can also do the same thing (kinda) by ripping up some paper towel and dabbing it in the paint. You may have to dip it in thinner first. Point is, it breaks up the blobs into smaller, more random looking areas -
I went back in and did a slight wash of the corners so they would pop out -
The same technique was used on the antenna post -
-the wash accents the ridges and makes all the little details more apparent from a distance.
This next bit is the inside of the neck. I figure it is some kind of motor. the part is actually from a Visible V-8 kit, with some parts I found at an auto store, C&H Sales, and a BNC connector left over from IG-88 -
The base color is just Tamiya light silver metallic spray. Again, it's their synthetic lacquer stuff. The key here is to spray the base a shade or three lighter than the shade you want to wind up with.
After that dried for an afternoon or overnight, I dragged out the airbrush and loaded it up with Testor's Model Master Metallizer paints. When applied to polished styrene, they give off a finish that really does look like metal. Unfortunately, that finish is fragile and can be scratched off. That, in this case, will work to our advantage -
Note - it's not a heavy coat of paint. In fact, it is kinda cloudy - not totally opaque. But being a darker shade of metallic gray, it is closer to the look I ultimately want.
The Metallizer paints dry very quickly. In fact, you are supposed to let it dry about a minute and buff it out with a T-shirt. Instead of a T-shirt, I used a Dremel. Yep, a Dremel. I put a plastic brush bit in it, set it to a low speed, and went to town. The goal was to scuff up the dark paint so you can see the underlying silver paint, or the natural metal of the metal parts -
The trick is to do this with different shade of paint. The first shade that went down was a stainless or gunmetal. After Dremelling it, I went back and sprayed a couple of areas with burnt metal and jet exhaust and repeated the Dremel process.
Obviously, you have to be careful. At a certain point you can start melting plastic - especially if you use the metal wire brush. You are going to have to experiment with your handling technique - a light touch is definitely needed.
There are some other steps, and I'll get to those later......
Gene
Too Much Garlic
Master Member
Impressive natural looking weathering. Awesome with the step-by-step! .)
Realfiction
New Member
This is very cool. I look forward to more updates
The collar portion of the base was weathered using the same basic techniques as illustrated above -
Some different colors of metallic paints were laid down -
.....and then, using the Dremel brush technique, scrubbed off -
The fact that there are more metal parts on the collar portion worked to my favor since the paint would chip off -
After that was done, the Tamiya Clear Gloss washes were added, just like on the ears -
This time, I used a slightly wider flatter brush to move the mixture downward to look like oil stains -
Like the ear pieces, I wanted it to pool around the edges and in the nooks and corners. But it is a fine line between weathered and "steampunk".
Though not installed when I took these photos, I have some colored wires that I have to install on that brass disk-like object. Kinda makes it look like a distributor cap wiring harness. It adds a bit of color to the otherwise monotonous metallic shades.
Though I'm doing the white Threepio unit from EMPIRE, this portion of the project bears an intentional resemblance to the stripped down C-3PO I saw at the SW exhibit here in Ca. -
Again, I'm trying to balance that whole "steampunk" aspect to the TPM 3PO......
While I was looking at the various props there, a couple of other things struck me that I applied here.
One is obvious when looking at the EMPIRE macrobinocs - the use of a simple spray can splatter technique for most of the weathering -
I mean - really, it looks like they took a spray can of flat black, held it far away from the prop and tapped the nozzle. Everything you don't want to do to ensure a nice, even coat of paint.
I gave it a try using a can of Tamiya NATO Black, which is really a dark, dark gray, with a tint of green. It's a fantastic color and for some UNKNOWN, CRAZY reason Tamiya HAVE DISCONTINUED IT!!!!! Tamiya, if you are reading this, bring back this color (and Rubber Black, and your Clear Flat and Clear Gloss) please!!!! It was a kick to the nuts when I heard this stuff was being discontinued. Look, I'm even wearing a Tamiya shirt when I use the stuff -
Actually, that's about the distance I had the can from the collar. And you need a light touch on the nozzle. You really are just tapping it, trying to get it to spurt out. The Tamiya nozzles are quite good, and this is really NOT what they are designed for. I tried it with my airbrush at a very low pressure, but the drop size was too uniform. Using a spray can gives you different sized drops -
Overall, "misting" it in this manner helps unify the rest of the weathering and darkens the tone of the overall piece.
