Boba Fett has to be one of my favourite minor characters in star wars; a tough and deadly bounty hunter who’s only weakness is a clumsy blind man with a stick. (Han Solo)
It, therefore, made sense that inspired by news that the first star wars live action series “The Mandalorian” was on its way that I do a tribute to the big man and do a mock intarsia piece with my scroll saw and Dremel.
I say mock Intarsia as the pieces are heavily painted while true intarsia involves the skills of selecting appropriate wood tone and grain pattern to make up the piece.
What I’ve made however I think is pretty awesome and I’ll go into some details in this post on how I made this and you can also see the video of me making it here:
The Pattern
I’d seen plenty of Boba Fett vectors available but I wanted some original work (or at least derivative of only the movie!) so I decided to take a screenshot from Return of the Jedi and trace out the vector.
Again I should have used Adobe Illustrator for this but reverted back to my old comfort zone and used AutoCAD. I traced around the screenshot and divided the piece into manageable sections each with a defined number for reference.
I then printed the pattern onto sticky labels to avoid using any nasty spray on adhesives
Cutting
The templates were stuck onto to some resawn 2x4s that had been planned to 5mm thickness and sanded smooth. While there was a bit of prep work to do this, it did allow me to use up some offcuts which is always nice!
All of the pieces were then cut using flying Dutchman #3 blades on my workzone cheapy scrollsaw.
I’ve found it a good machine but it has little quirks and problems that are making me want to invest in a better model. I’ve been eying up the Hegner machines or Axminster but I’m told pretty soon record power will be making some higher end models so that may be worth waiting for to see what they are like.
I think due to the amount of work I do on the scrollsaw plus the stuff I want to do I can justify buying something better.
Shaping and Sanding
While the majority of the sticky labels could be peeled off, I had to do a little sanding to remove the rest and any residual adhesive. A piece of 120 grit paper glued to a flat glass plate worked well.
The edges were then rounded using my Dremel and a rotary sanding drum bit to achieve the mock intarsia effect and add some extra dimension to the piece.
I then made sure everything fitted together nicely but placing it onto the background and did a little sanding and shaping on any issue parts to get them to fit.
I used an airbrush to remove any bits of dust and make sure the bits were clean ready for painting.
Test Fit
To make sure everything fitted together perfectly I did a test fit with all pieces. A few parts did clash so it was back to the Dremel tool for a little remedial shaping.
Painting & Finishing
I had wanted to do the entire thing with the airbrush but quickly learned that this was a bit beyond my skills. I did however persevere so I could try and improve a little bit and get the majority of the pieces done with their base colours.
The main backer board, a sheet of 12” square plywood was given a coat of white and a coat of light blue and this made a really nice sky backdrop.
The rest of the pieces were done with their respective base colours, greys, browns, white and black.
I then used a fine brush and the same airbrush paint (to avoid any chemistry issues) to add detail including the weathered effects on the armour.
Glue up
I had some Gorilla glue left over from my gorilla sign project which was perfect for sticking the pieces on as it has a nice brush applicator. There isn’t a good deal of time to move pieces around with super glue so I had to take great care and test pieces first as I went.
Once done I gave the piece three coats of spray on melamine lacquer so to protect it.
I’m pretty proud of this piece, enough to put it on the wall in the house. I loved the video as well as it’s the first time I’ve used as many special effects.
It took a bit longer to edit because of this however so it would be fantastic to know if it was worth it and I should do more like this. Please let me know in the comments on this post or on the video.
Tools I used
My Dremel 3000 – https://amzn.to/2JioWz0
My airbrush and compressor – https://amzn.to/2OOmR3U
Paints used – https://amzn.to/2O870Yw
Airbrush cleaning kit – https://amzn.to/2EN29gc
Airbrush paint thinner – https://amzn.to/2SlDqCn
Airbrush paint cleaner – https://amzn.to/2AtpG1C
Spray varnish – https://amzn.to/2SjKZcF
Scrollsaw practically the same as mine (better in fact) – https://amzn.to/2ENxFL0
Flying dutchman blades – https://amzn.to/2SjLLX7
I used Adobe premier to edit all my videos and its fantastic! 😀
