Homemade Han solo props & Revamping Toy Weapons for Cosplay

In prep for Star Wars Celebration, I decided to be Han Solo. I admit I am not crafty enough to make the outfit from scratch so I did get my outfit itself, from CosplaySky. After a slight mishap with the pants, I had the outfit ready. I bought the belt from JediRobeAmerica. And I actually had my outfit all ready to go for FarPoint convention in Maryland. So I used it for that. What I didn't have ready in time were my accessories so my friend Kyle graciously lent me his Droid caller and blaster for FarPoint. In the meantime I started on my own Droid callers and painting up my blasters for both my Han Solo cosplay and my Princess Leia cosplay that I have planned as well.

Basically I saw this person's cosplay and was inspired on how to make my own Droid callers. She doesn't give directions on what she used or which pieces of plumbing she used so I just went down the plumbing aisle at my local home improvement store and matched the picture as best I could. Some parts were different then hers, just based on what was available. But I'm ok with that. I have provided some pics of which parts I used still in their packaging. Hopefully that helps others with their cosplay making too.

All the peices that made up the Droid callers. I basically made two just in case. It was cheap enough to do two.

 Black spray paint was a must for everything, including the blasters. So one big can of that. It goes a long way. PVC piping, I can't recall which size they were. But they are only a few inches long but don't recall the circumference. The threaded end pieces fit perfectly in the ends. And you needed threaded pieces to have the metal parts attach to the rest of the body. I bought special PVC piping cement glue. Tho trust me when I say this stuff is a LOT stronger than cement glue so be careful using it, use is in a well vented area. I found some metal plumbing pieces for the top part. Again using some threaded pieces made it all easier to put together without more glue. The caps I did exchange last minute tho because the 3/4" caps looked like they'd pop in ok, but did not. So I exchanged to 1/2" caps instead. They fit better and I glued with hot glue just to secure it in place.

Started out with basic small PVC piping and some threaded ends that fit into them. Used the special PVC glue to attach those to each end.

 

The only threaded ends I could find were hexagons instead of rounded like the link above. But it's ok. It looks good anyway.

After gluing those pieces together, I went outside and spray painted this part all black. I stood them upright and sprayed the paint circular and from above. But I had to come back and do it twice by flipping it over and do the other side in the same manner. In doing so, I created drip lines from the spray paint. Oops. You can see some of them in the pics. Overall no one will see it when it's on the belt though. So I'm not too worried.

After it all dried, I screwed in the metal pieces one at a time. There is a flat sprocket like gear that I put on the bottom of the big metal piece first. That part went closest to the PVC pipe. Once that got put on as a whole piece, it really looks close! But I wanted to get some silver Sculpy and make the buttons like she did.

Almost there!

Made buttons out of Sculpy. It's mush like working with clay, only you can bake it to harden it and make it permanent.

Then I made the part that looks like its meant to be attached to the buckle as a slide in piece. But it's non-functional of course for our purposes. Layered the pieces together and folded around the PVC to get its shape before baking.

Droid callers done! One piece of the sculpy on one is much larger than the other. Oops. But it came out well overall. It gives the basic idea.

A little more up close of the better Droid caller made.

Now onto the blasters! I needed the Han Solo blaster and I needed something similar to Princess Leia's blaster that she took from the Stormtrooper in A New Hope. I managed to find Han's blaster no problem. It took some research to really figure out Leia's blaster. Eventually I settled on a newer blaster from I think Clone Wars. Both were bright white so I needed to get outside in warmer weather and paint them. First chance the warmer weather came, I went out and did it. Again, I had to do it twice in order to flip it over and do the other side. And same thing, I got drip marks on it but hopefully no one can really tell from a distance.

I covered the orange tips in order to preserve that for safety reasons. But some of the masking tape got stuck to the Leia blaster so I left it there. You can still see the orange tips enough. And the Han one, the paper I attached like a cone to the front, well, as you can see from the first pic, some paint soaked through that paper. Oops! I sanded it down a little but it's still there. Oh well. Minor mishaps happen. I can't be too OCD about it or I'll never get things done!

 

 

 

Once they were painted on both sides and any extra coverage I'd missed was done, I then got some acrylic silver paint from the crafts store and with a bristled paint brush, I went over the edges and parts of the gun to make it look worn, used and beat up. I did a little too much on one side of Han's blaster and some of my strokes had too much paint on the brush for Leia's but again, it gets the point across.

And fin!

I'm really happy with how these came out overall. So now I'm ready for Star Wars Celebration!