and now for something completely different: 7602's ESB helmet

[stormtrooperguy]

and now for something completely different: 7602's SECOND ESB helmet

I wanted a break from RotJ painting before my (hopefully!) final helmet for myself.

So I took one of my misfit castings and painted it up, using only what I had on hand already (as in, no buying specific paints for it)

The weathering is all layered, as this photo shows really well:

Sadly I did next to nothing for progress pics.

I can tell you what colors I used though

All paints are rustoleum in some form or another. They have a few different product lines at home depot, but it's all the same company. I may get the line wrong in my descriptions:

Base is rustoleum metallic silver.
Grey is painters touch winter grey
The tan color on the back is american accents fossil
the green on the back is american accents hunt club
the black is just black
the darker red on the visor is painters touch claret wine
the redder red is painters touch colonial red
the dome and cheeks are a combination of moss green and sage green. base of moss and misting of sage. one of them is american accents and the other is painters touch.

there's a mist of painters touch nutmeg, and a pretty heavy mist of rustoleum auto primer.

it's all coated in testor's dullcote. i was using satins, flats, glossy... all sorts of madness. there's some graphite powder rubbed into a few spots here and there too.

i'll spend a bit of time doing subtle scuffs and dirt. i'm sampling from the movie, the aosw pics and the c4 pics. pulling out bits of post-filming damage i like and ignoring what i don't.

not a master work at all, but it was fun to spend some time looking at a different helmet for once. i probably spent about 12 - 15 hours on it, give or take a bit.

i imagine i'll spend 3-4 on the ears and killstripes.

 

[GCNgamer128]

Nice looking bucket there!! Plan to wear it for SE on occasion??

 

[stormtrooperguy]

Nice looking bucket there!! Plan to wear it for SE on occasion??

i don't know... i swore i'd never do that, but the urge is there. i guess it will depend on how the final, finished look is.

if i want to actually *wear* this, there are a lot of lumps and bumps on the inside that i'll need to sand out!

 

[Spideyfett]

Now that's the way it should be done.. 100% layered....Great technique...

did you find that matching the scratches exact was difficult?

 

[stormtrooperguy]

Now that's the way it should be done.. 100% layered....Great technique...

did you find that matching the scratches exact was difficult?

if i had matched them exactly, it would have been!

i cut a bunch of corners and relied a lot on the natural edges that peeling paint give.

especially on the back... i got the major shapes down, but if you really start looking closely, the edges vary slightly from the original, the flecks don't all match up exactly, etc...

i sort of think of this as somewhere between a hero and a stunt helmet. to all but the TDH crowd it will look the part and be impressive. here, any number of folks have done MUCH better work!

the hardest part was the dark red on the visor. i REALLY didn't want to paint that in later, but there's sooooo little of it, that it was sort of a pain to have to go through a whole round of masking and drying and peeling just to get those little flecks.

oh, and the visor right now is opaque.

 

[Spideyfett]

the hardest part was the dark red on the visor. i REALLY didn't want to paint that in later, but there's sooooo little of it, that it was sort of a pain to have to go through a whole round of masking and drying and peeling just to get those little flecks..

Considering the outcome, I think you did a great job... plus that's the way it was really done (hero)... very impressive.

 

[MandalorFett]

Nice work, you're rockin' it again!

 

[Mojo Fett]

Nice layering details....

Lovin the Monty title...

 

[Bountyone]

very nice.

 

[GCNgamer128]

Is this one of the thicker or thinner buckets?

 

[stormtrooperguy]

Is this one of the thicker or thinner buckets?

yes

thin in most spots with a huge lump in the forehead.

what's interesting though is that the smoothcast roto is considered "semi-rigid"... it's got about the same amount of give to it that the don post helmets have, but without the warping. at least, i hope without the warping

i'm actually thinking it would be good for trooping, since it's pretty shock resistant. i dropped it off a table on purpose to see what would happen. nothing!

 

[webchief]

Meh... it's alright.

 

[Gator Fett]

I can see your banana hammock.

 

[stormtrooperguy]

I can see your banana hammock.

hahahahah!!!!

i shouldn't be posting stuff like that. waaaay too hot for this board!

 

[AntMan]

I absolutely L O V E this pic!!!
Shows how AWESOME layered painting is if done correctly, as is definitely the case here!
Excellent stuff man!

Thanks for sharing,
Peter
__________________

"With great power comes great responsibility"

 

[stormtrooperguy]

after looking at all the things i did wrong... i'm starting over on this, and doing the esb paint job well, rather than hurriedly.

and this time i hope to do better documentation.

first think was physical damage. i looked over the c4 pics from darth miller and tried to find anything that looked like damage that wasn't from mishandling. i'm going to go for a hybrid of the current state and the movie... basically taking the elements of post-movie-damage that i like, but not including the badly repaired cracks.

there really wasn't much that i saw... just these 2 marks on the face:

anyone know offhand if i missed anything big? rotj is all scarred up, esb seems relatively in tact.

then a quick shot of silver:

 

[terminal fettler]

Looking good so far! The only extra damage i noticed was the bottom of the lower cheeks, a few chips down each one, mostly near the ears...

 

[MandoWarrior87]

Great paint job! New helmet lookin' good aswell

p.s
You make these helmets yourself?

 

[stormtrooperguy]

Looking good so far! The only extra damage i noticed was the bottom of the lower cheeks, a few chips down each one, mostly near the ears...

i'll have to go back and track those down. thanks!

and mandowarrior... yeah, these are all failed attempts at making my super-duper-rotj bucket. i wouldn't really troop in any of them regularly, but for display they aren't bad.

this esb one is one of the best of the bunch. it's actually *almost* good even!

 

[stormtrooperguy]

failure... utter failure!

bad reaction between silver and grey.

masked out all of the damage on the dome, painted in the grey, masked again, painted the green.

and when i peeled it off, ALL of the grey and green came off, right back to the silver.

AUGH!

i've read about it, but that's the first time its happened to me.

so i stripped it all back down AGAIN and will start over AGAIN!