Small update. The dome is primarily finished. Just need to add some base grey dings and scratches. Next I'll go to the cheeks before moving on to the mandibles.
Made some progress over the weekend. I primarily worked on the lower cheek areas and more dome detailing. I will move on to the upper cheek areas and the mandibles and hat band next.
Pictures Pictures Pictures...
Some close ups of the cheeks with the weathering.
Added the light blue/gray base scratches to the major damage on the top of the dome along with some more dings and scratches.
I added the carbon scoring streaks to the dent area. This is a very very subtle feature and it's important not to over do it. I still need to add the light blue/gray base scratches in the dent but I like to add these after the weathering as it appears to me from reference photos that these were added later in the process.
It really does add another dimension of realism in my opinon. The first time I painted an ESB helmet I didn't even really notice it in the reference photo's so when I was done I could tell it was missing something. I caught my mistake way later and by that time I was already painting another one.
Just another teaser as I make my way through the mandibles...(clean left side mandible yet to be weathered and finished)
And now this photo is one of the most natural and what I think to be one of the most accurate depictions of the true colors in photo form of the original ESB Hero helmet. (obviously just discussing the face colors, Green, Gray, Base Gray, Red, Dark Red, Black and Silver colors for this example)
And just for comparisons sake...
Original ----- Replica
The Mandibles are probably the section that takes me the longest. As we're all aware there are so many minuscule scratches that make you go cross eyed. I'll recap a little bit into the process side of how I tackle this.
On this helmet I am doing all the damage layers topically. I Use stencil's to mark out the general region of the damage and then use close up reference photo's to more accurately shape the damaged regions. This part is very very time consuming going back and forth from my computer screen to the helmet. Then I paint all the major silver damage, then the gray, then the dark purple meanwhile going back and forth between reference photo's. Then I'll go back to the silver to do the minor silver damage on top and sharpen out the silver damage previously topically painted.
Small update of some damage I was debating whether to add or not as an ESB helmet. It's regarding the "scuff" on the Left Mandible near the T of the T-visor about 1 third the way in towards the left ear. I posted in one of the sticky's (ESB Screen vs. AOSW helmet differences) as for the research I'd done and my decision. I'll include the photo's here as well.
Getting close to finishing the paint on this one. Still need to apply the white thumbprint, and the white smears on the killstripes, grease stains, the spatter, grime, and some other small details. I tried applying the dry transfers for the ear details that I had but apparently they dry up and won't work after some time. Anyways enjoy!