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#437015
How to Paint Elbow Pads

Things you will need
- Century Judo Knee Pads
- Charcoal Grey Vinyl and Fabric spray paint
- Elmer's Med Tip Black Paint Marker
- Hot Glue gun with glue sticks
- Razor Blaze or Exacto knife
- 1 2in black Elastic strapping
- Lighter
- Scissors


Step 1 - Ordering and removing logos from your new Pads

OK so you just orderd your first set of Judo Knee pads that you will be converting to Ghostbusters Elbow pads.
For those of you who do not know where or what to get, please check this link out. Kind2311 was nice enough to
write a "Where to get your Elbow Pads". Here is a link to that thread.

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =4&t=11681

Once you have made your decision as to what you will get, order them and wait. I opted for the nicer Century knee pads.
Here is the package they came in.
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Notice I ordred youth size. I am about 5'6 and 130lbs soaking wet, so anything bigger would have just looked silly on me.

Well the first thing you will notice (if you ordered Century pads) is that they have a logo right on the front of the pad.
Here is pic of that logo on the pads:
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So using an exacto knife or razor, slowly and carefully scrape and pull off that logo. It's just a small sticker type patch
that can be taken off. The reason I say be carefull, is if you go crazy and just start to rip it off, you will leave
a lot of fuzz and ruin the intgerity of the material. When completed they should look like this:
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Step 2 - Removing excess material from the knee pads.

Now you will notice that there is lots of extra material on the knee pad that needs to be removed. Some opt to cut
it off, while accurate, I just did not want to go and cut up the material and possibly ruin the integerity of the
knee pad. (making it weaker or have frayed threads where I cut). So I opted to hot glue the extra material on the
inside of the pads.

Here is a good pic of how much extra material there is on the pads.
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Cut of your lables
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Hold out your pads, like so
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And begin to fold them in like so. Repeat to both sides.
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once your done folding both sides in, it should look like this:
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Now get your hot Glue gun out. Make sure to plug it in with a glue stick in, so that it gets hot
and is ready to be set. (takes about 3-5min)
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Now fold out your folds out just a bit, so that you can get the hot Glue in place like so:
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Be quick about it, as the HOt glue will cure fairly fast.

Once you have it in place, fold the fold back over to the inside and press down. Try using your
hands to spread out the glue and push down hard so that the material sticks nice.
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Repeat to the other side:
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After both sides are glued in place, you may want to check for any open spots that are not glued down
Get to them and add more glue as you dont want it to snag on anything while putting them on.
This is what I am talking about:
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ONce your done it should look like this:
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Test Fit them and make sure you are happy!
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Step 3 - Painting Pads with Spray Paint.

While some opt for the Dyeing method. Here is a great link for those who chose this route.
http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... =4&t=30442

I again chose something that I am familure with (being a car guy).
I went with the Spray paint method and being a customer at automotive shops, I new about the VINYL and FABRIC
spray paints that Duplot have come up with. They are great and do not leave paint marks as this paint is intended
to be sat on and touched my hands for car interiors.
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Some have suggested to use grey primer, I knew there was a grey in this type of paint too, But when I got to the
store I saw that there was a darker grey (Charcoal) and knew this was the color I wanted.
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---- Side note (my opionion ONLY) but to me, the regular grey is more for the GB2 style flight suits, as the darker
suits made the light grey color pop more. The Darker grey is more like a the GB1 color and makes the light tan suits
pop with the darker ones. Yes I know that both movies had differnt shades of pads, but I am using the
Venkman pic on the Wiki section (of gbfans) of the uniforms as my reference. What do you think.

GB 1 - Image - Darker grey

GB 2 - Image - Lighter grey

Again this is just my opinion, as I am sure there is someone more versed as to what is correct and what is not.

That being said, I went for a GB1 style and more specifically a Venkman shade of color.

So get your newly glued pads and find something wide to wrap them around in. This will do 2 things:
1 - It will open up the fabric so that the paint gets in all the tight spots. Otherwise when you put them on
you will notice the white.

2 - It will allow you to spray the paint more evenly and at once.

I used a piece of Gaffers tape role.
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Lay it down like so.
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and give it its first LIGHT spray.
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Coat 2
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coat 3
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Now make sure to paint the back and more importantly the corners as well.
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You can see some of that white I was talking about.
SO hit it again with a light spray
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and more time
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Here is what it looks like when complete.
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Step 4 - Detailing

Now its time to get the details in . To me this was my favorite part as it really gave it depth.

You will need an Elmers Med Tip Black Paint pen. This is not a marker, but a pen with paint. The
color is much richer than if you used a marker (I.e Sharpie)
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Using your marker start with the creveses of the pads.
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Repeat to both top and bottom crevases.
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Now work on the outer edges
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When you are done with the outer rim, it shoudl look like this.
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Step 5 - Black elestic Patch on inner part of pads.
So if you are trying to go for a even more detail and cannon accuracy on your pads, then you will want
to add the black peice of cloth that is seen on the inside of the GB Movie pads.

