Jamanticus
Well-Known Member
Hi, everybody! The purpose of this thread is for me to show off, as my first project on the RPF, a photographic journey of my Obi-Wan and Luke lightsabers as I have enhanced (and beat) them during the past few weeks.
*** Luke ANH Weathering on post #9 ***
Let's start at the beginning... Several weeks ago, I purchased two wonderful sabers from Corranhornjje at a really great price. One Obi-Wan ANH and one Luke RotJ. Both had a few missing things, but I was excited since I knew it would give me an opportunity to try my hand at things like weathering and filling and greeblies.
The Obi-Wan saber will be the one I'll focus on for this post. It was nearly identical in terms of parts accuracy to the Icons version (the booster looking like a gear, etc), so there were a few things I really couldn't change about it. When it arrived though, it had a few components I knew I'd have fun playing around with- screws serving as the transistors, a circuit board activation panel, silver neck parts, a homemade clamp.
So, I set to work. First, I took some epoxy and filled in the screwdriver grooves of the screws, sanded, and painted with silver model paint. Then, purchased a Graflex clamp replica from King of Parts and a bubble strip. After a few days of agonizing, I finally decided I would weather the entire lightsaber in the end, so I started with the clamp.
Used soot and sandpaper to give the clamp a nice and gritty look. Pretty pleased with it.
I'm planning on installing a more accurate bubble strip when it arrives from Rebelscum, even though this is still quite pretty :lol
Then came creating the illusion of brass parts in the saber's neck. I took some nice reactive brass paint (the stuff with bits of zinc and copper in it so it develops a patina in time) and painted the upper section brass. Then, took some gloss black model paint and applied it to parts of the brass section I wanted to look more aged.
Then, finally the emitter. This was the trickiest bit of the entire saber to make to look really nice. In my prop newbie ignorance, I thought I might get a nice scorched look in the interior of the emitter by blowtorching it. It was when the emitter started to glow I realized how dumb an idea that was.
So first I took some more black paint and carefully painted the outer ring. Then, after the paint had dried for a good week, I held the emitter over a candle to scorch up the inside and a bit of the outside.
Even then, it was still a bit too bright looking, and seeing as how the original prop's emitter was made of Inconel, I decided to take some flat black paint and wipe it around the emitter to make it nice and grayish.
As a general weathering thing, I used my basement floor, driveway, and some sandpaper to give the saber some nice dings and scratches all along the body, and rubbed in some more soot into the grooves in the grenade section...
By now, I was finally pretty satisfied with how the saber looked. It started out as a beautiful, clean, silvery saber, and turned into an old-looking, beat-up and even more beautiful silver and brass and black saber by the end.
Sure, there are parts I'll never be able to really get to look like the original prop, but it was a great experience, weathering my very first saber and making parts of it prettier :love
Feel free to post criticisms, praises, jibes, glib remarks, and other comments to your hearts' desire...I love this forum and hope this is a good first offering here :angel
*** Luke ANH Weathering on post #9 ***
Let's start at the beginning... Several weeks ago, I purchased two wonderful sabers from Corranhornjje at a really great price. One Obi-Wan ANH and one Luke RotJ. Both had a few missing things, but I was excited since I knew it would give me an opportunity to try my hand at things like weathering and filling and greeblies.
The Obi-Wan saber will be the one I'll focus on for this post. It was nearly identical in terms of parts accuracy to the Icons version (the booster looking like a gear, etc), so there were a few things I really couldn't change about it. When it arrived though, it had a few components I knew I'd have fun playing around with- screws serving as the transistors, a circuit board activation panel, silver neck parts, a homemade clamp.
So, I set to work. First, I took some epoxy and filled in the screwdriver grooves of the screws, sanded, and painted with silver model paint. Then, purchased a Graflex clamp replica from King of Parts and a bubble strip. After a few days of agonizing, I finally decided I would weather the entire lightsaber in the end, so I started with the clamp.
Used soot and sandpaper to give the clamp a nice and gritty look. Pretty pleased with it.
I'm planning on installing a more accurate bubble strip when it arrives from Rebelscum, even though this is still quite pretty :lol
Then came creating the illusion of brass parts in the saber's neck. I took some nice reactive brass paint (the stuff with bits of zinc and copper in it so it develops a patina in time) and painted the upper section brass. Then, took some gloss black model paint and applied it to parts of the brass section I wanted to look more aged.
Then, finally the emitter. This was the trickiest bit of the entire saber to make to look really nice. In my prop newbie ignorance, I thought I might get a nice scorched look in the interior of the emitter by blowtorching it. It was when the emitter started to glow I realized how dumb an idea that was.
So first I took some more black paint and carefully painted the outer ring. Then, after the paint had dried for a good week, I held the emitter over a candle to scorch up the inside and a bit of the outside.
Even then, it was still a bit too bright looking, and seeing as how the original prop's emitter was made of Inconel, I decided to take some flat black paint and wipe it around the emitter to make it nice and grayish.
As a general weathering thing, I used my basement floor, driveway, and some sandpaper to give the saber some nice dings and scratches all along the body, and rubbed in some more soot into the grooves in the grenade section...
By now, I was finally pretty satisfied with how the saber looked. It started out as a beautiful, clean, silvery saber, and turned into an old-looking, beat-up and even more beautiful silver and brass and black saber by the end.
Sure, there are parts I'll never be able to really get to look like the original prop, but it was a great experience, weathering my very first saber and making parts of it prettier :love
Feel free to post criticisms, praises, jibes, glib remarks, and other comments to your hearts' desire...I love this forum and hope this is a good first offering here :angel
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That particular saber looks like there's not a scratch or worn spot on it. Does anybody have some high-res pics of Luke's hero V1 from the film that show any sort of weathering?
