How to Paint Elbow Pads
Things you will need
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Century Judo Knee Pads
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Charcoal Grey Vinyl and Fabric spray paint
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Elmer’s Med Tip Black Paint Marker
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Hot Glue gun with glue sticks
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Razor Blaze or Exacto knife
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1 2in black Elastic strapping
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Lighter
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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.
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.
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:
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:
**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.
Cut of your lables
Hold out your pads, like so
And begin to fold them in like so. Repeat to both sides.
once your done folding both sides in, it should look like this:
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)
Now fold out your folds out just a bit, so that you can get the hot Glue in place like so:
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.
Repeat to the other side:
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:
ONce your done it should look like this:
Test Fit them and make sure you are happy!
**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.
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.
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.
*---- 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 -
- Darker grey
GB 2 -
- 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.
Lay it down like so.
and give it its first LIGHT spray.
Coat 2
coat 3
Now make sure to paint the back and more importantly the corners as well.
You can see some of that white I was talking about.
SO hit it again with a light spray
and more time
Here is what it looks like when complete.
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)
Using your marker start with the creveses of the pads.
Repeat to both top and bottom crevases.
Now work on the outer edges
When you are done with the outer rim, it shoudl look like this.
**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)
using a lighter, light the ends up and melt the cut lines, as you do not want the material to fray.
Without gluing, figure out where you want to place it.
Then get your Hot Glue gun and place glue on the black material like so
Place it on the back of the pads (quickly as it sets fast) PUsh down hard and spread glue evenly
Here is what the complete set looks like when you are all done.
For those wondering what it would look like without the Detailing, here you go.
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.
