First paint-up (ESB) progression thread!

Vark

New Hunter
Hello to all!

Not many people might know me as I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so I'll introduce myself first. My name is Will, Im a big Star Wars/Boba fan, my hobbies are blah blah blah.. You get the point! Regardless, I've been around for a while :)
It wasn't until recently though that I had some extra cash and decided to start building my Boba Fett costume, staring with the coolest and most exciting part, the helmet of course ;)

I purchased a cold cast budget kit from animefan, and well.. it's beautiful :') Amazing craftsmanship! Words can't describe how nice it is.

I also purchased my first airbrush/compressor, it's a pretty decent one as far as I know, however I have no prior experience in airbrushing. I've used the big industrial sprayers before on buildings so I know the general use, always keep moving and what not but I'm sure this will be much different, much finer work. I'm just hoping I won't mess up too much!

I will be using Hunbrol paints, and I'll be posting photos with each step and listing the colors/numbers as I use them.

Critique is very welcome! As well as any tips/advice/comments. It's my first time doing this, and I know you learn from experience, but it would be nice to make as little mistakes as possible :)


Thanks and stay tuned, let the painting begin!
 
Ayyyyyyyy!

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..ahahh.. anyway..

So my first step was rubbing off any imperfections off the helmet with 0000 steel wool. (Not that I could see any - better safe than sorry!)

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Afterwards I wiped the helmet down with alcohol and gave it a coat of gray Krylon primer and then rubbed it lightly with the 0000 steel wool again to get rid of any grits and imperfections.

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Now comes the fun part! (Hopefully, fingers crossed)
I masked up some parts of the helmet, so that only the dome and the cheeks are visible. The visor is still in, and I'm planning on cutting it out before I paint the mandibles, which will probably be the last part that I will do. I've read that the visor gap tends to move outwards over time for some helmets, which would distort the T shape a bit. The helmet seems so sturdy that I doubt it would do that, but you never know. Always good to be cautious!

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Wohoo painting time!
I played around with the airbrush a bit, testing it, getting the feel of it and what not.
I used green 78 for the dome and cheecks.

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Hmm.. I think it came out 'Ok'. I was a bit cautious at first, not pulling back the airbrush trigger too much backwards, but then I got the hang of it pretty much and covered it pretty thoroughly.

However I have a few questions if anyone would mind answering them for me :)

- How do you measure out paint to thinner ratio? The airbrush came with a couple of pipettes that shows the volume lines, which is fine for the thinner since it's clear, but when I tried with the paint, it was impossible to determine how much was in it. I wanted to originally do a 1:1 paint/thinner ratio, but I just kind of had to guess. I know it's supposed to be of milky consistency but it would be nice to know that I'm using more or less the same mix between coats! :)
- How many coats of the same color should I put on it? Should I just do it in many light layered coats or do it in one go?
- Drying time? It says 6 hours on the little tin, how correct is that? It dried completely in a matter of minutes, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't cured completely. How long until I can start drawing the stencil marks on it? And the next coat? (As in next color/layer)
- Should I lightly run through each layer with the 0000 steel wool? Or just at the end? Just curious because I've heard that for the humbrol red 73 (mandibles) you need to buff it out to bring out the right shade.

Sorry for the questions! I've done my research but I wasn't able to find too much info on these.

Thanks :)





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Looks great to me so far, you're gonna have a nice bucket, are you going to be using masking fluid and the layering technique ?...if so, the green really should be the last colour you put down, you'll need the silver and grey layers before you put the green on .
as for measuring, I think you just need to guesstimate...I started using a medicine syringe, but it soon became too difficult...maybe use a small measuring spoon?....and yeah I think using the wire wool between coats is the best thing....especially with the red because it can come out a bit pinky...you'll probably beed 3 or 4 coats to get it looking boss.

hope that helps

Paul
 
Paul:
Thanks! I hope so as well :)
And yes I will be using the liquid mask layering method. For the dome I planned on spraying it green first, since I only ordered one 14mL tin of silver 11.. -_- and I'm sure I would run out if I tried covering everything with that. This way I won't have to spray too much and I'll have a bit left over (hopefully!). This is how I see Superjedi's helmets being layered and it looks fantastic!

The rear panels however I will try the more orthodox layering method, as in:
Grey 147 - masking
Silver 11 - masking
Grey 28
Beige 103 (mist) - masking
Green 76 + Blue 96 (1:1) - masking
And then add the Grey 79

I figured I would do it like this because the dome isn't as heavily damaged as the back panel, so I could put the damage right on top of it without too much hassle. (But like I said it's also because of the one tin of silver I have, and it takes a week or more to have it shipped, I cant wait that long! :D ) At least this way I can try out both types of layering and see which best suits me :)

Also the spoon trick works great! Only problem is a bit of the paint stays on the spoon, so I try to scrape off as much as I can with a toothpick into the airbrush, but it works 100x better than with the pipettes so thanks for that!

Speaking of which, I started the rear panels this morning, I masked the dome and cheecks up, and sprayed on a few coats with the Grey 147:

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To be continued!
 
Woah nice one Paul!! I can't believe that's a rubies helmet, awesome job on that! :)

I worked a bit on my helmet yesterday, here's my progress so far:

I painted the upper cheeks with black 33 yesterday.

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Came out pretty nice I think :)

Afterwards I decided I should cut the visor out, I figured that I might make some minor nicks with the dremel tool, and so I'd rather not mess up the paint job! I used some file tools to make the edges of the 'T' nice and sharp.

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Afterwards I started doing the stencil tracing work with graphite paper, and then started masking it with this stuff that I found from an arts and crafts store called Utrecht watercolor art masking fluid, and it seems to be working pretty well.

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I then masked everything but the back panels and covered it with a few coats of silver 11

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So far so good, right?!
Well, not really. I waited for the silver to dry properly, then i removed the masking fluid.

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Problem is that the graphite marks from the tracing paper is still present :/
I figured it run through with the 0000 and hopefully that would remove the marks, but it didn't do much. I tried erasing it with a nice and tough eraser, nothing. So then I used a cloth with sudsy warm water and scrubbed it thoroughly, which did work pretty well but it still left about 50% of the marks.

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Anyone ever had this happen to them? If so is there anything that removes it nicely without messing up the paint? Any help would make me extremely happy! :)

Thanks!

EDIT:

So I realized I made a pretty huge mistake..
Learn with mistakes I guess! Silly me masked the opposite of what i was supposed to. Oh well, at least this way I can get rid of the ugly graphite marks! >:-J









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Howdy!
so I got a bit discouraged on the back panel after working so hard on it and realizing I messed up.. So I started working on the mandibles and they're almost finished, just need to include some touch ups and small details.

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Thanks bud!

Heres a little update, I havent done too much since ive been pretty busy with work lately but ive managed to finish the cheeks, dome and killstripes (still needs some touchups but ill leave that for the end)

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It looks outstanding, and even more so for the fact that it's your first time.
And there's nothing wrong with touchups. It's practically a given.
 
Thanks bud!

Heres a little update, I havent done too much since ive been pretty busy with work lately but ive managed to finish the cheeks, dome and killstripes (still needs some touchups but ill leave that for the end)

View attachment 51126
View attachment 51127
Kill stripes look nice, great job. Have you been rubbing it down in-between layers with 0000 wire wool? That may help you with getting rid of the graphite marks and it'll also give you a better finish over all. I can just see on those kill stripes that you've got a bit of a raised edge, the wire wool should help tone that down.
 
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