Star Wars Rebels is my favorite part of the Star Wars universe and Kanan and Hera are my favorite Star Wars characters, so making a kalikori has been on my list for awhile and has been a passion project of mine. I am so happy that I got to finally bring it to life at ECCC and that another kalikori of mine got to go to SWCC. I’ve been asked about how I made it a few times so here is my build write-up from initial designs to final execution!
My first step, as always, was to find as many reference photos as possible. Thankfully there are turnaround which provided a lot of the details and views I needed but I also took some screenshots from the show itself to help with some things that weren’t clear.
I then modeled the entire kalikori in Fusion 360.
I then printed all the parts on my Raise3D N2 using Matterhackers PLA. I decided I didn’t want to do as much post processing on the smaller pieces so I reprinted them on my Anycubic Photon using Nova3D Resin. I then finished the pieces with the typical sand/prime/fill/rinse/repeat method until I was happy with all of them.
You can see the difference between the FDM and SLA prints here.
Once all of the masters were done, it was time for molding the pieces. Each piece got a mold box made of foam core – my go to for mold boxes – and then was covered in TC-5024 from BJB Enterprises. I then cast all of the pieces in their TC-802 resin.
All of the pieces were primed and then received a base rattle can coat of a khaki color. Then using various brushes and acrylic paints, I painted all the detail parts. Since I knew I didn’t want to hand paint all of these details, I had modeled them as indentations in all of the pieces to make the final painting easier. Acrylic paint was brushed in and then wiped off the surface of the parts.
Final assembly was a combination of a wooden dowel down the center, armature wire down the hanging sides (so that it can be somewhat posed), and BJB Enterprises Armor Bond [link] to glue everything together.
To commemorate the completion of the prop I setup a little photoshoot with my kalikori, my Kanan mask, and my Kanan saber hilt with a “stone” floor and wall made out of some EVA floor mats.
I got to bring the kalikori to ECCC and do an amazing shoot with Amber Brite Props. Hudson Michaels did some amazing photos of us.
Then we did a photoop with the voice of Hera herself, Vanessa Marshall where I gifted the kalikori to her.
I am offering several of these completed kalikoris in my shop and one of them made its way to SWCC where it took a photo with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Vanessa Marshall and got both of their autographs. It now lives in a shelf of collectibles with its new owner. (She brought a brown Sharpie and it looks so good on the kalikori!)
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