Once the painting finally did start, I used RafalFett’s awesome painting stencils (http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/boba-fett-rotj-helmet-stencils-42184) to mask the various layers and Jayvee’s incomparable thread (http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/update-2013-wip-jayvees-lil-chunk-rotj-love-paint-up-45306) for colors and techniques. I first finished the ear pieces, priming with the Rust-olium Master’s Touch 2x Ultra Cover flat grey, airbrushing with 2 coats of Humbrol #11 silver, and sealing that with Krylon Colormaster Clear Gloss spray. After masking the edges, I weathered them with a light airbrush spray of Humbrol #33 black and finished by buffing that back with 0000 steel wool to match the reference photos. Then I printed the stencils one section at a time onto the “carbon” transfer paper, after determining the proper scaling for my helmet by a bit of trial-and-error (my setting was 98% with a bit of drift due to the curved surfaces), and transferred them onto the helmet to cover with the masking fluid. While making the transfers for the last of the stencils, I ran out of the Porelon brand listed, and since it had a random black pattern printed into the upper (nontransfer) side of the paper, which made finding the stencil part to transfer hard to identify, I didn’t reorder that brand. To get around that problem with the Porelon, I printed the stencils twice, once onto the transfer paper and once onto plain white paper, then transferred the stencil pattern onto the helmet (scribbling over the stencil pattern with a sharp pencil) and used the marks transferred as positioning landmarks while relying on the white paper print to verify the pattern when applying the mask. Since I ended up needing more, I decided to continue with the Trace-It brand recommended by Raizo, and with a little help to get it through my inkjet printer, that has worked out much better. In my biggest deviation from the wisdom found here I masked the “bright silver” stencil first (now I have the Eagles “You can go your own way” stuck in my head
) as I seriously can’t tell a big enough difference between the Humbrol #11 silver and the aluminum in the cold cast to justify the extra priming and painting. Here are a couple of shots showing the first masking:
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With that done I puffed out a super light layer of the Rust-olium Master’s Touch 2x Ultra Cover flat grey primer, and smoothed that out with light sanding using the 2000 grit auto paper. Then ran into some further trouble trying to meld Jayvee’s paint colors and steps with the colors listed in RafalFett’s stencils, specifically how the misting of Humbrol #53 Gunmetal and #67 Tank Grey equated to the “Base Metal” and “SP Lark Dark Grey” in the stencils. After much study of Jayvee’s pictures, the references in the gallery, and the stencils, I used the Gunmetal for the Base Metal stage and the Tank Grey for the SP Lark Dark Grey step. After two light coats of the #53 Gunmetal and another smoothing with the 2000 grit paper, I masked the Base Metal stencils. Here are a couple of samples of the second mask:
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After a light coat of the darker #67 Tank Grey (as with all Humbrols, still diluting 1:1 with thinner) the paint seemed to have a lot of texture, so I buffed lightly with the 2000 grit paper, but I thought a lot of the paint rubbed off getting the surface smooth again. I only had the one tin of #67 Tank Grey, so I used up the remaining putting down another coat concentrated onto the areas where the stencils showed it masked off. This coat came out much smoother than the first, and so after a very light buffing with the 2000 grit paper, I masked off the SP Lark Dark Grey stencils, starting with the back panels.
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As you can see, I masked the back panels using the Tamiya tape and then I proceeded to spray them with 2-3 coats of Jayvee’s Chameleon Green (Floquil Southern Green and Floquil CNW Green mix 1:1 ratio, no thinner needed for the Floquils). Then I masked the SP Lark Dark Grey stencils on the trim front and back and sprayed both with 2 coats of Floquil Caboose Red, along with a couple of light shots of that to the keyslot area (which I then had to rub back quite a bit with 0000 steel wool). Here is the front before spraying:
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