rubio95's FPH2 - RotJ WIP
- Thread starter rubio95
- Start date
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
The jayvee color pallet works really well huh?
Love me a good ROTJ paint up....cant wait till I get home to knock one out myself.
Love me a good ROTJ paint up....cant wait till I get home to knock one out myself.
TheZeroEffect
Active Hunter
Loving this paint up, It's coming up great. I'm looking forward to doing my dome....
Keep it coming, I want more
Keep it coming, I want more
TheZeroEffect
Active Hunter
Yes that what I would have thought also...:confused
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
straight layers VS fading inbetween layers and on top of layers....both are complicated in their on ways
TheZeroEffect
Active Hunter
Okay I've got a semi-idea of what you mean... I didn't really know there is fading on the panels.
mind yo I have onlt really looked at the Empire Helmet, will have to look more into the Jedi...
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
The rear panel on the ROTJ has 4 layers of painting on it....
Loving this paint up, It's coming up great. I'm looking forward to doing my dome....
Keep it coming, I want more
Aw, shucks, guys, thanks for the positive feedback. It's amateur hour in this thread, but I'm having a blast!
To tell the truth, I'm not thrilled with the most recent color, Tamiya XF-17. The way mine came out was a very, very dark blue, and I can't see the green in it, much. The misting of the Scharzgrun (sp?) didn't 'green' it up as much as I'd hoped. I'm sure that my painting skills have more to do with it then Jayvee's color list, and I'll play with it some more.
Sidenote, don't rub down acrylic paint with the rough side of a sponge! I actually had to recoat a bit of the left upper cheek. Fortunately, my airbrush was up to the challenge (without having to totally re-mask everything). Everything is good to go, and I'm in the process of scaling Raf's templates for the dome.
At LEAST four layers!
The RotJ is quite a bit harder, in my opinion. Both ESB and RotJ are intricate, but RotJ takes the cake, to me. The reason I say this is because with the ESB, yes, there is MUCH more masking and quite a few more layers. However, although there's more paints required, as long as your tracing skills are solid, you really can't go wrong.
On the other hand, the RotJ has fewer paints, but much more subtlety to each layer. Misting and shading are CRUCIAL to the paintjob, and even Rafal's templates can't help you actually DO it. It a paintjob that requires A LOT more freehand skill, versus just meticulous stenciling (which is NOT to say that stenciling is easy, either). They're both difficult, though in quite different ways.
The REALLY rough thing about the RotJ helmet is that it's very hard to check your work. Between the color shifts and the misting, it's really hard to see how you're doing, even with our awesome gallery. On the plus side, it hides mistakes lol!
Again, thanks for the compliments. Y'all making me blush.
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
For that cheek color you may want to play with the mix ratio a bit....I was in the same boat....his bottles may have been slightly different then ours here in the US....I dunno if thats possible or what but yeh...definately feel ya on the cheek
Jayvee
Active Hunter
Yeah, it was a colour I tried quite extensively lads, but as Dom touched on, the ratios may need to be played around with somewhat. It can also come down to application/compressor pressure or paint consistency with how much thinner is added. So as always, colour testing is always recommended.
Having said that, do remember my paint job was done back in 2012, so there is every chance the colour recipe has changed a little for the brands of paint. This pic added was one I posted in my ROTJ back then, and with some of the spilt colour, even there you can see the hint of green in the sea blue. It may be a pic that you can use to compare to your own bottles.
Having said all that, the pics of your lid to date look pretty friggn awesome bud! Take some shots of the cheeks in different light and see if you can detect the green in the photos. The colour should almost look black in the shade, but then detect blue in a bit more light, with the green evident in the right light conditions..
In any case mate, keep up the superb work!
So who's the genius who thought it would be fun to paint an RotJ helmet?
I've been working through the weekend on this bad boy, and man oh man has it been interesting. This will be quite an update!
I began stenciling the dome last week, and it's a beast. A total monster. There were some pleasant surprises along the way! First off, I always like to start on the rangefinder side. For the ESB, its the 'cat scratch,' and for the RotJ, it's the 'blob.' One of the things that sets the RotJ helmet apart from all the rest of the helmets is the physical damage. I don't know what Sandy and her gang did to this helmet before they painted it, but it seems like they took it outside and played soccer with it, or maybe their delivery man was Ace Ventura. Anyways, there's so much damage on this thing, and Fettpride has done an outstanding job recreating it. The 'blob' has a HUGE scratch to one side of it, and although in the past I've refrained from adding it to a helmet, I was able to use it as a marker, and between Fettpride's scratch and Rafalfett's slightly sized-down templates, it was a perfect marriage. If you look at the template cut out, you can see where I pressed my thumbnail into the scratch. They lined up like a dream!
So I kept on masking and stenciling and masking and stenciling until I got to the point that I could spray the light gray:
I wasn't worried about full coverage on the helmet, since a tiny bit of variation would be good for the overall feel, in my opinion. Then I moved onto the darker gray:
There is sooooo much weathering! Subtle, teeny, tiny sections to mask and remask! Good lord! If they were to allow me to make the Boba Fett spinoff, I'd name it " Revenge of the RotJ," and it would be about Boba Fett painting his damned helmet.
So after a solid 10 hours of work yesterday, and after getting the dark gray stenciled and masked, and approaching midnight, I decided that I was ready hit the lid with Jayvee's green. If I was able to lay down one good coat before bed, I'd save several hours waiting for it to dry. So I laid a coat down, and when I woke up this morning hit it again. Here's how she's looking:
So I'm gonna hit it again, then drop some mists over it to darken it a bit and kill the evenness of the color. All of this has been so exciting!