The other detail I only noticed when I was looking at the props (as opposed to the film) was the use of 3M Retroreflective material. I knew it was on the Jedi Training Remote, but I also found it on a bunch of other props. Here it is on Lobot's headpiece -
I had some of the material - vintage stuff actually. Its got a self adhesive backing and is quite thin. I cut out a couple of semi-circles and stuck it to the inner neck motor. In neutral light, it just looks like a dull gray patch -
In fact, in the photo above, you can't really tell there are two strips of the stuff. But if you change the lighting to more directional in nature, the strips will "glow" a bit as they reflect light back in the same path as it strikes the 3M material. (This means that the light has to be coming from almost directly behind you.) -
And if you use a flash -
.....it really pops. Mostly, they just look like gray patches. The stuff is really fragile, to it will "weather" just through ordinary handling.
Again, I will tinker with the faceplate soon. I just want to keep it balanced and on the light side. The base color of white really bothers me - waayy too easy to go too heavy.
Gene
Some different colors of metallic paints were laid down -
.....and then, using the Dremel brush technique, scrubbed off -
The fact that there are more metal parts on the collar portion worked to my favor since the paint would chip off -
After that was done, the Tamiya Clear Gloss washes were added, just like on the ears -
This time, I used a slightly wider flatter brush to move the mixture downward to look like oil stains -
Like the ear pieces, I wanted it to pool around the edges and in the nooks and corners. But it is a fine line between weathered and "steampunk".
Though not installed when I took these photos, I have some colored wires that I have to install on that brass disk-like object. Kinda makes it look like a distributor cap wiring harness. It adds a bit of color to the otherwise monotonous metallic shades.
Though I'm doing the white Threepio unit from EMPIRE, this portion of the project bears an intentional resemblance to the stripped down C-3PO I saw at the SW exhibit here in Ca. -
Again, I'm trying to balance that whole "steampunk" aspect to the TPM 3PO......
While I was looking at the various props there, a couple of other things struck me that I applied here.
One is obvious when looking at the EMPIRE macrobinocs - the use of a simple spray can splatter technique for most of the weathering -
I mean - really, it looks like they took a spray can of flat black, held it far away from the prop and tapped the nozzle. Everything you don't want to do to ensure a nice, even coat of paint.
I gave it a try using a can of Tamiya NATO Black, which is really a dark, dark gray, with a tint of green. It's a fantastic color and for some UNKNOWN, CRAZY reason Tamiya HAVE DISCONTINUED IT!!!!! Tamiya, if you are reading this, bring back this color (and Rubber Black, and your Clear Flat and Clear Gloss) please!!!! It was a kick to the nuts when I heard this stuff was being discontinued. Look, I'm even wearing a Tamiya shirt when I use the stuff -
Actually, that's about the distance I had the can from the collar. And you need a light touch on the nozzle. You really are just tapping it, trying to get it to spurt out. The Tamiya nozzles are quite good, and this is really NOT what they are designed for. I tried it with my airbrush at a very low pressure, but the drop size was too uniform. Using a spray can gives you different sized drops -
Overall, "misting" it in this manner helps unify the rest of the weathering and darkens the tone of the overall piece.
The other detail I only noticed when I was looking at the props (as opposed to the film) was the use of 3M Retroreflective material. I knew it was on the Jedi Training Remote, but I also found it on a bunch of other props. Here it is on Lobot's headpiece -
I had some of the material - vintage stuff actually. Its got a self adhesive backing and is quite thin. I cut out a couple of semi-circles and stuck it to the inner neck motor. In neutral light, it just looks like a dull gray patch -
In fact, in the photo above, you can't really tell there are two strips of the stuff. But if you change the lighting to more directional in nature, the strips will "glow" a bit as they reflect light back in the same path as it strikes the 3M material. (This means that the light has to be coming from almost directly behind you.) -
And if you use a flash -
.....it really pops. Mostly, they just look like gray patches. The stuff is really fragile, to it will "weather" just through ordinary handling.
Again, I will tinker with the faceplate soon. I just want to keep it balanced and on the light side. The base color of white really bothers me - waayy too easy to go too heavy.
Gene
Hi GKvfx -
Love this project! Amazing creativity!
If you're wanting that splatter technique from your airbrush, try this: normal pressure, but spray off the end of a popsicle stick. It'll take a bit of practice, but you can vary the drop size by spraying closer or farther from the end. Closer to the end makes smaller drops.
Love this project! Amazing creativity!
If you're wanting that splatter technique from your airbrush, try this: normal pressure, but spray off the end of a popsicle stick. It'll take a bit of practice, but you can vary the drop size by spraying closer or farther from the end. Closer to the end makes smaller drops.
Interesting technique. But as long as I've been airbrushing (or spraying), I always felt most comfortable with the object in one hand and the paint can or airbrush in the other. I mean, that's not practical ALL the time, but it works on some of the trickier pieces. I'll try it on a starfield - or something that's locked down.
Too bad I'm not Doc Oc.......
Gene
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