Noob starting a FP ROTJ Fett lid...help?

Hey all,

After talking with several painters about a paint-up for an ROTJ lid, I have decided to go ahead and paint it up myself (scary, but exciting at the same time!).

This is a beautiful Fettpride fiberglass that I purchased from a member here. Wife will be out of town on Thursday through Sunday so I hope to get some good work in between now and then on it.

I'll be using Stormtrooperguy's ROTJ spray can paint list and following Welshwarrior's tutorials. While I realize there's metal options for the rangefinder, borden and such, I'm going to stick with the resin materials that came with the kit.

I have posted two pictures and do have a few "noob" questions (forgive me!)

1. For the ears on the ROTJ lid: I'm assuming these are painted the metallic color and weathered in some way (graphite powder) am I correct?

2. What the easiest way to put the rangefinder together? Is there any good tutorials out there and my other question is what's the best way to put it together where I can take it apart and place the LEDs in later?

Thanks guys for any help!!! It's greatly appreciated.

Welcome brother! Great job tackling the ROTJ lid - it's a toughie, but if you take your time, I have no doubt you will get some great results!

I was fortunate to get some aluminium ears, but with your resin ones, you are right- you would be wanting to paint them silver, then weather them over the top with various colours. The rangefinder ear in particular would be best done this way. The main scrape on the other ear, is actually white, or very light grey, and appears to be due to that ear being painted white before the weathering, as it was a piece from an older supertrooper helmet. I go into a fair bit of detail with the ears in my ROTJ thread around here somewhere. Any questions, feel free to ask bud, and good luck!

Thanks Jayvee for the reply! Yes, I've seen your ROTJ thread and if I can get just half of the awesomeness of that lid into mine I think it'll turn out pretty good - thanks again!

I know this sounds weird, but for metallic edging I like to break the tip off of a Q-tip and use the uneven end that remains to do touch up painting. Might work for the edge of your "ears." It worked well on my blaster scopes...

Progress!

Primed up and ready for ready for the silver. Physical damage is by no means accurate, but this is my first lid and I'm really just looking to paint up a good helmet.

Thoughts:
Welshwarrior,you rock. I've watched so many of those videos I'm walking around talking in your accent! Still, there were a few difficulties as this was my first time working with fiberglass and a Fett lid.
- I used my Dremel on the visor, but my cuts weren't really as clean as I would have liked so I spent some time sanding, filing and Bondo'ing it up.
- The ears are bolted (with the exception of the top ear piece which is glued: it was super glue and God help me if I didn't screw up the placement by a hair. THAT professional grade Locite is STRONG as rip - still at least I didn't place it upside down). I used JB Weld to bolt the other earpieces in place. After they were bolted I realized that I had put too much epoxy and it was creating a rather significant gap in both ears. Luckily I was able to get them off, sand that area down get the ears a bit more flush.
- I drilled out the hole for the borden and epoxied it in place as well.
- I've got a temporary visor in place - it's one of those tin For Sale signs. My T-Visor came in today, but I think I'm going to leave the temp one in for painting. Hopefully there's no structural issues.

For the rattlecan painters out there - how long do you generally wait between layers?

Anymore?