*UPDATE 2013* WIP : Jayvee's 'lil' chunk of ROTJ love' paint up

[Jayvee]

8th MAY 2013

Morning Fett-Pimps and Pimpettes! I’ve been steadily working away at this lid, and in the last week, been able to nail down some fine details like the sides of the ears, some drips and stain marks and a few other minor odds and bobs. I have also weathered up the RF topper and am in the process of weathering the stalk, so all those knick-knacks should have photos ready in the next week or so...

This update is an addition of the ears update. My vey excellent ‘spare set of eyes’ – Garrett (Terminal Fettler), pointed out that I missed an underlying colour on the non–rangefinder ear. Of course, the great man was spot on the money, so I went about correcting it . I was originally just going to use some washes to bring up the shade, but didn’t like the test results, so simply stripped part of the ear and started again – this time placing a nice light basecoat of super light grey (Humbrol 147 – this has also been updated in the first posts colour list).

Once that coat was down and dry, I re-stenciled my areas to remain this light grey/white shade, and then masked to reapply the darker mists of grey, gunmetal etc to match the rest of the ear and the reference pics. Once done, I started on the fine detail work, and bazinga – a new ear was concocted! I was very happy with this, as I really took extra time and care to get the patterns more correct, and I think it is now far closer to the real ear in colour, damage patterns and fine detail. A big shout out to Garrett for his Spidey sense and keen detection skills, and super stoked I could get to what I feel, is a better result than before . Some light pastel weathering will be applied to dirty the light grey up a tad down the track, but it is actually not quite as white as it appears in the early photos, and some fine detail is a tad washed out in the pics - due in part to some storms going on with shifting light when I was taking the photos and some light refracting off. Overall though, this lot of pics should give a general story. Peace my friends, thanks for looking!

 

[RobaFett]

Awesome Jayvee,
Just started to use an airbrush after 15 odd years, will look for advice in the future, that helmet is the ducks nuts!

 

[Jayvee]

Awesome Jayvee,
Just started to use an airbrush after 15 odd years, will look for advice in the future, that helmet is the ducks nuts!

Thanks Roba - and by all means, anything I can help with, feel free to drop me a line anytime and i'll do my best to help anywhere I can brother!

 

[RobaFett]

Cheers man your a bloody legend!

 

[Mr Fett]

I'm a big ROTJ helmet fan, and own a couple different ROTJ helmets, painted by different TDH members (all free-hand, before there even WERE stencils for ROTJ) and while both look really good in person, the fact you did stencil it out and then do such fine minute detail work around it makes this helmet insanely incredible looking. Magic of Myth was my go-to reference point for painting. I did all my armor painting myself, except the helmets...which I had bought used from other TDHers. Your helmet is phenomenal looking.

 

[Wolfsburg]

I never cease to be amazed with this! I hope whoever I manage to get to paint my PP2 can do even half as good a job on it! (I personally have the painting skills of a chimp).

 

[Megatron]

great stuff man

 

[Jayvee]

Howdy Fett-Superstars! Another small addittion to this thread, which sees 99% of he main exterior paintwork done. Here, we have ther rangefinder stalk and topper, and this one was really fun to do. I also have some fine detail work which is shown in the next post..

Now, pretty standard stuff here, but trying to get the damage patterns correct is always the challenge. I noticed that the black paint of the topper, was stripped down in parts to the underlying gel coat; as well as appearing to have a misting and 'dusty effect' over the black, and darker black scuff marks could be seen within. I tried to emulate this by adding a basecoat super light grey (humbrol 147) first, then layering the black on the main area. I liquid masked a few of the darker black scuff marks, and then super lightly misted over the black with light grey (humbrol 147) to achieve the dusty effect.

The stalk was another, that seems like it has actually been painted silver over the metal, as the corners and scratches within it were far brighter than the main body. I used humbrol aluminium (56), which has a slightly more bluish tinge than straight silver. I then applied the damage in the right spots, and sanded back corners etc to reveal the bright metal. Overall, very happy, but the light just wasn't on my side today, so you can't pick up a lot of the subtle colour changes in these photos.

In any case, we have pics of the different angles of the RF topper in 1; some shots of the topper and stalk as a whole in 2; and a detail comparison pic in 3. In the comparison pic, you may be able to see that I even tried to emulate the cut off brass screw on the underside. There is also an oval shaped one on the rear of the stalk which I added in also..

 

[Jayvee]

And then, onto some fine detail areas. These are areas that many miss out, but are the important things for me in the accuracy stakes. Pic 1 is showing the small orange substance drops up the rangefinder ear. I imagine it was a glue of some sort, but I was able to replicate it with a humbrol clear orange paint (which is actually a nightmare of a paint to use). There is also some of these drips elsewhere around the helmet. Pic 2 is something I really wanted to include and get right, and its the small white scuff marks on the actual visor. The MOM version definately has these, wether they were on the hero lid in the movie, im not certain, as I haven't investigated. Pic 3 shows the earcap off revealing the micro-switch, and also the newly finished up rectangle seperating the top and bottom earpiece. You may be able to detect some more orange scuffs on this section.

