So who's the genius who thought it would be fun to paint an RotJ helmet?
I've been working through the weekend on this bad boy, and man oh man has it been interesting. This will be quite an update!
I began stenciling the dome last week, and it's a beast. A total monster. There were some pleasant surprises along the way! First off, I always like to start on the rangefinder side. For the ESB, its the 'cat scratch,' and for the RotJ, it's the 'blob.' One of the things that sets the RotJ helmet apart from all the rest of the helmets is the physical damage. I don't know what Sandy and her gang did to this helmet before they painted it, but it seems like they took it outside and played soccer with it, or maybe their delivery man was Ace Ventura. Anyways, there's so much damage on this thing, and Fettpride has done an outstanding job recreating it. The 'blob' has a HUGE scratch to one side of it, and although in the past I've refrained from adding it to a helmet, I was able to use it as a marker, and between Fettpride's scratch and Rafalfett's slightly sized-down templates, it was a perfect marriage. If you look at the template cut out, you can see where I pressed my thumbnail into the scratch. They lined up like a dream!
So I kept on masking and stenciling and masking and stenciling until I got to the point that I could spray the light gray:
I wasn't worried about full coverage on the helmet, since a tiny bit of variation would be good for the overall feel, in my opinion. Then I moved onto the darker gray:
There is sooooo much weathering! Subtle, teeny, tiny sections to mask and remask! Good lord! If they were to allow me to make the Boba Fett spinoff, I'd name it " Revenge of the RotJ," and it would be about Boba Fett painting his damned helmet.
So after a solid 10 hours of work yesterday, and after getting the dark gray stenciled and masked, and approaching midnight, I decided that I was ready hit the lid with Jayvee's green. If I was able to lay down one good coat before bed, I'd save several hours waiting for it to dry. So I laid a coat down, and when I woke up this morning hit it again. Here's how she's looking:
So I'm gonna hit it again, then drop some mists over it to darken it a bit and kill the evenness of the color. All of this has been so exciting!
Also, I wanted to address Jayvee's post from last week:
Yeah, it was a colour I tried quite extensively lads, but as Dom touched on, the ratios may need to be played around with somewhat. It can also come down to application/compressor pressure or paint consistency with how much thinner is added. So as always, colour testing is always recommended.
Having said that, do remember my paint job was done back in 2012, so there is every chance the colour recipe has changed a little for the brands of paint. This pic added was one I posted in my ROTJ back then, and with some of the spilt colour, even there you can see the hint of green in the sea blue. It may be a pic that you can use to compare to your own bottles.
Having said all that, the pics of your lid to date look pretty friggn awesome bud! Take some shots of the cheeks in different light and see if you can detect the green in the photos. The colour should almost look black in the shade, but then detect blue in a bit more light, with the green evident in the right light conditions..
In any case mate, keep up the superb work!
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I thought this was very interesting, since, as far as I know, all of the Tamiya paints we get here in the United States are acrylic. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Thanks for looking, everybody!