Counterweight's Second ROTJ Cardboard Scratch Build

[Counterweight]

Time to do the cheeks

But first... I had to make a new earcap!

Still needs to be dremeled and possibly filled, but looks fine for now and fits nicely

Okay now onto the cheeks. My template only shows base metal grey on the left cheek so I stenciled and masked both sides, but only painted the left first

Then the fern green

Then finally I put in magnets and painted the earcap

I'm glad that is taken care of. This earcap is stronger than the first one anyway, so that's great. I had a hard time in my first build keeping the RF up, and I saw a great idea on here to put a magnet in the back of the RF to keep it up. Once I get the servo setup I'm going to do the magnet thing as well.

For now though I'm going to finish the cheeks. I have about 2 more colors to go on those, then I'll do the ears, and I'll save the dome for last again.

After its all painted I will worry about buying the little extras and installing them. At the end I plan to purchase the visor, the Perspex block, the Borden connector, and all the electronics I need, so hopefully the finished project won't look as amateur

Off to keep working on it!

 

[Stormcrow85]

Looks good. Keep it up. I just did my dome next for me is the mandibles. Yours is looking good. The new ear cap looks good!

Sent from my Nexus 5X

 

[Counterweight]

Looks good. Keep it up. I just did my dome next for me is the mandibles. Yours is looking good. The new ear cap looks good!

Sent from my Nexus 5X

Yeah I've seen it. You're progressing quite well. It looks good
Thank u

 

[Counterweight]

Finished up the cheeks

And the final reveal...

Not perfect by any stretch, but I like it

Oh no!

That stupid tape managed to take some paint off!
Back to work...

So after letting that dry overnight I removed the masking and used steel wool to try to blend it with the original paint. It work pretty well honestly, but I will need to do more blending today to make the repair unnoticeable

Next update... Ear paint!

 

[Counterweight]

Ear paint!

So I couldn't find a great stencil for the ears like I could all the other parts so I just did it by hand while referring to a paint guide for the whole helmet.

It's not screen accurate, but it's better than my first helmet, and as I said from the beginning that's my entire goal.

First: prep

Second: paint

I hit the left ear with the light grey and the right ear and earcap with the same grey except misted with black. I did this to avoid any issues with the dark grey that have plagued me thus far

Third: remove mask

Here's the final result

The "needle scratches" on the right ear did not come out very well, but I still think it's looks cool. Perhaps a little over-damaged, but I'm happy
The left ear I'm definitely happy with. Came out just how I wanted.

Okay now I'm up to the big finale! The dome paint up!
I really want to take my time and try to get it as accurate as I am able to, so it may take awhile. I'll post updates at different intervals instead of waiting til it's complete.
But once it's done all I have left is killstripes and then finishing touches before its time to put on all the bells and whistles!

Next update... The DOME

 

[Counterweight]

Round one of the dome complete! The dome is weird, I hate it because of how labor intensive it is but I love it because I know the helmet is almost done. I'll let pics do the rest of the talking:

Front:

Left side:

Back

Right side:

A few coats of grey

And my silver damage is done

Front

Left side

Back

Right side

This build is slightly scaled up from my last build because my other bucket is slightly too small for my head, plus I want to have room for electronics. I hope that I scaled the paint templates up accurately as well. It seems okay, I'm just a little concerned that the top seems very sparse

That may be by design and plus I know that some grey damage will go up there, I just hope it doesn't look stupid when I'm done.

Next up: mask the grey damage and paint on the dark grey layer!

 

[Silverstalker]

Looks great pal keep pushing forward

 

[omarq2012]

This is certainly extremely interesting

 

[Counterweight]

Looks great pal keep pushing forward

Thanks! Almost there

This is certainly extremely interesting

Thank u sir

 

[Counterweight]

Dark grey layer!

Paint

Reveal

One more to go! But for now, I have a daunting amount of tedious masking to do. Stay tuned!

 

[Level3Fett]

Getting close!!!!

opcorn

Dark grey layer!


Paint

Reveal


One more to go! But for now, I have a daunting amount of tedious masking to do. Stay tuned!

 

[Counterweight]

All done finally

I'll let the pictures do the talking

Then a couple layers of krylon satin olive green

And the final product.... Drumroll please

And also with the RF held on

... It's alright.

So up next it's time for the kill stripes and the turn signals, and the paint job will be all done!

After that I still need a visor, Perspex block, Borden connector, and LED/servo etc. for the right ear, so I'll be perusing the cargo hold plenty I'm sure

Almost there!

 

[Magnavis]

Excellent work!! Can you post a side by side comparison with V1?

Really want to finish mine now

 

[Counterweight]

Per request:

 

[Magnavis]

Huge improvement!

 

[Counterweight]

Huge improvement!

Thank you

 

[RichardJones]

What a difference! This is turning out great!

 

[Counterweight]

What a difference! This is turning out great!

Thanks for the encouragement!

 

[Counterweight]

Guess what time it is... That's right, it's killstripe time!

And the final product...

The angle I took the pictures at makes the size of the stripes seem skewed, so I'll add more detailed pictures in tomorrow's post

Overall though I'm actually pretty happy with it. I had a lot of issues lining the stripes up because it was hard to get the template to lay flat against the helmet and follow its curves. So there was a fair amount of messing up, erasing stencils, and redrawing. The stripes aren't perfect but they're much better than the V1 stripes.

I'm painting the turn signals now, and then the build/ paint portion is done.

In my next post I'll show the finished turn signals, and show more detailed side-by-sides of my V1 and V2 buckets for comparison purposes, as well as explaining how I plan to proceed in regards to electronics.

That will be tomorrow

 

[Counterweight]

Sweet. The paint job is done. Here are some pics of the bucket

And now some comparison shots with my V1 helmet

V2:

V1:

V2:

V1:

V2:

V1:

So of course, I still have some stuff left to do on the helmet. It needs a visor, Perspex block, Borden connector, LEDs for the RF, and a servo kit

There is no real time limit for me so I'll add that stuff in as I'm able to acquire it.

I've also decided in the meantime that I'm going to start work on making gauntlets. I figured I can start a long term full costume project. Since I have no deadline, it can just be a relaxed project that I can add to when I feel like it. I'll start that in another thread. I'll be sure to update this thread as I get helmet parts in as well.

Thanks to everyone for the help and kind words! Hope to see u guys in my full outfit thread that will be started soon!