Star Wars Prop Box Project
Base Hacker System - Colour Pallet and Distressing
Styling - Imperials Vs Rebels
In the Star Wars universe.
There were two main factions. The imperials and the rebels as well as various other groups which appear to fit the two.
These differ distinctly in style.
Imperials
The empire has the power and the money. The Imperials have what appears to be unlimited money, access to all the factories and have a very corporate uniformed drab, minimalist, regimented, conformist, functional feel.
It tends to be very mass manufactured, grey, metallic, functional, disposable but no time or money for decoration.
This is not as it cannot be afforded more not considered of any values and actively discouraged to oppose people thinking for themselves and critically.
Their equipment appears new, clean, just out of the standardised factory fresh in set sizes and identikit and conformist.
High Technology from the centralised most developed planets.
Was pretty much unlimited funding, kit is disposable, anything fails its throw away and replace new from a box in the well-stocked store room.

The Rebels
Have far less funding and surviving from the outskirts hiding in wilderness, they are trying to avoid detection so have to be careful, secretive, avoid high tech planets which are highly occupied with many troops.
Their resources come from donations, what people bring with when joining, those who have escaped and defected.
Deals with arms dealers, black market, stolen, creative accounting, older technology, what has been self-made on smaller scales, garages, mechanics, hidden factories
Consequently, what they do have is much more values and not considered disposable as hard to replace thus much more repair, reuse, customise and jury rig and patch together what’s available from a variety of sources.
Consequently, there is far more customised kit, made by what few skilled personnel they have, more hacking, repairs, replaced parts.
As their kit is made from individuals with talent there is far more individuality, creativity and personality input, much more mis matched parts.
More open wiring that has lots of by passes.
As its older and reused and kept as limited resources there is far more dirt, rust, dents, scratches, burns, wear, recycling, flaked paint, dirt, oil and grease etc
It is this that George Lucas valued going back to his youth of customising hot rod cars.
Changing Factions
At first my project started as an imperial product I shifted to rebels as this would give more scope from inperfections and distressing which seemed more interesting and better demonstation of skills.
Note the corporate uniformity of Imperials on the left vs messiness, patchy jury rigginng and variety of the rebels on the right.
Faction Colour Pallet - Imperial Start
After getting the tower combination prototyping with parts that could fit together and seemed to work,
I started to work on colour pallets.
I started with the corporate dark grey metallic Imperial look with white light rounded end slots during prototyping and with just the grey primer.
Then with dirty white look suited to an ice planet such as Hoth in Empire Strikes Back and very dark gun metal towers painted black with a like metallic spray dusting and experiments with graphite powder.
Faction Colour Pallet - Switching Alliegance to the Rebels &
The Outer Rim Tatooine, Jakku and Jedah
After getting the tower combination prototyping with parts that could fit together and seemed to work, I started to work on colour pallets.
I started with the corporate dark grey metallic Imperial look with white rounded end slots.
I first started with dirty white look then moved to more of a yellow sandy look that looked more jury rigged and old look of a device from one of the outer rim planets such as Tatooine or Jakku.
The distressing could also camouflage any rough work as it’s supposed to look rough, bashed, old, worn in, well used and more in line with the general Star Wars universe or worn in kit.
So moved to more of a golden yellow sandy, rusty mixed metal look. This looked more jury rigged and the old look of a device from one of the outer rim planets such as Tatooine or Jakku.
The chopped-up Nerf gun, hair dryer, Warhammer and fast cast resin parts were painted in blend of aged gold, black, copper, dirty down rust, black and khaki dirty down. Generally, after primer, a black layer then light dust over in gold. This gave a bronze look, then added the washes making the appearance patchy.
In general, I mixed the various metallic sprays to get more interesting colours such as steel, gold and copper with some black and Dirty Down khaki spray.
The towers starter gun metal grey and I experimented with graphite powder as well as a mix of gold and black.
Parts were bonded with with a mix of superglue, glue gun and epoxy glue.
There was a rotating joint on one of the parts which I kept to give the appearance of tuning the aerials.
Also spray glued sand onto the outside, then added various dirty down sprays were added. To mess it up.
Star Wars Prop Upgrade Aug 2024
Enhancing the Worn Dirty Tatooine Look
With Sand and Dirty Down Spray
The Star Wars Prop was made to look more authentic by adding sand sprayed with dirty down to give a rustier look and applying some iron paste to the downers and surface.
I used permanent spray glue to first spray the glue to make the surface sticky. I then sprinkled a mix un painted and Dirty Down spray painted sand, before over spraying in copper, aged gold and other colour Dirty Down Black Khaki and Rust spray.
For the control panels, patches of sandy rust were made using superglue, then sprayed over with Dirty Down Rust spray.
Enhancing the Worn Dirty Tatooine Look With Iron Paste
Having done some research in how to get the dirty greased looked of an engine I found out about Iron pate which was then applies into the nooks, cavies machinery and under hangs again the further enhance the real worn in look.
