My 2 Lifesize 1:1 BB-8 Projects

[azheat]

You know when you've been away from the house so long that when you get home your dog is so excited to see you that he can't calm down and pees a little on the floor..........................yeah, that's kinda how I felt today when this arrived.



Can't really lay any sort of claim to this because all the hard work was done by reelprops and TheRocketeer, but I'll be building, painting, and adding lights and sounds.

Hope I can do it justice.

 

[mikid]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

Nice.....cant wait to see the finished BB-8

 

[jedimax]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

This is an interesting post. Looking forward to see it complete.

 

[reelprops]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

I highly recommend a coating on the inside of the ball to make the white "Pop". It makes a huge difference. I took plain bright white primer and slushed the inside of it. Glad it got there safe. Happy building. :$

Reel

 

[azheat]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

I highly recommend a coating on the inside of the ball to make the white "Pop". It makes a huge difference. I took plain bright white primer and slushed the inside of it. Glad it got there safe. Happy building. :$

Reel

Awesome, thank you for the tip! I'll definitely try that.

 

[reelprops]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

Awesome, thank you for the tip! I'll definitely try that.

Anytime. I hope you don't mind me posting here. This is what I'm talking about.

The inside is completely coated to give it a pure white look in the outside.

Here you can see the difference. On the left is the coating while in the right has some transparency as is not yet coated.

If there is anything I can do to help you with your build, LMK.

Reel

 

[azheat]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

Anytime. I hope you don't mind me posting here. This is what I'm talking about.

If there is anything I can do to help you with your build, LMK.

Reel

Not at all. Wow, you can definitely see the difference. One of things I'm about to do is drill some holes for LEDs. I've used acrylic quite a bit so I hope the bits I have for that will work on the ball. I think I'll need to drill the holes first then slush the paint on the inside, otherwise I'm worried if I slush first then drill, that latex might peel when the bit pops through.

 

[reelprops]

Re: My Lifesize 1:1 BB-8

Not at all. Wow, you can definitely see the difference. One of things I'm about to do is drill some holes for LEDs. I've used acrylic quite a bit so I hope the bits I have for that will work on the ball. I think I'll need to drill the holes first then slush the paint on the inside, otherwise I'm worried if I slush first then drill, that latex might peel when the bit pops through.

Wipe the inside down with grease and wax remover by Duplicolor. It'll prep the inside for the paint.

Reel

 

[azheat]

So after I bought Reel's kit, I found a guy locally here who was also selling a kit. I decided to grab that one as well and do both. I like the clean lines of Reel's kit but I also like the idea of the body being molded to show all the panels, lines, etc. Right now I am leaning to using the head from Reel's kit and the molded body.

Here's how they look side by side.



The molded body needs some clean up, so I started doing some sanding. I also cut various holes where I plan on putting lights.





I was able to tape off the panels on the head and body today and get the orange base down. I need to clean up a few edges where there was a little over spray. As much as I hate Rustoleum paint, I found a great color but it was only available in gloss. No worries though, I have to dirty this up with an acrylic wash in black, weather, then I'll knock everything down with a few coats of matte clear.

 

[azheat]

Not a lot of time to work on this, but I was able to start on the panels. I'm going to get all the base colors down then clean up some of the lines / over spray.

 

[Delta13]

It looks great alredy and I'm sure other details will just make it look even better! I may missed it somewhere but how is the head (if it is) attached to body?

 

[azheat]

It looks great alredy and I'm sure other details will just make it look even better! I may missed it somewhere but how is the head (if it is) attached to body?

It's not attached yet, but when I do it I will be using a non-permanent tacky putty, kind of a like a Silly Putty material.

 

[azheat]

A little more progress, all the orange and silver is down, need to paint the main eye black and around the holographic projector and then do a wash to start dirtying it up.

 

[azheat]

I wanted to use the holographic projector that came with the head, but I needed to alter it so I could light it up. I shaved down the molded lens and drilled a hole through the top.



Quick test fit of the jewel from the craft store.



Coat of matte black.



Then a test run with a blue LED and the jewel in place.





Not exactly screen accurate, but it will do. Hope to get more work done tomorrow.

 

[azheat]

Last night I hit all the orange with two coats of matte clear coat. I really like how it looks, it knocked that orange down a lot. I temporarily affixed the holo-projector just to see how it looks. I'm going to try and clean up some of the paint lines today and start dirtying him up, then onto LEDs for lighting.

 

[azheat]

I picked up these Fineline Applicators so I could use them for the black in the grooves around the base and the top of the head.





Had some trial and error and a few missed spots, but they were easily corrected on the second pass.



Then I completed the first two base coats of weathering.







I'll let this dry and start on the body.

 

[azheat]

Went a little heavy in some spots, was able to darken a lot of the lines, it's coming along. Going to step away from weathering for a few and work on the electronics.

 

[azheat]

Quick update, found a great option for a BB-8 base, and only $2.00. It's a plastic planting pot tray from Lowes.

 

[azheat]

I'm going to try and finish the LEDs before I move back to weathering and touch ups. I had some white acrylic left over from my Death Star light panels which I thought would work perfectly for the cut outs.









I'm using my Schedule 40 pipe method for mounting the lights. I got a few small pipe caps (1/2") for the single lights and a few larger couplers (1") for the others.



Drilled a hole in the end of the cap and hot glued in the LED.



For the larger areas I hot glued 4 LEDs together.



I took some foam board, cut it to the inside diameter of the pipe, cut a slit in the center, hot glued the LEDs into the board, then placed the foam board into the pipe. These are super bright LEDs so having them a little ways away from the opening helps disperse the light.





I used four blue LEDs for the lower left front slot, four white for the one behind that, one red in the center eye, one blue in the holo projector, and one flashing blue for the lower eye. I'm going to make a circuit board for the little flashing blue eye so it will blink a little more randomly.





I'm going to run all 25 or so of these lights off one 9V battery. I'll start working on the body lights next.

Here's a quick video..........

 

[azheat]

Quick pic with the head on the body and lights on.