Also, I wanted to address Jayvee's post from last week:
I thought this was very interesting, since, as far as I know, all of the Tamiya paints we get here in the United States are acrylic. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Thanks for looking, everybody!
I've been working through the weekend on this bad boy, and man oh man has it been interesting. This will be quite an update!
I began stenciling the dome last week, and it's a beast. A total monster. There were some pleasant surprises along the way! First off, I always like to start on the rangefinder side. For the ESB, its the 'cat scratch,' and for the RotJ, it's the 'blob.' One of the things that sets the RotJ helmet apart from all the rest of the helmets is the physical damage. I don't know what Sandy and her gang did to this helmet before they painted it, but it seems like they took it outside and played soccer with it, or maybe their delivery man was Ace Ventura. Anyways, there's so much damage on this thing, and Fettpride has done an outstanding job recreating it. The 'blob' has a HUGE scratch to one side of it, and although in the past I've refrained from adding it to a helmet, I was able to use it as a marker, and between Fettpride's scratch and Rafalfett's slightly sized-down templates, it was a perfect marriage. If you look at the template cut out, you can see where I pressed my thumbnail into the scratch. They lined up like a dream!
So I kept on masking and stenciling and masking and stenciling until I got to the point that I could spray the light gray:
I wasn't worried about full coverage on the helmet, since a tiny bit of variation would be good for the overall feel, in my opinion. Then I moved onto the darker gray:
There is sooooo much weathering! Subtle, teeny, tiny sections to mask and remask! Good lord! If they were to allow me to make the Boba Fett spinoff, I'd name it " Revenge of the RotJ," and it would be about Boba Fett painting his damned helmet.
So after a solid 10 hours of work yesterday, and after getting the dark gray stenciled and masked, and approaching midnight, I decided that I was ready hit the lid with Jayvee's green. If I was able to lay down one good coat before bed, I'd save several hours waiting for it to dry. So I laid a coat down, and when I woke up this morning hit it again. Here's how she's looking:
So I'm gonna hit it again, then drop some mists over it to darken it a bit and kill the evenness of the color. All of this has been so exciting!
Also, I wanted to address Jayvee's post from last week:
I thought this was very interesting, since, as far as I know, all of the Tamiya paints we get here in the United States are acrylic. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Thanks for looking, everybody!
Necronaut
Hunter
You are absolutely rocking this paint-up! Keep up the detailed write-ups, the many pics of each coat of paint and weather, and the color or color mixes you are trying. I think we need more of this sort of thing here, as reference for others to follow.
About the big bottles of Tamiya paint being acrylic... it's technically true, that the paint carrier is an acrylic liquid. However, they are thinned with a proprietary alcohol-based solution, rather than water.
About the big bottles of Tamiya paint being acrylic... it's technically true, that the paint carrier is an acrylic liquid. However, they are thinned with a proprietary alcohol-based solution, rather than water.
Thanks! Yeah I'm getting scared to pull the masking off, since it'll reveal whether or not I should put the airbrush down and pick up a croquet needle or something!
I pulled the tape off to get an idea of what she'll look like, and plus so that I could stare at her. Such a beautiful helmet!
Also, regarding the acrylic Tamiyas, I really prefer using enamels, so I tend to stay away from them. I'm not sure why I don't like them, as it's not like I've ever had a bad experience, I just like to stick with Floquil and Humbrol. But I did find it interesting that Jayvee's picture had Tamiya enamels. I didn't know they existed. I've tried photography the upper cheeks in different light, but there doesn't seem to be any really color shifting happening. It appears to just stay a deep blue with a smidge of gray. No sweat though.
Anyways, here's the helmet. I want to throw more misting on top, so we'll see how it goes!
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
The ROTJ dome is a monster....basically the whole misting under the top layer of paint on the whole helmet is a technical nightmare being you have to be careful not to over do it....crossing my fingers for you
Last update for today....
Yeah, Dom, that's probably the best way to describe the helmet....a technical nightmare. And I'm also with you on the overdoing it part because....
I pulled the masking fluid, and although there's lots of little flecks of masking to be pulled, I'm reasonably pleased with how it came out. I feel that the green is quite on the light side, even after several light mists. That could be for one of two reasons:
1. The green is too light and needs to be darkened with more misting.
2. The green is fine (but could still benefit from more misting), but appears to be lighter than it really is because of the brightness of its neighbor, the silver of the mandibles. A good example is window tint on cars. Every car I've had that I've had tint installed has ALWAYS looked darker after. It's a weird visual thing. I'll hold back on any more misting until I have the mandibles painted, to see if that's the case here.
So anyways, here she is. Tons more to do, but I need a break. My 3-day weekend was dominated by Boba Fett (and that's not a bad thing).
Yeah, Dom, that's probably the best way to describe the helmet....a technical nightmare. And I'm also with you on the overdoing it part because....
I pulled the masking fluid, and although there's lots of little flecks of masking to be pulled, I'm reasonably pleased with how it came out. I feel that the green is quite on the light side, even after several light mists. That could be for one of two reasons:
1. The green is too light and needs to be darkened with more misting.
2. The green is fine (but could still benefit from more misting), but appears to be lighter than it really is because of the brightness of its neighbor, the silver of the mandibles. A good example is window tint on cars. Every car I've had that I've had tint installed has ALWAYS looked darker after. It's a weird visual thing. I'll hold back on any more misting until I have the mandibles painted, to see if that's the case here.
So anyways, here she is. Tons more to do, but I need a break. My 3-day weekend was dominated by Boba Fett (and that's not a bad thing).
Fett 4 Real
Sr Hunter
Try and do a wash with black acrylic in distilled water....itll darken it up a bit....but...yeh it does APPEAR lighter then it should be, could be its too light or just not having the red throwing off the color...what red are you going with ?
