Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop *FINISHED*

[manooga]

Hey guys,

This is my most recent creation. Still in process, but about to be finished. This was my goal:

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UDAPTE: Finished at last.

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I recently bought a DL-44 "replica" from some company called "Cinemastery Studios". It was pretty inaccurate in fine details, but I'm not that picky with blasters as I am with lightsabers, so this was quite acceptable and good enough for just 60 usd. Still, what I got was totally far from what I wanted it to be. It had that plastic, toyish look, which I had to get rid of. This is what I got. It's mostly plastic; scope and flash hider were resin:

It even had that awful "Made in China" legend, and there was a gap in the middle all along the blaster. You could easily open it just by pulling the halves apart.

The scope is inaccurate in shape, but c'mon, it could still look much better than this:

So that's were I started. I took a dive into my junk drawer and added a metal circle into the front, introducing a plastic lens under it first to make it look better. On the rear, I added also a ring that did fit perfectly to make the scope sight wider.

Then I savagely cut the flash hider off, to replace it for a metal one later on. Besides, the cannon was too long.

I covered the gap in the middle all along the blaster with epoxy. Then sanded the excedent to make it even.

It was ready to be painted, so the job was done. Different paint was used for the scope to give it a slightly different look. Here the scope was already weathered.

Then weathering of the blaster itself was made, and the handle was dry-brushed with dark brown paint.

After adding semi-gloss clear spray, this is the end result:

Much better without the "Made in China" thing

The aluminum flash hider is still in customs, but will update as soon as this is completed.

Hope you like it

 

[FudgeMando]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

That looks great so far. How much did it cost you.

 

[manooga]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

The blaster was 100 usd including shipping. Materials were in stock from other projects, so I'll count them free. The aluminum flash hider was 59 including shipping as well from Argentina. So, 160 in the end. It's not that good as a Master Replicas prop, for example. But for the price of 160 against the 600 I'd had to pay for a MR, it's nice I think.

 

[thd9791]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

this looks wonderful, nice work!

 

[manooga]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

Finally I decided to modify the scope, since it was far from looking like an M-19 scope. The front part was very long, and the back end was the same diameter as the whole body of the scope, when it had to be wider. So I got the cover of a shaving foam bottle, cut it and put it in the back, and trimmed the long part of the scope to make it more accurate. Here is the work so far:

 

[demoncase]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

Looks great.

This may be 'teaching you to suck eggs' but I always age my metal airsoft guns for use in skirmish- I see a lot of people that miss something when they do the same.

When you hold a pistol grip, you tend to wear through at the contact points of the hand- so I expect to see more 'wear' on the sharp edges around the rear of the trigger, the trigger itself and the rear of the pistol grip where the thumb sits normally.....So you might want to add a bit more silver in those areas, particularly the sharp edges around the trigger guard and rear of the receiver below the hammer.

When you look at original issue real weapons, you see this pattern- worn through finish where the hand sits.

 

[manooga]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

Looks great.

This may be 'teaching you to suck eggs' but I always age my metal airsoft guns for use in skirmish- I see a lot of people that miss something when they do the same.

When you hold a pistol grip, you tend to wear through at the contact points of the hand- so I expect to see more 'wear' on the sharp edges around the rear of the trigger, the trigger itself and the rear of the pistol grip where the thumb sits normally.....So you might want to add a bit more silver in those areas, particularly the sharp edges around the trigger guard and rear of the receiver below the hammer.

When you look at original issue real weapons, you see this pattern- worn through finish where the hand sits.

Great illustration! I actually had the doubt if I should add more weathering in that zone where the hand rests, since I didn't know if a real gun really gets more weathered there. I do have serious weathering in the zone behind the hammer, as it is obvious that the hammer would weather the gun right were it hits. I'll work on that later and will show some pics hopefully tomorrow. thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[manooga]

Re: Transformed ESB DL-44: From toy to prop.

Yesterday I got (finally) the alluminum flash hider. It's the one above. The one below is the original resin hider the blaster came with. You can certainly see the difference.

So I could finally finish this thing. Here it is. I'm very happy with the result, specially with the total amount I paid for everything. I added some more weathering, as demoncase suggested.

 

[Dr Feeley Good]

That looks Great. ..

 

[manooga]

That looks Great. ..

Thanks