Category: Movies

This is actually a tutorial I’m following myself: recreating Han Solo’s blaster from Star Wars, Episode 4: A New Hope. I started off with the orange and white costume gun from Amazon. OB1Al wrote this tutorial as someone with an interest in making a variety of movie props.

Lightly sand the blaster with a fine grade sandpaper, remove the lettering on the side this way too. Prime with grey auto-primer and leave for a day or two to dry. If you intend to take this blaster to any cons, you may want to leave the end of the barrel orange so it’s still event-appropriate. You can just cover it with some tape when you hit it with the spray paint.

Add a base coat of silver (just use regular silver, NOT metallic silver as it doesn’t take the top coats very well). Leave to dry again. Add a coat of matte black paint. Once it’s dry. highlight the barrel and sight with a gloss black, to add a bit of depth to the paint-job.

Now, using fine grade sandpaper, CAREFULLY begin the weather the blaster by removing parts of the black paint, exposing the silver color underneath. Try to pick areas which would naturally receive wear and tear from normal use. You can also add some weathering topically (i.e., with a small artist brush in places). Weather the sight with some brass colored paint for greater authenticity.

Now, choose a nice brown wood-colored enamel for the grips. Carefully paint in the two sides of the grip and leave to dry. Once dry, spray a little bit of the matte black onto a saucer and dip your finger in it, wiping off most of the excess. Carefully rub some of the black into the brown grip area, giving some depth to the paint and weathering the area. Finally, use your brass colored paint to paint the ‘screws’ in the middle of the grips.