finlex
New Member
Re: Kylo Ren lightsaber build. Custom electrics, limited 3d printing [Painted 
]
Little bit longer than my usual time between updates. Waiting for paint to dry between stages kills me, I hate not being able to make any progress ^_^
Painting is pretty much finished at this point aside from any touch ups I decide to do. I'm not 100% happy with the side blades, so I may revisit them in the future but for now they'll do!
So as always, to continue from where I left off before.
Aside from painting, I wanted to try and improve the switch I made since I was having a few issues and inconsistencies with it. I came up with a v2 for the internal piece:
Rather than having flat copper surfaces trying to contact each other I figured some copper wire might be better. Hopefully the curved pieces at the ends give a bit of spring and resistance to keep the circuit complete when it's in the right place.
I added a few missing details before painting, one of which being the wooden piece I added on the outer top layer here:
It's not as detailed as the movie version but I don't feel I have the engraving skills to do the tiny details, so the basic shape will have to do.
I also added a missing screw to the other side of the outer layer:
It was finally time to paint!
I wasn't too sure how I was going to secure things while painting them. I wanted them to be easily movable so I could keep them inside the house to dry as the nights are a bit cold here. I also wanted to be able to move them around to paint in all the crevices and whatnot.
Since everything is built around tubes inside other tubes, I figured I'd rig up something like that for painting too. Here's what I came up with:
This is where the pieces sit while they're drying.
Each piece to be painted can be removed and moved about, as so:
I started with a primer:
This highlighted a few issues that I didn't see before, so I cleaned it up a little and did a few more coats of primer.
The outer layer on the bottom was a little messy up close what with the individual strips glued for the raised edges. I didn't want to risk damaging anything by trying to clean them with too much force, so I hoped that with the later layers of paint it wouldn't be quite so visible.
Then came the base colour, a gunmetal grey. It looks darker in this picture than it actually is. I think that's also because this was before I did a flat clear coat before adding the weathering.
I also painted the end cap. The colour didn't turn out to be quite what I was hoping for but it's close enough, I'm not too worried.
Once the base was clear-coated and dry I got to some weathering.
I started with a black wash to try and get into a few of the crevices and shallow areas to give it a bit of depth. It doesn't really show too much in this picture but in person it made a subtle but noticeable difference I think.
After that I used 2 main colours (copper-looking colour and aluminium-looking colour) to weather the raised sections to try and match the photos I was working from.
Now for the part I'm least happy with overall (though I don't hate it, just not quite how I'd like it to look).
For the side blades I unfortunately don't have an airbrush to do a 'proper' job of giving them that burnt exhaust look. Instead I just went at it with a regular paintbrush and hoped for the best. I used a range of colours (silver underneath, slight blue around the middle, dark brown after that then the copper colour for the rest) and did what I could.
I think, considering I'm still pretty new to painting and only had a brush to work with, that it turned out reasonably well. The copper is a little harsh in the picture but it's a bit more subdued / dull in person. Overall, not perfect but I'll accept it for now.
Now I just need to add a few finishing touches and I can hopefully put it all together again. I'll be adding some blue wires within the hole at the top soon.
For the outer red cable, I haven't quite worked out what to use for the cable / wire itself yet. For the clips I'm going to try using Lego hands. It won't look quite the same as the movie version, but it seemed like a hopefully simple solution and will allow me to unclip / remove the wire at a later date if I need to disassemble the saber for maintenance or whatever.
That's all for now!
]Little bit longer than my usual time between updates. Waiting for paint to dry between stages kills me, I hate not being able to make any progress ^_^
Painting is pretty much finished at this point aside from any touch ups I decide to do. I'm not 100% happy with the side blades, so I may revisit them in the future but for now they'll do!
So as always, to continue from where I left off before.
Aside from painting, I wanted to try and improve the switch I made since I was having a few issues and inconsistencies with it. I came up with a v2 for the internal piece:
Rather than having flat copper surfaces trying to contact each other I figured some copper wire might be better. Hopefully the curved pieces at the ends give a bit of spring and resistance to keep the circuit complete when it's in the right place.
I added a few missing details before painting, one of which being the wooden piece I added on the outer top layer here:
It's not as detailed as the movie version but I don't feel I have the engraving skills to do the tiny details, so the basic shape will have to do.
I also added a missing screw to the other side of the outer layer:
It was finally time to paint!
I wasn't too sure how I was going to secure things while painting them. I wanted them to be easily movable so I could keep them inside the house to dry as the nights are a bit cold here. I also wanted to be able to move them around to paint in all the crevices and whatnot.
Since everything is built around tubes inside other tubes, I figured I'd rig up something like that for painting too. Here's what I came up with:
This is where the pieces sit while they're drying.
Each piece to be painted can be removed and moved about, as so:
I started with a primer:
This highlighted a few issues that I didn't see before, so I cleaned it up a little and did a few more coats of primer.
The outer layer on the bottom was a little messy up close what with the individual strips glued for the raised edges. I didn't want to risk damaging anything by trying to clean them with too much force, so I hoped that with the later layers of paint it wouldn't be quite so visible.
Then came the base colour, a gunmetal grey. It looks darker in this picture than it actually is. I think that's also because this was before I did a flat clear coat before adding the weathering.
I also painted the end cap. The colour didn't turn out to be quite what I was hoping for but it's close enough, I'm not too worried.
Once the base was clear-coated and dry I got to some weathering.
I started with a black wash to try and get into a few of the crevices and shallow areas to give it a bit of depth. It doesn't really show too much in this picture but in person it made a subtle but noticeable difference I think.
After that I used 2 main colours (copper-looking colour and aluminium-looking colour) to weather the raised sections to try and match the photos I was working from.
Now for the part I'm least happy with overall (though I don't hate it, just not quite how I'd like it to look).
For the side blades I unfortunately don't have an airbrush to do a 'proper' job of giving them that burnt exhaust look. Instead I just went at it with a regular paintbrush and hoped for the best. I used a range of colours (silver underneath, slight blue around the middle, dark brown after that then the copper colour for the rest) and did what I could.
I think, considering I'm still pretty new to painting and only had a brush to work with, that it turned out reasonably well. The copper is a little harsh in the picture but it's a bit more subdued / dull in person. Overall, not perfect but I'll accept it for now.
Now I just need to add a few finishing touches and I can hopefully put it all together again. I'll be adding some blue wires within the hole at the top soon.
For the outer red cable, I haven't quite worked out what to use for the cable / wire itself yet. For the clips I'm going to try using Lego hands. It won't look quite the same as the movie version, but it seemed like a hopefully simple solution and will allow me to unclip / remove the wire at a later date if I need to disassemble the saber for maintenance or whatever.
That's all for now!
