and now for something completely different: 7602's ESB helmet

Nice looking bucket there!! Plan to wear it for SE on occasion??

Originally Posted by GCNgamer128

Nice looking bucket there!! Plan to wear it for SE on occasion??

i don't know... i swore i'd never do that, but the urge is there. i guess it will depend on how the final, finished look is.

if i want to actually *wear* this, there are a lot of lumps and bumps on the inside that i'll need to sand out!

Now that's the way it should be done.. 100% layered....Great technique...

did you find that matching the scratches exact was difficult?

Originally Posted by Spideyfett

Now that's the way it should be done.. 100% layered....Great technique...

did you find that matching the scratches exact was difficult?

if i had matched them exactly, it would have been!

i cut a bunch of corners and relied a lot on the natural edges that peeling paint give.

especially on the back... i got the major shapes down, but if you really start looking closely, the edges vary slightly from the original, the flecks don't all match up exactly, etc...

i sort of think of this as somewhere between a hero and a stunt helmet. to all but the TDH crowd it will look the part and be impressive. here, any number of folks have done MUCH better work!

the hardest part was the dark red on the visor. i REALLY didn't want to paint that in later, but there's sooooo little of it, that it was sort of a pain to have to go through a whole round of masking and drying and peeling just to get those little flecks.

oh, and the visor right now is opaque.

Originally Posted by tk7602

the hardest part was the dark red on the visor. i REALLY didn't want to paint that in later, but there's sooooo little of it, that it was sort of a pain to have to go through a whole round of masking and drying and peeling just to get those little flecks..

Considering the outcome, I think you did a great job... plus that's the way it was really done (hero)... very impressive.

Nice work, you're rockin' it again!

Nice layering details....

Lovin the Monty title...

very nice.

Is this one of the thicker or thinner buckets?

Originally Posted by GCNgamer128

Is this one of the thicker or thinner buckets?

yes

thin in most spots with a huge lump in the forehead.

what's interesting though is that the smoothcast roto is considered "semi-rigid"... it's got about the same amount of give to it that the don post helmets have, but without the warping. at least, i hope without the warping

i'm actually thinking it would be good for trooping, since it's pretty shock resistant. i dropped it off a table on purpose to see what would happen. nothing!

Meh... it's alright.

I can see your banana hammock.

Originally Posted by Gator Fett

I can see your banana hammock.

hahahahah!!!!

i shouldn't be posting stuff like that. waaaay too hot for this board!

Originally Posted by tk7602

I absolutely L O V E this pic!!!
Shows how AWESOME layered painting is if done correctly, as is definitely the case here!
Excellent stuff man!

Thanks for sharing,
Peter
__________________



"With great power comes great responsibility"

after looking at all the things i did wrong... i'm starting over on this, and doing the esb paint job well, rather than hurriedly.

and this time i hope to do better documentation.

first think was physical damage. i looked over the c4 pics from darth miller and tried to find anything that looked like damage that wasn't from mishandling. i'm going to go for a hybrid of the current state and the movie... basically taking the elements of post-movie-damage that i like, but not including the badly repaired cracks.

there really wasn't much that i saw... just these 2 marks on the face:



anyone know offhand if i missed anything big? rotj is all scarred up, esb seems relatively in tact.

then a quick shot of silver:

Looking good so far! The only extra damage i noticed was the bottom of the lower cheeks, a few chips down each one, mostly near the ears...

Great paint job! New helmet lookin' good aswell

p.s
You make these helmets yourself?

Originally Posted by terminal fettler

Looking good so far! The only extra damage i noticed was the bottom of the lower cheeks, a few chips down each one, mostly near the ears...

i'll have to go back and track those down. thanks!

and mandowarrior... yeah, these are all failed attempts at making my super-duper-rotj bucket. i wouldn't really troop in any of them regularly, but for display they aren't bad.

this esb one is one of the best of the bunch. it's actually *almost* good even!

failure... utter failure!

bad reaction between silver and grey.

masked out all of the damage on the dome, painted in the grey, masked again, painted the green.

and when i peeled it off, ALL of the grey and green came off, right back to the silver.

AUGH!

i've read about it, but that's the first time its happened to me.

so i stripped it all back down AGAIN and will start over AGAIN!

Gutted for ya Brian.... That happened to me on one occasion but was only a small area and didn't have to strip it all back...

Originally Posted by Mojo-Fett

Gutted for ya Brian.... That happened to me on one occasion but was only a small area and didn't have to strip it all back...

the good news is the stripper didn't seem to damage it much. one of the keyholes was a little thin, and that melted a tiny bit. but i can re-shape it with some epoxy putty easily enough.

i used that super harsh chemical stuff that melts the paint. i figured it would talk longer to sand it all smooth than it would have to just make a new helmet, so i wasn't going to bother with that.

