Also, i never really went into detail on the paint job.
After seams and holes were filled, and the blaster primed, it got several coats of satin black. The grip and funky plate under the barrel just got coats of black primer (it's not even a true black, it's a very very very very dark grey, which looks better than flat black to me). That's not completely screen accurate, but I took some artisitc licenses with the paint job as it's not really a hero weapon per say and got very little screen time.
Anyway, after the satin black, I rubbed all that down with graphite powder and a flannel rag, being sure to add a little more in "high wear zone" locals. Then I went in with a semi-stiff brush and testors silver enamel, and started bringing out the wear zones. I wiped off almost all trace of the silver from my brush when doing this, and applied it with a frontward dabbing motion. This took some time with the microscopic amount of paint on the brush, but provided a very realistic look of silver starting to show through the black.
After that, I went in with a smaller brush and heavier amounts of testors silver and added few paint chips here and there, and highlighted just about all the sharp edges around the blaster.
The scope was base coated bronze, then lightly coated with the satin black, and i lightly sanded and made some chips with an x-acto to let the color show through. Again, not screen accurate, but done as an homage to all the scopes used in the OT which were bronze. I would have like to do the whole gun in this style (paint and sand/chip), and in fact I did, but the chrome silver spray I used would come right up with the black and leave me with chips of primer. I'm not sure why, but probably the el cheapo silver spray I was using.
Then I painted all the nuts and screws, and then worked some dust and rust colored pastels into deep crevices and the grips. Then I called it done. I left the electronics in for fun, and thus didn't putty over the battery compartment. I also removed the red plastic cone from the inside of the barrel so that the LED shine through at full intensity.
It drives my dogs up the wall.