So there you go folks. Interior is next, then will go over with a fine tooth comb to make sure I haven't missed anything, then hopefully can get my good man Karlos to take some pretty shots of the final lid! Thanks for looking, any feedback, as always, appreciated. Peace

 

[rubio95]

There is so much eye candy in this thread that I've got a stomach ache.

Sell me this lid. :love

Great work, as always. Looking forward to some professional shots, as well.

 

[deadland]

Impressive most impressive my friend. Just when I think that this lid cannot look any better you start adding more!!!! Well done and I cannot wait to see what you do to the inside of this bad boy!!!

 

[RafalFett]

Jay, be honest and tell us the truth! You have access to the LFL Archives and whenever you desire you can borrow the ROTJ helmet to tease us with your so called 'painting talent'? Good old George knows what you do? Shame on you!

Spoiler

Ow, sorry! I always forget that you were banned from the LFL Archives years ago, so this is not the real ROTJ helmet, but could replace it at any time and no one will ever notice (almost).

I'm so proud of what you have achieved here (and the ESB too) and I think this piece should stay in a Star Wars Museum.

Your #1 fan.

 

[Jayvee]

Haha, ah that pesky George guy keeps coming around and harassing me Raf, its starting to get a little annoying I tell ya! Doesn't even bring a nice bottle of wine around these days.. But I digress..

Thanks for those kind words gents, I'll do my best to wrap it all up soon!

 

[terminal fettler]

It is incredible what you have achieved. It's not just the individual colours and treatment, but the more illusive balance of all the colours and treatment working together...Sorry, that sounds like such BS!

 

[Mojo Fett]

Stunning... :love

 

[Megatron]

orange stuff is glue of some sort that has aged. Looks like badger glue but I doubt that. Is the mirco switch for show or does it work?
great work

 

[Fett 4 Real]

Soon I will be starting my ROTJ journey for myself/wife....Love what your doing here bro

 

[Jayvee]

Thanks a bunch fellas, just about acquired all the bits and bobs I need for the interior, so not far away..

Garrett - thanks for the kind words on the colours and how they work with each other. I spent considerable time with colour swatches, so glad someone with as keen an eye as yours, thinks I'm in the right ballpark. The only thing I'm not convinced with, is the satin sheen - I know there is a slight one, but just haven't found anything I like enough that gives just that 'right' amount. So mite be better just leaving it till I come across something down the track..

Dom - sounds great mate, can't wait to see your new ROTJ. I always enjoy your paint ups.

Megatron - even though it is a real micro switch, and the metal ears allow running wires, mine is just for show. This is because I tend to go for accuracy, and as it stands - and correct me if I'm wrong - but I see no evidence the ROTJ helmet had working leds, and particularly not in the MOM version, which I based this helmet on. So if it makes sense, it seems more accurate not to have it functioning, as the version I'm basing mine off didn't..

 

[Misfit2]

Amazing lid bro! Amazing

 

[Jayvee]

UPDATE 3 JUNE 2013 - INTERIOR :
Boo-yah Fett -Rockstars! Time for the next update and this one has been a blast to do – the Interior. For those who haven’t followed any of my previous paint ups, I look for screen accuracy with these interiors. Which means nice, clean foam and functional mechanics, get replaced by some – truth be told – sloppy and not real pleasing to the eye beauty – however, it’s exactly this, which makes it all that much harder to nail it down correctly. So with that in mind, away to work I went...

Now, what was tough about this interior is that as far as I know, I think I may be the first to have a go at the ROTJ interior. There have been some fantastic ESB efforts from the likes of BGHunter, Kurtyboy and Gino, as well as better reference pics, so that in a way, was easier to nail down the specifics. This one however, has some pretty blurry and inconclusive pics, so some trial and error was needed. Also, there are pics of 2 configurations in the interior set up for this helmet. The ‘Heilman’ images showed this interior in earlier days, where the later pictures showed a few different variations and these were also evident in the ‘Magic of Myth’ exhibit photos. As the latter is the paint up I tried to emulate, that was also the interior I followed. I have put these two pics in for reference…



Now, earlier in this thread at post 107, I did some test fittings for interior parts. That went fine, but now, I wanted to nail down some specifics and make some changes – which ended up being pretty much EVERYTHING. Apart from the circuitry board over the key slots, everything got either changed, or replaced with more accurate pieces. The headband was changed to finer and better coloured foam, and a longer, tan sweatband; the top straps were changed to a thinner material looking much more accurate, the black chin strap holder was changed to a finer piece, with correct material now, as well as an accurate working button/stud. The metal chin strap holder clip was also changed to a more accurate piece.

Then there were the things I added in which hadn’t been accounted for as yet. First were the bondo residue stains, and small tabs with cheese head screws holding down the visor end. The tabs were fine, and weathered up to look rusty as they appear in MOM. The bondo stains, when looked at in the Heilman pics, are actually bondo – the same colour as the bono used on the edges of the circuit board over the key slots. In MOM however, this colour is different – and that is because it seems the bondo has actually been scraped away, revealing the marks, and some underlying, dirtied up gel coat. So I tried to replicate this. Also added in were the wires out of the rangefinder ear, which are really hard to see, so I went with it best I could. The curved metal tabs on the upper cheeks were also constructed and added in, as well as some Velcro pieces and other bits and bobs. Phew!