Blasters & laserguns; customs and repaints

[Yoda36]

For fun, I started painting and customizing a replica gun, the Han Solo blaster. Cheap to buy on Amazon. Why not? I should have known better....
Last year I bought, painted and customized 14 Star wars blasters.

Since painting them needed to be done in open air with the right temperature and no rain, I really got fixated on the weather. I live in a 4 season country.
First trying to open up the gun to add sound & light, if possible. After that sanding off the legal texts, filling up screwholes, priming, layer 1, coating, layer 2, applying metal wear and tear, highlighting them and add shading. Far more wortk than I antipepated, but it pays of.

I will display all of these blasters in this thread.
They are:

Battle Droid E-5 blaster

Stormtrooper E-11 blaster

First Order trooper SE-44c blaster

General Grievous DT-57 blaster

Clone trooper DC-15 blaster

Clone commander DC-15A rifle

Lightsaber Luke Skywalker, return of the Jedi (green)

Jango Fett WESTAR-34 blaster

Boba Fett EE-3 rifle

Princess Leia DDC defender blaster

Han Solo DL-44 blaster

Rey LPA NN-14 blaster

Darth Vader lightsaber (red)

Bootleg stormtrooper blaster

Rebel trooper blaster DH-17

First one is the Grievous Blaster which I painted metal.

The original looked like this:

 

[RC_1136]

The detailing and paint work here is most excellent!

 

[Utinniii]

You have exquisite work.

 

[Yoda36]

@ Utinniiii and RC_1136: thanks for the compliments. There is more coming up.

Next is the classic E-11 Stormtrooper blaster.
I bought the hasbro toy gun and than discovered the existence of the doopy-doo set.
The parts came out of the molds very sloppy, so I had to carve and sand a lot before they were smooth. Worth the trouble nonetheless.

I added a small torchlight in the scope. It has bluelight, bright white and a laserpointer.
Great challengde was to create the external buttons to switch the lights on and off, but I managed.

As crosshair I printed the mostly used red one. A plastic bottle cap is the cover of the crosshair.
I added making off pics, so they explain themselves. Enjoy!

Here are some pics of the making off:

I added some alu-foil to enhance the amount of light coming out of the nozzle.

I glued plastic covers over the holes in the original gun, for the doopy-doo strips would not cover them completely.

The nozzle had to be glued back on. I used greenstuff (kneedite) to make the connection smooth again.

The buttons for operating the flashlight. Try to find them again on the finished gun - they are nearly invisable!

I pushed a transparent plastic circle in the cap. It did not even need glue.

 

[Utinniii]

Your WIPs are very helpful. We can really see how vastly superior your upgrades are.

 

[Yoda36]

Your WIPs are very helpful. We can really see how vastly superior your upgrades are.

Hope I can inspire other people to paint up these simple plastic toys.
Spray painting can be tricky but is doable for most.
More WIPS on the way.

 

[Yoda36]

Next in line is the one I started with: the Han Solo DL-44 blaster.
Mostly a repaint, for I can not crack open the Rubies guns without destroying the piece. Hasbro guns work better.
The silencer was a closed piece, so I cut the ''lid'' off. I than added a cover for the (poor) speaker in the nozzle.
There were a lot of legal texts to scrape away of the gun. Stupid stuff, with Hasbro it is worse.
O yes, and added crosshairs in the scope: prints and plastified them.

It was december 2018 when I wanted to paint this first one, too cold for outside, so I did it in my studyroom.
What a big mistake...
I got black paintdust allover the room. Luckily it was removable, but it took me an entire morning to get everything clean again: desk, books, keyboard, floor, shelves... So: never spraypaint in the house, but do it outside!!
This was my setup for disaster:

 

[Oofa]

I've done the DL-44 blaster too, exactly that one. Saw a couple of videos and though, I want to try that

 

[Trooper31]

Great work. Thanks for posting all the pics.

 

[RC_1136]

Cant wait to see the clone trooper weapons! I would love to see you tackle a Clone Commando rifle.

 

[Utinniii]

In a galaxy with warp drive, repulsor technology and laser swords, they still used a slot screwdriver.

 

[Yoda36]

It is fun indeed to see what they used as ''laserguns''. This one is actually a Colt revolver with a huge silencer and a buttstock.
[correction: a flare gun]

The clone commander rifle will come soon.
For now, to honour the Mandalorian series, I display the Boba Fett EE-3 blaster.
It is a repaint os the Hasbro version. The one made by Disney is a tad larger, my version is really a children's toy in size.
It is not for the looks a toy anymore!

To make it feel less plastic, I glued in a chain in the buttstock for more weight.
In the scope I placed thick plastic circles. Luckily, I appeared to have two thick rubbers that nicely closed up the ''glass'' piece.
The rust is from the kitchen: out of a tube with grinded chilipepper. I placed it in the wet paint, the colour was just as it should be.
This rifle is my favourite, for I love how the weathering played out.

The only further conversions are of course taking away all the letters and texts and filling up the screwholes.
A practical tip: to prevent one paints away the laseblast red plastic when spraying, I fumbled in pieces of paper which I fixated with paintingtape.
Enjoy this Return of the Jedi piece!

The back side

The front

The glued in chain:

 

[Oofa]

Isn't the EE-3 a flare gun originally?

 

[Yoda36]

Isn't the EE-3 a flare gun originally?

Yes, you are right, it is.

 

[Yoda36]

Next in line is the 'build your own" clone commander DC-15a rifle. I put a lot of effort in this one.
The light and sound effects are very cool, but that there was no light in the muzzle which is a shame in a toy of this quality and price!
So I bought a low price M16 with shaker effect, lights and sound and build it in the empty last part.
The blue light I connected with the original firing system, which gives a fantastic result!

