View new posts | View your posts My Bigi330 GB1 Pack **OVERHAUL TIME!**

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As some of you may know or saw, I had to sell my first pack. It was a beautiful Bigi71 GB2 build that I was very sorry to see go. Well I have a new job and have been helping out over at Vincenzo330 (Vinny)'s house. I have seen this new shell go from a bunch of cut up pieces to a beautiful piece of work.

Behold! The Bigi330 shell!

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-06

When the mobos are ready it will be mounted to this complete LC1 pack frame

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-06

My dad and I spent some time in his garage tonight making up some.....parts

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-06

Here are a few items I already had on hand

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-06

And the beginnings of my Injector Tubes

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-06

If you really look at the beam line and filler tube you will see that they are a little tapered at the top. This is on purpose. I am trying to replicate the look of the ones on the packs in Sony's lobby. What seems to be the current thought is that the original parts were made with hollow tubing and had a cap welded on and then the weld was ground as flat as possible. None of my parts are cleaned up yet, and when they are they will look much better. Anyone that saw my previous pack knows what my aluminum parts looked like.

Here is what I am talking about. If you look these are not perfectly round. You can see where the weld made it wavy in some spots. Mine aren't done yet and I hope to replicate this look very closely.


More to come.........

Small update today....

Got the beam line and filler tube, vent tube, clippard, and HGA that my dad and I made lastnight all mounted:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-07

These little beauties came today, thanks go out to Phish4dinner. Thanks Kenny!

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-07

I am mounting all of my parts with the same 1/4 - 20 cap screws that are used to mount the shell to the mobo. Except the clippard which gets 8-32 cap screws and lock nuts. I will be adding flat and lock washers later, just didn't have them tonight.

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-07

I'll be using a Nick-A-Tron Bigi71 bumper and new Booster frame. I plan to pick up the material to make the Booster Tube tomorrow after work

Again, more to come........

Glad to see you starting on another pack, looks like a beauty already.

Looking good Joe. I'll be watching this build as to obtain some inspiration. Very nice Joe keep up the good work.

You're welcome Looking forward to seeing more of this build! Great start!!

I can't seem to build a pack unless its on a time crunch. So here is the latest progress.

Finally got my Booster tube and Booster Plug made:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-13

Also got the Injector Tubes made up:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-13

And here is a shot of the pack after all the aluminum parts are made and mounted:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-13

I am going to weather this pack, which was not my plan, so I did a hammered silver coat of paint:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-13

Lastly tonight, here are all of my nice aluminum parts painted that familiar shade of satin black:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-13

After waiting the 48hrs required I will paint the shell satin black and begin the weathering process and this Saturday is the mad rush build day!

Hurry up, dude!

That booster plug looks insanely awesome.

Construction of the booster plug looks quite familar =) lol
If you have a chance you might wanna get it welded too since it is on the originals as well.

Anyway, great work on this pack so far, i like it a lot

Looks great. You just made my wait for my aluminum parts that much worse.

Thanks dude, I actually pulled off making 2 of them....



If I did it the same as you, it was purely coincidence. I don't ever remember seeing the GB1 plugs being welded? Do you have a picture?



I hate to wait too. Thats why I try to make as much as possible here at home

Thanks for the compliments guys update coming soon....

So here is the update. Not much to say, I think the pictures will say enough. I took them in different light so you can get different looks at my first try at weathering.


By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-15

Hey Joe.

First of all, I have to say your pack is looking awesome. I'm very jealous that you have fabricated and welded your own parts...very impressive. Your filler tubes look amazing...(maybe you could get a hacksaw and scratch some cutting lines across the top like some of the ref pics?)
I'm also really impressed at how quickly you are putting it together.

Now you are going to hate me for this but personally I think you have gone a bit too far with some of your weathering. There are quite a few areas that look like you have gotten a screw driver and scribbled on it, rather than having the effect of paint wearing off or chipping of due to hitting or scrapping against something. I know this is prob a first attempt and rough draft but I thought id say something anyway.

But don't let that comment lead you to think I don't think your pack is pure awesome. I'm hugely Jealous!

Joe, im afraid ill have to echo what julz said. My advice would be to give the whole pack a sanding and shoot another coat of paint over it so you can start over with the weathering.

If you must cover it in chips and scratches then think about where they would occur naturally, like on the edges of areas and corners, not in nooks and crannies and under other parts (such as where the crank knob will mount).

BUT i honestly think the pack would look fantastic sprayed black and left looking new-ish then just add a dusting of fullers earth. Heck even the screen used packs shells 22 years later arent THAT dinged up.

Its a great build Joe and i think it deserves a paintjob to match.

