Time for another bucket progress thread

Yea, I am really getting close now. Painting this bucket is wearing me out. Really kind of wish I bought a fiberglass helmet right off the bat, I dread going through this again. Anyways, time for some more update pics. I got the dome, cheeks and mandables pretty much done. Even got all my scratches in there. I am pretty happy with it, coming out better than I expected. Can't wait to put the visor in and try it on. Still have to do the back which is about 1/3 done right now. I tried to position the helmet in the shape it would be with the visor installed, and show the flare it will have-

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Not sure why the first pic is so small. I will fix it tonight. I also took all these without a flash, it seemed to show the detail better
 
Your wife should speak to mine :lol: :lol:

i think they might have something in common.

mrgr8ness said:
Oh and for those who may be wondering...yes I use my kitchen table as a workbench, and yes....my wife hates it:lol:
 
AWESOME man, awesome !!!

Bumper chrome spray rules !!!! I love that it is ultra fast dry :) Only thing, its a pain in the *** when applying the next color with the brush. Might consider upgrading to an air brush :) :)

I NEVER would be able to use the kitchentable as "bench", my girl would kill me. But I understand her, I am using my PC table and I HATE myself. I am usualy running out of space within seconds and it always is a hell of a mess
 
Yeah, I know that all too well...
I cant paint where I live at all... my husband would kill me!
I have to go over to my Dad's house and take over his garage... which I have been doing every weekend for a while now...
:)
 
mrgr8ness -

AWESOME job on the bucket there! I think you're doing a fantastic job.

I hear you all about the dreaded "finding the right place to paint"! I can't paint inside the house... Can't paint in the garage (no space)

So, I paint in the backyard (being careful and watching that I don't hit the house.) or I paint in the front yard. However, painting in the front yard is an interesting concept. I paint out there because it receives full sun most of the day.

But, when it comes to painting certain items (blasters) Watch when you do it. I've had a mail carrier see me and ask if the gun I was working on (Biker Scout Blaster Pistol & also my DL-44) were real. I can understand their point of view, but I'm also thinking to myself, since when have you EVER seen a gun that splits in half down the middle?

Sorry for hi-jacking the thread... just felt the need to share my expireneces! :)
 
Nice work mrgr8ness! keep it up!

i can't use spray paint either. i accidentally sprayed my aunt's car one time while painting some stuff.
 
that paint job is freakin amazing!!!

well done!!

I'd only re-install the visor, to make the bottom visor part narrower.
 
Thanks RBF, your bucket gave me the inspiration to go for a ROTJ instead of ESB. Yeah, I did go just slightly wider at the bottom. It gave it just the flair it needed. The narrower I made the visor, the less flair I had. Hard to balance it. The flair in the pics actually looks horrible compared to what it looks like in person. Seems like pictures, somehow make your flair disappear.
 
mrgr8ness said:
Seems like pictures, somehow make your flair disappear.

it all depends on the angle of the photo, the focal length of the camera, and how close the camera is to the subject. the same helmet can look completely different just by moving the camera a few feet.
 
I love that lid!! I agree, the photos do make the flare less visible for some reason- heres one of mine-



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Reviving this thread from the past, but I bought this helmet from mrgr8ness in the Cargo Hold about 3 years ago and have been doing 501st events with it ever since. I always have chosen the Don Post sized helmets since I'm skinny with slender shoulders, and these seem to fit more proportionately on me. I had a DP 95 painted as ESB before I picked up this DP 96 off of mrgr8ness, done up in his killer ROTJ paintjob version.

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The reason I'm bumping this thread is that this weekend I did some upgrades. I got a new ROTJ rangefinder and ear cap from Fettpride recently and this weekend painted them up, which resulted in repainting both earpieces on the helmet using the M.O.M. pictures. The left earpiece I couldn't get the paint look as smooth as the real one because I don't own an airbrush and had to freehand them with acrylic paints, but the rangefinder side earpiece came out pretty decent compared to the real thing. Painted with 3 colors, used sandpaper to get the ROTJ scrapes, sealed with a spray of Testors Dullcote as usual.

In case you care FYI, I did paint the armor and jetpack with an airbrush, using the Rogue Studios color list. Just don't have one right now to paint ear caps with. :lol:

This weekend I also installed a self contained voice amp system in the helmet. No wires running to amplifiers in the saddlebags for me. It's the same old school system as the first TKs I met a decade ago were running in their helmets...... torn apart Radio Shack amp wired to 2 laptop speakers.

I drilled completely through the holes inside the Borden connector on the cheek and installed one speaker there. For the other speaker I drilled one tiny hole in the rectangular indent on the mandible on the other side of the helmet and placed it behind there.

This is the exact same type of mounting system BobaFettish had in his helmet years ago if you remember. In fact, the guy that wired BobaFettish's helmet for him was the guy who I got the amp from for my own helmet.

The Fettpride rangefinder is taller than the Don Post one, which I assume is more screen accurate. :D
Here's a pic of it held in the same position before I painted it and put fake LEDs in the top. The FP ear cap is also thinner than the DP, so that too makes it appear more accurate. The FP one is of course slightly larger since it's made for the movie-sized helmets, so I have a slight overlap on each side of where the DP ear cap fit flush, but not many people would care if they saw me trooping, I don't think.

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Here's this afternoon in natural sunlight as the before picture.....

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.....and here's the after picture. It's dark out now, so don't mind the backdrop. :lol:

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Gone is the fat DP ear cap..
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....and now it's got the FP ear cap with repainted M.O.M. style earpiece!
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New clear ROTJ rangefinder!
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My attempt at brush painting the M.O.M. ears. On the rangefinder side I used Burnt Umber and Dark Burnt Umber mostly, and just a tad of Black. On the other ear I used a wash of Charcoal / Black / Water. Then sandpapered all the scrapes and scratches in, and sealed it with the Dullcote.

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Just taking mrgr8ness' ROTJ helmet paint job up a notch. The helmet also came from him with a Bobamaker visor installed, in case anyone wanted to know.
 
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