Superjedi's GMH--Pre-Pro 2

As a famous archeologist once said, "I don't know. . . I'm making this up as I go."

I like this statement. When I start to work on something I have the general view in my mind but I never know how this will look in the end and I always do each step as the moment dictates. And when you got it finished you have that woo-hooooo on your face!
 
UPDATE: JUNE 26, 2011:

Holy cat soup! Progress!

Man, I've only had little bits and pieces of time over the last week or so to work on the dome. Just an hour here and there, so there aren't any photos of the dome in-work, only these finished ones.
Starting this past Friday night, I have a week-long break between semesters, and with the 4th of July coming up, that works out to 11 days with no reading, homework, papers, or projects for school!! I've been taking classes for 21 weeks straight, so this break will be fantastic. :)

The pics below show many hours of work. I have completed the application of all the silver onto the dome. Once again, Rafal's templates form an excellent basis for placing the major shapes. Using them in combination with reference pics gives a very accurate "damage map."

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Keep in mind that I still need to do the gray misting over all the dome/lower cheek areas, so the silver areas you see are not in their final configuration.

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Much of the silver will be misted over, and then retouched with a detail brush. There will be some areas that are masked and misted with the much darker gray, too.

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I'm debating between 2 different grays for the misting stage, so I'm pausing till I decide. Heck, maybe I'll do a blend. . . I dunno.

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There is so much silver damage on this bucket compared to the good ol' ESB!

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As I'm sure many of you noticed in the pics above, the dark cheek crescents are done as well. Did you notice? Didja? Didja?
This is such an odd shade. Depending on which picture you look at, it sometimes appears almost Navy Blue, sometimes blue-green, and sometimes plaid.
OK, not plaid, just wanted to see who's paying attention!
The 2 colors most widely discussed for this area are Floquil C & O Enchantment Blue, and RLM 73 Green. I did color chips of each, and yesterday I said what the heck, why not try some blends?
So I mixed up some samples of the C & O and RLM 73 in different proportions and wound up using a 3:2 mix. That is, 3 parts C & O and 2 parts RLM 73. I think it cuts the "blueness" of the Enchantment Blue just enough, and adds that weird color shift depending on the light.

Here are a couple of closer pics to show what I mean. Depending on the angle and the light, the color looks sometimes more blue, and sometimes more green.

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There were 3 small areas on the upper cheeks where I applied some masking fluid before airbrushing, to allow small chips of the base color to show through. After the cheeks had dried, I stenciled and applied the silver with my size 0 brush.

Whew! Sorry for the long post, I had to play catch up.
I have a lot of mundane real life stuff to do today. For some reason, my wife seems to think we need to have food in the house, so we're going to what is called a "grocery store." Apparently, it's a big place where food and food-related items are sold. Crazy, right????
More to come.
 
You are amazing! What a killer paint job!

By the way, I love your crazy/funny way of showing your posts. You always make me laugh.
 
Well, it's better to make people laugh than cry. :)

UPDATE: JUNE 30, 2011:

Whew. . . again I got caught up in a few steps over the past few days and didn't stop to take pics as I went.
I did a misting of gray over the lower cheeks and dome. There's one large reference pic that shows some swirly, faint gray patterns intermixed between all the damage areas, so I tried to match that as best I could. That toned the dome and cheeks down a bit, but they will darken slightly when I do my dull coat near the end of the project.

After the gray mist was dry, I went back and used my Winsor & Newton to mask off several of the large silver areas. I left the silver exposed and used a darker gray (SP Lark mixed with a touch of slightly darker gray) to create those faded darker sections. Some of them are a bit hard to see in the pics, but I applied the gray so as to leave a bit of the silver showing through in places.

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The dent of course was one of those areas, as seen above.

Here we begin to work around the dome.

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Lots of masking, spraying, and unmasking to do these areas! Sheesh. . .

I'm really digging the way this next large area came out. Not finished yet. I'm still adding a lot of the really small details.

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After the areas were unmasked, I went back and began to pick out some small chips and scratches, using a combination of my 000 brush and a compass point.
Here's a closer look at the back of the dome.

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Working around the side, you can see the more faded silver area above the RF ear. This was accomplished when I did the gray misting over the whole dome.

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The two larger areas on the front/right dome were not masked. I added the darker gray with a brush, as the reference pics seemed to show these as more hard-edged than on the rear of the dome.

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Finally, a shot of the cheek showing how some of the silver was faded by adding the gray mist. I also retouched some of the silver areas after misting to bring them back to the way they should appear.