I don't hate either of you for your comments. I actually am thankfull for your honesty. This was my first attempt at weathering and I wasn't very happy with the out come. Thankfully after getting more and more stuff on it, it is looking better. I am going to tone it down though.

I don't have time to redo the whole paint job since SDCC is next weekend, but I think I can clean it up enough to make it "showable" and then work on it more after con.

The way I plan on adding weathering to my pack is to first prime it and paint it the satin black as usual. Then take something called "Rub-N-Buff", which is a wax based paste used to simulate a metal finish that you can get at craft stores. Squeeze out just a TINY bit, like very tiny, on to your finger and just swipe it across the raised edges on the pack, like the ribs, cyclotron rings, box edges, etc. This will give it a very subtle, yet still noticeable look of being a used piece of equipment. Then it's just a matter of taking the fullers earth and dusting it onto the pack with a big brush and clear coating it.

One of my other costumes is a custom Mandalorian suit (think Boba Fett if your not a Star Wars fan), and that has very heavy weathering like paint chips, scuff marks, etc. But I personally think the ideal proton pack weathering would consist of very subtle paint chips and paint rubs with some fullers earth.

Either way though, this pack is going to rock.

I think you should just throw some fillers earth on it. Mine isn't even finished and it seems to be weathering just fine from moving it around.

What everybody shouldn't forget is that Boba Fett's armor is supposed to be made of metal. So heavy chips are a must, simply to emulate the screen-used look. Sure, in-universe the pack maybe is metal (emphasis on maybe) but a weathered, screen-used shellshows grey primer, not metal. If you're building a idealized version of the prop, which is supposed to be more realistic than the real thing, well sure, paint chips are essential. But if you're replicating the screen-used prop? Grey primer, satin black, fuller's earth. That's it!

I am stuck between a rock and a hard spot here. I don't want to copy a screen used pack, as I want this one to be unique and mine. At the same time I don't want it to look ridiculous. I am going to leave some of the better looking spots like on the cyclotron and some of the ribs, but places like around the clippard and crank knob I am defiantly going to be redoing.

When this is all said and done this may become a GB2 pack in stead since I am not entirely happy with all of my work. I had planned to build 2 packs anyway, a GB1 and a GB2.

i like most of the weathering.. if anything i would just redo the powercell fins so you can see them better, all of the scratches seem to camouflage them..

For my first pack, I used different kinds of black in small places, in very small amounts to give it a used, textured look. This included acrylic paint, felt marker and india ink. Honestly, I was just covering up nicks I didn't care for, and figured it was something in line the Ghostbusters or prop builders would do. If you use fuller's earth, or some sort of other weathering powder, that'll further help soften and blend the different colors (especially when flashed by a camera). If time is a factor, this is something I think you could do without having to take apart and re-paint the pack.

Mini Update:

Here is how she will look at San Diego Comic Con:

By joeluna33 at 2011-07-20

Not to shaby huh? Especially for a 2 week build. I did tone down some of the weathering. The thrower is still drying so no pics of it. Lights and sounds will be operational tomorrow....

nice! You could paint the ion arm cap and scratch it off.

Very nice! Weathering looks better

One tip to avoid cable boots slipping, just wrap some masking tape around the end of the hose and push the boot over it, nice tight fit and it wont slip down.

I'd have a black crank knob on that sucker but other then that, it looks good.

Not really an update but I need some opinions. Please check out my little video and let me know what you think.

(I had no idea that I say "uh" so much)

Cool set up, Joe! The warmup on the lights takes several seconds to begin to cycle, and that's probably why it seems odd. The start up effect sounds right, but like you said, not long enough to accommodate the light warmup. Can you kill the warmup and try just the regular light start up? It would probably sound/look more in sync, or you could add the "hum" effect which would kick in right after the start up. Still though, the sound of the pack powering up first and then the lights warming up and then cycling looks pretty cool.

Weathering looks much better now. Before it looked like the EDA disks had eyebrows...

Thats a very nice pack! Your weathering is perfect now, I am probably one of the only one who found your old weathering interesting. Really look like over-used, but I still prefer its current state

Well Joe, I think your idea would work but for two things.

As you say, the pack start-up sound is too short. Also, the lights didn't seem to come on until -after- the sound was done playing.

Now, is that a Replica Props sound chip? Because there's an alternate pack start-up sound on them that's a bit longer, and I think it would work better with your warm-up sequence than the standard one. I think if you used that and made sure that the warm-up sequence for the lights came on as soon as the switch is flipped, it would work.

You could also try shortening the warm-up sequence by a couple of seconds, if that fails.