The knee guards approved with the suit are great but they are heavy. And with anything heavy and therefore thick they are prone to breaking. Even though the ones I have/use are very sturdy and made from high-grade plastic that isn’t supposed to break (like resin) there is always the change. Plus they take more abuse than any other part of the costume except for maybe the boots.

Still, I did not get a chance to do a “full” overview of how I got from raw material to final product so I figured this would be a good tutorial.

Here they are: raw and uncut. Just as I pulled them out of the box. These were pressed by MinuteFett and I am very impressed with the quality.

You will notice there is a bit of trim around each one that needs to be cut off. This is easy and can be done with a pair of scissors. For tighter areas I recommend using an X-Acto knife. Notice:

He also included the parts that accompany the knee guards, cast in black plastic:

The first thing I did was give them both a quick sanding using 400-grit sandpaper and a piece of rubber hose from my MG. This is just to give the paint something to latch onto.

After trimming each of them I sanded the rough edges and once again a quick sand on the surfaces. Here is the result:

And now that the temperature is over 50º we are off to paint!

And we’re finished painting! Well, priming. After that I stuck them in the “oven” (I rigged up) for an hour.

After an hour, a quick scuff with some 400-grit sandpaper and a coat of metallic silver. As I like to joke, this is the “Jango Phase”.

I did a couple of coats on them so it would be nice and thick. I then hit the rockets/knee darts with a couple of coats as well:

Final look before going into the furnace:

Next: masking and painting the Banana Fett look — with TWO layers of yellow paint!