Han Solo’s Blaster From “A New Hope”

hanblaster

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.

DIY Han Solo Cabinet Pulls

han solo pulls

Our Nerd Home posted a tute sometime ago about how to use novelty silicone ice cube trays. In this case, it was the Han Solo frozen in Carbonite trays, but any good quality silicone tray should work.

It’s a very clearly, concisely written tute, with plenty of pictures of the process to boot. I’m thinking some TARDIS drawer pulls would be pretty awesome!

Han Solo Lego Portrait

Back in April I went along to The Sydney Brick Show: a big Lego event where Lego sculptors bring some of their awesome creations and chat with other fanatics, whilst hundred of little kids run around suffering from excitement overload. I was originally going to write an entire post about the event, but there was just so much awesome stuff there, that I’ve kind had to just cut it down to the best for now. And here you are: Han Solo Lego Pixel Art.

Han Solo Lego Portrait

This incredible portrait of Star Wars’ Han Solo is something like 1 metre squared and is made up of over TWENTY THOUSAND bricks. And they are all those tiny “one-ers” that you miss when clearing up and then stand on days later.

Han wasn’t the only pixel art there. Continue reading Han Solo Lego Portrait

Han & Leia Aluminum Cuff Bracelets

Han & Leia Aluminum Cuff BraceletsLove is in the air.

When I happened upon this set of Aluminum Cuff Bracelets, I knew I had to share them with all of you.  There is no better display of geek love as far as I am concerned.  I can remember watching Star Wars as a kid, and there was no one cooler than Han Solo.  With his cool, flippant attitude he taught me everything I know about love today.  Actually, maybe that’s a bad thing.

Etsian Annie Nygard’s shop, spiffingjewelry, features a slew of awesome stamped aluminum treasures.  It is definitely worth checking out.  She loves doing custom work, so if you have something in mind that you want you would be a fool to turn down this opportunity.  That’s right.  A fool.

Han Solo Cross Stitch Pattern

Han Solo Cross Stitch Pattern

A little over two years ago, I created my first cross stitch pattern for a Craftster challenge. Naturally, it was a geeky cross stitch, immortalizing one of my favorite Star Wars quotes in floss and Aida cloth. I designed it by hand using pencil and graph paper, which took foreeeever.

Now, thanks to a free pattern-making program a fellow Craftster pointed me towards, I was able to chart my Han Solo sampler! It’s available both as a simple JPEG and as a PDF with color chart.

I have to say, the free KG-Chart software I used was pretty awesome. It was incredibly user-friendly, and included pre-programmed palettes for both DMC and Danish Flower Thread. You can export your final pattern as a jpeg, or print it out with a color chart and comments. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to make their own geeky cross stitch patterns.