Boba Fett is my all time favorite Star War’s characters – (I know, I know – he has like, what, 3 lines total across all 3 movies? …and dies in the most ridiculous, undignified way just short of being beaten to death by Ewoks?) – but his reputation as one of the most cunning and lethal assassins in the whole galaxy is hard to ignore. Combine that with the costume design by Ralph McQuarrie and you’ve got one of the most amazing non-characters in cinematic history.
I believe Boba Fett was originally intended to be an Elite Storm Trooper. Not sure what gives me that idea.
Tell me this isn’t the coolest mother effin’ character in Star Wars
Anyways, a number of years ago Hasbro released an electronic Boba Fett blaster toy that aside from the horrifying paint job is pretty close to being screen accurate. This presented me with a pretty fun opportunity to re-paint it and have my own blaster for the low low price of about $20 (the price has since gone up on Amazon to about $90, but you can get a good deal on eBay) Seeing as a legit reproduction prop runs about $400 this is a pretty good deal.
It looks more like a bird than a firearm.
Let’s take a look at this thing.
Eww, gross.
Pictured here is the stock blaster direct from Hasbro – it’s green, white, and sun bleached turd colored. I’m assuming they had to make this gun not look like a gun for obvious reasons. These days you could walk out into the street with a NES Zapper and get lit up like a Christmas tree…so let’s make this thing look like a real gun!
Don’t snort that green shit!
First, let’s sand off all those pesky warning labels. Don’t aim this thing at cops, don’t put it in your mouth, don’t modify it in anyway to shoot real bullets, and finally don’t have any fun. When I was a kid I had a Transformers Megatron toy that turned into a fucking Walther P38. Kid’s these days will never know the joy.
It’s not fun until your personal safety is at risk.
Hacksaws: Not just for dismemberment!
Next, I had to take a hacksaw to cut the areas that were glued together and wouldn’t snap apart on their own. This was a pain in the ass and left some big chunks missing down the seams I had to fill in with epoxy later.
Ooh, la la!
I took some photos for reference so I could remember where all the electronics go upon re-assembly. I also drew a quick schematic of where the screws go as some of them vary in length. I only lost 2 screws this time even though I TAPED THEM TO THE PAPER.
If you don’t bathe with firearms you have’t LIVED
Time for a scrub down. All pieces were washed in dish soap and caressed gently with a soft sponge.
I brought the pieces out back and gave them a coat of Krylon High Heat BBQ paint for a base coat.
After the base coat I filled in all the hollow parts and screw holes with Epoxy sculpt. I also filled in the seam spaces left from hacksawing it down the middle. Once it dried I sanded it down again to make it nice and smooth. I intentionally made it a little messy to give the gun character.
I had some extra plastic lying around so I used my dremel and cut out little lenses to fit inside the hollow scope – it’s a cute little touch 😉
I then proceeded to dry brush the entire thing with some silver paint to give it worn edges and make it look used.
My last step was shaving off some pastels with an exacto knife, mixing the dust with rubbing alcohol (for adhesion) and dusting the entire gun to make it look like it had been used heavily on a planet like Tatooine. After all that’s where Fett disintegrated Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru – and where his number one client resided, Jabba The Hutt.
FETT WAS HERE
One thing I don’t understand is why most of the other custom Fett blaster’s I’ve seen have a brown stock? The gun in the movie is completely black with brown dust. Observe.
It’s all black!
This is the Masterpiece prop replica you can purchase for 17 zillion dollars.
Here are some detail and final beauty shots of my gun – thanks for reading!