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Next, I'll continue with the silver chips and details on the dome. Once that's done, it will be killstripe time! One of my favorite parts. :)
 
That looks fantastic! I was wondering if you'd get the grey misting patches on the dome. They are pretty obvious in one of the promo shots. Kudos, my good man. It's looking great. I hope I can make mine half that nice. :)
 
Thanks, guys. CSK, patience is the key!

UPDATE: JULY 2, 2011:

Two stages to show in this update; the killstripes, and the red areas.

The other night I finished adding the rest of the small silver areas to those gray oversprayed sections of the dome. There are still some final weathering details to be added, but that will be after all 'major' painting is done.

I used a measurement from one of the larger reference pics, along with Rafal's dome template to scale the killstripes. I measured them out as 20 mm high X 7 mm wide. I used a spacing of between 4 and 5 mm to make them span the proper distance around the dome.
After careful masking with some blue painters tape, I had them laid out on the helmet. I used some W&N masking fluid to block out the chips on the killstripes and let that dry.
I airbrushed the stripes on in three light/medium coats and when they were dry, I untaped and removed the masking fluid.
Here's how they came out.

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You can see that I've done the red areas, too.

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For the red, I masked the helmet yet again, leaving only those mandible and band areas exposed. I sprayed a base of a red-brown primer on before spraying the Floquil Caboose, rather than expending more of my expensive paint to get good coverage. (Yes, my Caboose is expensive! :lol:)

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Everything seems to have worked nicely. I got very good definition along the raised band parts, and the separation between the mandibles and upper cheeks came out good, too.

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This is one of the areas where I used an enamel instead of an acrylic. For one thing, I don't think I've ever seen an acrylic version of Caboose, but even with the close 'second choice' color Boxcar Red, there's a definite difference in the way the acrylic version looks compared with the enamel.
The enamels take longer to fully cure, and cleaning the airbrush involves a couple of extra steps, but it's necessary so I always do the mandibles on my helmets with enamels.

This will sit and cure for at least 24 hours, then I can begin mapping out the mandible damage! :)
 
Thanks a lot, guys.

UPDATE: JULY 3, 2011:

No school + long weekend = helmet time!!! :)

Silver marathon! Got lots done today on the mandible/band portions of the helmet. This damage is so different looking than my familiar ESB.
I had lots of reference pics up on my screen, verifying the position of the different areas as I went. I'll just post pics moving around the helmet.

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Not much going on behind the left ear yet. Nice random SP Lark area.
In several places, I used a compass point again to make the really tiny chips and very thin scratches.

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The face portion was fun on this one. I really like that big silver chunk by the right corner of the visor.

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At this stage, the biggest remaining step is to do the pinkish areas. I want to have a good amount of time to do those so I can mask everything at once and do them all at the same time.
So I'll be studying the ref pics again this evening and tomorrow before I break out the Winsor & Newton fluid and other masking equipment.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel at this point. This is a lot more detail intensive than I thought at first glance!
I haven't even touched the ears that came with the helmet. I'm hoping that at some point a set of aluminum ears will be available. I'm keeping my fingers crossed anyway. (y)
 
I better get my game on , youve done a stellar job it loks great,
though its a shame you painted the ear plat forms ,
I like the way the darker colour on the dome doesnt pic up in certin lights then on another angle its really strong , just like the real one,
Nice work!
 
have you tried contacting commando8 for metal ears? i seem to remember him doing a 2011 run a couple months back.
 
Yeah, the Commando 8 ears were specifically made for another type of helmet, so I guess I'll have to wait for Mojo to finish with his project.

UPDATE: JULY 4, 2011:

OK, all 'major' painting is done. At least on the main helmet. Masking for the pinkish color was very t i m e c o n s u m i n g ! !
But it's always the prep that takes the most time on any stage of a project. Here's the GMH in 99.5% of its glory. :)

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I've dusted it with a light coat of Testors clear flat lacquer. I'll go back again later to hit it with another light coat.

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The clear flat equalizes the sheen of the various paints I used throughout the project.

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Of course, this kind of deadens the silver. So as with my other paint jobs, I'll go back with a small brush and some silver and bring certain areas back up to a more shiny finish.

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Some final weathering detail will be added as well. Such as some "faded" spots in the paint, and that awesome "yellow crayon" streak on the front of the dome.
I love that detail! :)

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The dome on the PP2 was very challenging. Many layers and sessions of masking, misting, unmasking, and detail painting.

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It's a long process, but I'm pretty happy with with the way it's turned out.

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I'm sure I'll get the metal ears for this one when (if) they're available. I don't think I could replicate all the weathering and still have them look like bare metal rather than painted resin.
Hopefully, an RF topper will be coming soon, too. :) Final pics will of course be on hold till those items are available, but I'll be sure to post some when it's all done and together!
Hope all the other Pre-Pro lovers out there have enjoyed the progress to this point. (y)
 
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