So first get your self some 2 inch elastic material. You can get it at Michale's or Joann's stores. I was
lucky and had some strapping left over from my Shadow Trooper build this year, and opted to use that.

So I cut to length. (not sure what the correct size was, so I eye balled it)
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using a lighter, light the ends up and melt the cut lines, as you do not want the material to fray.
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Without gluing, figure out where you want to place it.
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Then get your Hot Glue gun and place glue on the black material like so
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Place it on the back of the pads (quickly as it sets fast) PUsh down hard and spread glue evenly
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Here is what the complete set looks like when you are all done.
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For those wondering what it would look like without the Detailing, here you go.

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Thats it folks. I hope this helps other n00bs out there, and the vets see this is an example of how
others can give back to the community.
#437033
Those look pretty good - I'd be worried about using hot glue the way you do, unless you're not planning on wearing those too often. Elbow pads tend to get beaten up the most out of all the parts of my uniform (the clothing parts at least). Hot glue can pop apart or off pretty easily - you might want to sew the portions that you glued to reinforce them, just to be sure!
#442249
I used normal thread to loosely sew the black inner arm patches.

Still holding strong after quite a few outings.

You could probably use some type of elastic thread as well.

Also, make sure the patches are in the correct orientation so the elastic can stretch when you slide them on.(horizontal)
#442261
Great tutorial man! Those pads look awesome! For mine, I too rolled them in and hot glued them But instead of using the black paint marker I lightly misted the pads with some flat black to give the gray some depth.

Hopefully newbies will check out this thread!
#442293
joeghostbuster wrote:do the pads get stiff at all? the first pair I wore I spray painted and they got really stiff and hard and uncomfortable to wear. nice tutorial though!
I dont have anything to compare them too, but for me they dont feel stiff.
#462176
Let's try this again, Tapatalk just crashed in the middle of my response...

This is a great how to thread. Here are my results and I'm looking for some feedback and thoughts.

I first tried to dye them with a whole bottle of rit black dye and it came out horribly. Image Yikes!

So I decided to spray them like I should have done from the beginning. I found two greys. A medium grey and that charcoal grey. It looked to me like the pad is darker and the strap is lighter. I sprayed the whole thing with a few coats of the medium grey and got this. ImageImage

Then I did a few coats of the charcoal on the pad part only and got this. Image

A comparison shot of the front and back. Image

Are these too dark do you think? I almost think I needed to find a light grey and the medium grey. I still need to add the line details and see on the black patch. I was going to use some black leather. Might look good. I couldn't find any black stretchy material like you put on, only white and it didn't die well like the pads.

I do have another set coming from the gbfans store I ordered after panicking from how the dye turned out. My try with the lighter grey.

Any thoughts or opinions?
#462185
I don't know, I was just watching GB1 in HD again the other day and it seemed like they were pretty dark on the pad and a tad lighter on the strap which is basically what you've got. Mine are a bit lighter overall and I kind of wish they looked like yours!
PssdffJay liked this
#462187
It looks like they got darker throughs the movie, I'm watching it now (and sort of getting some work quotes done) and they look lighter overall at the hotel scene and darker when they pull up to Dana's apartment building at the end. Haven't watched in HD though. Just bought that the other day but haven't opened it.
#462189
Morydees wrote:I don't know, I was just watching GB1 in HD again the other day and it seemed like they were pretty dark on the pad and a tad lighter on the strap which is basically what you've got. Mine are a bit lighter overall and I kind of wish they looked like yours!
What color did you go with? You could spray the pads with the charcoal and leave the straps lighter if you like my look.
#462201
I thought you used a different colour. I had picked up black as well and thought if it wasn't dark enough I would do 1 coat of black as a "primer" and then the charcoal. I did 3 coats of charcoal on mine but I never did the black.
#462273
And a finished one with the black paint pen for the details and I did go with the black leather patch on the inside.

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Thank you to the OP for the great tutorial!
#464818
Thanks so much for this thread!!!! I used a mirror effect and copied everything in my own project (just a different brand of knee pads...I purchased from the website here)

They came out great for me...probably could have been more professional with everything...but I am on a time crunch...haha

thanks again!

heres a link to my elbow pads:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79652329@N04/10453050733/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79652329@N04/10452868855/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79652329@N04/10452834594/
#471559
The automotive interior fabric paint is used specifically because it's less likely to rub off or transfer. Apparently it's made for contact, like if someone rested their elbow/arms on it repeatedly. I've only had mine painted for a few events but haven't had any issues with it.
#471572
I haven't had any paint wear off either. They did stink bad after I painted them from the fumes but once they were completely aired out its good. I was worried about painting too, that's why I tried to dye first, but I should have painted from the beginning.
#474900
When I cut them I followed the line of elastic and cut on one side. Does that make sense? Straight line. Sharp scissors.

I've only worn them for a full day on Halloween. Half a day on the Saturday before that at a party and then had them on and off a few other times but so far they are holding up quite well. No fraying at all from what I can see.

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