Glad the risk paid off for ya!

he was stripping down a helmet using terrifying chemicals.







the only damage was at the bottom keyhole... the resin there was really thin, and the stripper melted it a little... it was a quick fix though with some epoxy putty.

and now... fast forward... i did what some devout ESBers would consider heresy, but it's actually a hybrid of the ESB hero and the PP3. i picked and chose what i liked from each. hey, it's my bucket, i can do what i want with it














and my first clear rf topper. it's the same 1 piece mold, but i poured it with clear resin and painted the black parts in. i'm really happy with how it came out, though i'll probably drill out my molded in LEDs and replace them with some non-functional red ones.





i need to reposition the visor a bit... the vertical part of the t is way too wide right now. that's easy enough to do though.

i also have to do the final weathering of it... i'm going to add more scratches, the black marks over by the killstripes, and other bits of the current state of the esb hero that i like.

the visor was really bugging me, so i fixed it as soon as i got home from work...



much better!

Almost done... got more of the subtle stuff to do, but the bulk of it is finished. I didn't take the best pics, as you can see by the fact that the visor looks orange in the first few, then super super red in the later ones. I was just letting the camera figure out what it thought was best, and I disagree with its decisions. But it gets the idea across...









The black gunk is post-ESB, but I think it looks cool...


The brown buildup in the turn signals is something that stands out to me from the original.


The back isn't fun. I think the face is worse though...


Magnetic ear!


I'm not sure how safe this will be. I *might* just glue it. If I lose the cap, I can always make another

That has a nice look to that paint job! I know what you mean about the camera messing with your colours...With the rare earth magnets i double them up for some extra power, might work for you too...

Not bad at all!!!! Great job!!!
D

thanks folks

i've got more fine scratching and dirtying to do, and then i'll take some color balanced pics so that the colors actually look right!

That looks really nice. Are those rare earth magnets on the earpiece?

Originally Posted by Gypsyboy

That looks really nice. Are those rare earth magnets on the earpiece?

yep. since this one is 99% display only i'm not overly worried about it getting knocked off. if i decide to wear it out, i'll probably glue it on.

they hold well, but someone brushing against it would take it right off.

I've been wondering what to do about my own earcap. I don't want to glue it on, and screws get a little in the way and stuff. I like the magnet idea. Maybe a couple slightly larger rare earth mags will hold it tighter. Then again, mine is also mainly for display, so really it doesn't matter that much. Yeah, I think I'm gonna go look for some magnets.

larger magnets would definitely be good. i'm not happy with this at all... i keep knocking it off just moving it around my house.

i've actually been thinking that i'd epoxy screws into the earcap, drill through the helmet, and put nuts in the inside.

trust me, double up the magnets...

Originally Posted by terminal fettler

trust me, double up the magnets...

What he said. Instead of using washers for the magnets to hold on to, use another magnet. They hold really well that way.

my BKBT RF stalks came in, and fit perfectly. as a testament to the quality of his work, his match the MR within a millimeter or two overall!



i also replaced the MR style borden connector with a real one



i sanded off the plating to reveal the brass inside. drilled a 1/2 hole, fit the new one in, filled the edges and touched up the grey paint around it, with a little grey on the borden itself. again with the lousy pics... i need to stop doing this stuff in a rush before work

Very nice Brian... nice touch with the real Borden too!

The real borden adds so much if you ask me. It's actually a tad bigger than the MR one (which Brian and I were confused about since it was scanned off a real one).

So I spend months on mine and you make it sound as if you just threw this together real quick, and yet it still looks 100 times better Simply amazing!

And you layered that paint on THICK, I like how it makes it look.

Great looking helmets! I wish I could get myself one of the MR casts.

Originally Posted by TeamFett

So I spend months on mine and you make it sound as if you just threw this together real quick, and yet it still looks 100 times better Simply amazing!

And you layered that paint on THICK, I like how it makes it look.

thanks! speed-painting is a hobby of mine. the trick is not sleeping. makes "a day" much longer

i both intentionally put the paint on thick and am pretty rough with peeling it. i love the flaked look of something that's been repainted dozens of times.

terrifying chemicals.

Terrifying chemicals FTW.

I love it, I hope my buckets come out as good as your did.....And as fast.

What size magnets did you use?

Originally Posted by shortimer52

What size magnets did you use?

terribly undersized ones that i replaced with goop because i was too impatient to get bigger ones

these were about 1/4" diameter and i only had 4 that size. i doubled them up like TF suggested and the glue wasn't as strong as the magnets - pulled them right out!

these were about 1/4" diameter and i only had 4 that size. i doubled them up like TF suggested and the glue wasn't as strong as the magnets - pulled them right out![/QUOTE]

I found Super Glue held the magnets onto the outer ear cap just fine...

Originally Posted by terminal fettler

I found Super Glue held the magnets onto the outer ear cap just fine...

i had tried goop, and there wasn't enough surface contact for it to hold. so, in truly impatient me style i just glued the thing on and called it done

Originally Posted by tk7602

So, in truly impatient me style i just glued the thing on and called it done

Sounds a bit like me bruv...