Boushh Todd's (Sandman) Boushh Helmet Build

So here's a little update:

Masked up the parts where the leather will go, so that the paint won't screw up the adhering of the leather to the helmet, and primed. Discovered some areas where more sanding is needed.

And here we go with the smoothening up of some areas. And yes, I corrected the wrong-directioned battle damage on the front left rim.

So while waiting for the filler to dry, I decided to make the templates for the markings on the helmet.

I made them on my Silhouette Cameo for cutting later, and saved it as a jpg for anyone to download and scale to your needs. Do note that in the actual helmet, the markings are made by sticking vinyl onto the helmet directly, and not airbrushed on. I leave it up to you to decide how you want to apply it, spray or stick. Enjoy!

Sanded down again, washed with mild soap and letting dry. Looks like a step back, but it's really a step forward. You want to get the surface free of imperfections so that the paintwork will be nice and smooth later. Now we are ready for priming, and painting of this beautiful bucket!

So while preparing for the paint job, I took a closer look at the original and how the layers went on, and it was pretty random, with some colours going on before AND after some other layers, as seen below. Will do the best I can!

So this is going to be a long post.

I started painting today, and got quite good progress. I used Tamiya Enamel paints, and don't really have a sequence of painting, using both topical and layering, as well as toning and misting, dry brushing and oil washes.

For this helmet, I'm not trying to get every scratch replicated, but more the feel of the original bounty hunter: weathered, unkept, and functional.

So on with the painting. After a final primer and sanding down and primer again, I applied the base coat of Flat Brown with about 40% black. I like a very dark base to give me the depth later:



After the base was applied, I toned it with Flat brown (without Black) to give it some depth. It will turn out much lighter at this stage, but I know I will be toning it with various darker layers later. This is a shot of the toning in progress, showing the top half with the base coat and the lower half toned:



This is after the first toning. As I said, it is light, but I wanted to make sure there was the greatest contrast between this and the base coat:



The next toning layer was Red Brown, now bringing the colour back up, but also showing hints of the lighter tone underneath:



The paint chips were hand painted using Red Brown with 40% white added:







Next, Sky Grey was used to mist the back portion of the helmet:



After Sky Grey, I used German Grey to further tone the dark areas:





Then Black was used directly to mist certain areas of the helmet to give it a little of that burnt / charred effect:



When that was completed, it was time to hand paint the silver paint chips and scratches. I used Flat Aluminium for this:



The top rim was also sprayed with Flat Aluminium:



The ears were also sprayed with Black, and dry-brushed with Flat Aluminium:



Now the whole helmet was dry-brushed with Flat Aluminium, and then misted with German Grey to dull down the bright silver colours. The 2 black vinyl strips were also added:



Using my Silhouette Cameo, the stencil mask for the right of the helmet was cut and positioned for spraying with Hull Red:



I chose this very dull colour intentionally to have a worn and faded effect:



The left side done too:





The back was a little more tricky as the line is not straight:





I am pretty satisfied with the progress today. Here are the photos so far, after they were sealed with a matt Clear Coat:











The next step will be to apply washes to give it even more depth, and more dry-brushing and toning before I call it complete for this part of the helmet.

Absolutely amazing!

22ssplt said:

Absolutely amazing!

Click to expand...

Thanks man!

Very nice paint up so far. I have always wanted to do one of these.

FettFanatic said:

Very nice paint up so far. I have always wanted to do one of these.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

WOW just getting better and better mate.

It's hard to stay away from saying Wow... but Wow.
The paint job is coming up amazingly...

joshimus said:

WOW just getting better and better mate.

Click to expand...

TheZeroEffect said:

It's hard to stay away from saying Wow... but Wow.
The paint job is coming up amazingly...

Click to expand...

Thanks guys!

Tackled the leather parts this morning. The strap with 6 sew lines being done:



The back flap with the 3 sew lines:



Completed! Note that the back flap was folded over and glued as the leather I have is thin (so that I can stretch it for the snout). The screen used is thick at the back.

The templates of the leather parts on the snout and bottom extending to the back were next. I taped exactly the pieces using masking tape, and then transferred the templates over to the leather, which I cut. I found that this method gives me a near perfect cut as the leather could conform to the bends on the tape.


Bottom leather:



Top leather:



Templates transferred to the leather and cut:





I won't be attaching the cut leather just yet, as the helmet would have to go through a very heavy wash of Raw Umber oils. This wash will bring everything together, and truly give it a weathered look.

The next photo show the helmet immediately after the wash. I would have to let this dry thoroughly before I blend it down with some steel wool, toned further with pastels and maybe some dry-brushing.







While letting the helmet dry, I did the rest of the greeblies:

Keeps getting better and better!

22ssplt said:

Keeps getting better and better!

Click to expand...

Thanks man!

I forgot to mention that I did not replicate accurately the back leather flap. Over at the RPF, it has been clarified that the back flap is actually 2 pieces of leather sewn together.

Thanks to Trooper_trent for his clarification (post #59 of Boushh Helmet build - Page 3)

"This back leather piece is actually two pieces. They should be placed face to face and sewn together with a bit of clearance. Then they should be separated and the clearance layers folded back so that the seam is now holding two folded ends together. Hit this with a mallet to flatten it out and then stitch each flap down next to the original seam to give you the three lines."

So I spent the whole of last night fixing on the leather on the helmet. Wow... it was difficult! Getting the leather aligned both at the edges of the face, sides and ears, as well as to each other, folding into the snout without creases, and finally tucking it under the whole helmet without creases (I failed here).... I have declared it the most difficult part of the build!

Here's the completed leather before weathering minus the black flap and leather strap at the back. I will install those last as I need the space to get into the helmet and install the visors and lights kit.

So to continue, I installed the display visor (the top one) and the next thing was to install Fettronic's Boushh display lights. I double-sided taped them to a styrene sheet wrapped with black tape, and then taped it onto the inside of the helmet. I did not want to use any glue here as I wanted to be able to remove them in the future if needed. Cloth tape is mighty strong enough.







Then, the snout and rangefinder were installed, followed by the lower visor:





Finally, the last of the installation were the leather back flap, leather strap, and strap attachments, in that order:





With that, I am done with all the parts of the helmet, and the last thing left to do is to weather the leather! Getting close to completion!

So after weathering the leather with oils and pastels, I think I'm gonna call this build finished.



It has been a satisfying build, and I am happy with the results. There are several areas that did not replicate the screen-used one, but I am ok with that, being my personal interpretation of what this bounty hunter would have been like. Thanks for viewing!

That was a great build. It's come up really well, looks like the real deal :cool