In het scope I build in a torchlight. How to switch it on and off was a challenge, but the solution was quite simple in the end.
I placed a screw with bolts in the middle for pressing the button inside.

Since there were a number of empty slots, I bought an infra-red pointer and placed it on the side.
The empy slot in the bottom is filled up with a decoy piece, see the pics.

For the stand I decided that only one place made sense, which is the bottom.
The now two empy slots for this piece got a led light. When the system switches on, the yellow light at the handle is burning.

For powering the M16 pieces, I placed an ''ammoclip" in the slot on the bottom.
In this the battery compartment goes.
It gives light to a second bluelight in the muzzle, makes a shooting and reloading sound and makes the gun shake.
The switch to power these features is a pressbutton on top.
When the battery is switched on, a green light appears on top.

For more weight, I glued in small stones in the buttstock.

The power cable that provides the front makes the connection of part 2 and 3 permanent. That is a shame, for the sound effect of part 1 and 2 combined is now lost, but that is a small price for other cool extra effects!
The speaker is of less quality than the gun, that is a pity. Rebuilding the connection switch and make the power flow smooth was a challenge.
The many WIP pics show enough of this.

Because I wanted to be able to do repairs, I placed black stickers over the screwholes instead of filling them up.
I superglued them, for they tend to peel off. After that I placed the layers of spraypaint and coating, so they are fixed well.
The hardly show.

And here and there I added bits and bobs which I thought wre nice. Try to find them I'd say.

Enjoy this item!

WORK IN PROCES

Placing the yellow light in part 1. I used some cover to dim the light, for it was very bright.

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The connector of my newly placed battery compartment. The click-clack sound still functions this way.

The battery compartment, which operates on three AA batteries:

The inside of part 1 with extra padding for the speaker:

The inside of part 2 with all the extra wiring:

The extra speaker put in place:

The shaker device in the front:

The power cable for the front wiring. I stripped the original cable so it became an empty tube for the much thinner new wiring:

The power button is the top of a stick that pushed the original trigger of the M16 toygun.

The backside of the muzzle. Here the lights are connected. I used a piece to create a new barrel exit, for the original was somewhat dull.

 

[Yoda36]

Next one I like to show is mostly a repaint of the Rey LPA NN-14 blaster.
It is the nerf gun by Disney with some bits and bobs added for fun.

 

[Yoda36]

The next item is the Droid Blaster. A very nicely done pice by Hasbro. I like the sound and light effect.
It should have a bigger power clip, but that is something fot the future to add.

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Another one is the First Order trooper SE-44c blaster. It is a nerf gun, licensed by Disney.
The size is nice. The one I bought did not have the big visor thing on top, so I created something by myself.
The white is off-white spraypaint for central heating devices in home.

A third for today is the Clone trooper DC-15 blaster. A repaint of the Rubies gun aith some bits and bobs added for fun.

 

[Nerfherder]

These are amazing. The paint is unreal. The handle on Rey's pistol looks like wood. It's crazy how nice those Hasbro molds are, and then they end up orange.

 

[Yoda36]

@ Nerfherder: yeah, they really come to life with the right colour! Thanks for the compliment. I love the wooden handle too.

 

[Yoda36]

Next in line is the rebel trooper blaster, the DH-17. This is original a nerf gun, but I made a lights & sounds gun of it.

Cracking this baby open was difficult. The closing caps are stuck with glue. I held the ends in boiling water so soften the glue, which worked good, but got the scope warped. Took some effort to smoothen that out with greenstuff and sanding.

The light in the scope comes from a toy scope for nerf guns made in China. To my surprise, I noticed that in the movie 28 Weeks later, a soldier had the same thing mounted on his gun. A geek sidestep, but here it is:

The scope was too big for the other gun I wanted it for, so I took it apart.
The battery feed is the ammo-clip in the gun now.
In some master replica's, the DC-17 has an ammoclip, just like the E-11 stormtrooper blaster.
I couldn't see them in A new hope or in Rogue One, for the guns were smooth there.
Anyway, I wanted the light up screen in the scope, so I fumbled it in.

Before painting, I had light leaking through the plastic, but after three layers of black & the primer, it was gone.

In the muzzle I placed the led, embedded in an alu-circle from a torchlight.
Behind it the speaker is placed. To let the souned run free, I drilled holes in the barrel.

The end result of the scope:

And here are the end results of the entire gun:

 

[sharky]

I wish I could give a thumbs up/like to this entire thread. Good stuff.

 

[Utinniii]

I wish I could give a thumbs up/like to this entire thread. Good stuff.

Like has been enabled again. Like away!

 

[Yoda36]

Last ones are the Princess Leia DDC defender blaster and one that I call the shaker gun.

The Leia blaster is a simpel repaint, black allover. I liked to keep one of my guns pitch black.
The shaker blaster is a bootleg star wars gun, but with a great sound effect and a shaking device.
It could be an imperial officers blaster.

Enjoy and thanks for watching. Bye for now.

 

[Utinniii]

I hope these are all mounted on a wall somewhere as if they were in an armory. They deserve to be displayed.

 

[Yoda36]

I hope these are all mounted on a wall somewhere as if they were in an armory. They deserve to be displayed.

As a matter of fact they are, but I lack the photo's. To be continued.

 

[yodashizzle]

These are amazing! Love, LOVE the weathering and your techniques are much appreciated. The chili pepper dust for rust is so good. I also do a bit of weathering using kitchen products like cinnamon, now I've gotta get spicy after seeing how effective your example is! Keep cooking them up and posting!

 

[Yoda36]

Yodashizzle, thanks for the enthusiam.
And Strobeeone: tnx for the thumbs up!