Building Boba: Helmet: Dome and Cheeks

Work and life have kept me pretty busy over the last couple of weeks, but I have an update for you.

I painted the cheeks and dome of the helmet...THREE times. The first time I had a problem with the paint, and it peeled off in the wrong places. So I sanded it down and started over. The second time, I finished all the layers of the cheeks and dome and the color just wasn't right. It was too minty green. So I sanded THAT down and started over. What you see here is the third round of painting. Anyway, back to the show...

This is helmet #23 by Terminal Fettler. I managed to score it on eBay. TF doesn't make helmets anymore I'm told.

First I removed the lens, the right ear piece and the antenna. We'll deal with those later.

I had to trim out and sand the key holes in the back with a set of jewelers' files.

Here are the key holes all finished:

Next I sprayed the whole thing Rustoleum Aluminum (Forgot to take pics of that stage...) and added some damage with liquid mask using movie reference photos. Once that dried, I sprayed the gray layer with Rusto Anodized Bronze misted over with Rusto Slate Gray. Once that dried, I peeled off the liquid mask and...

Another layer of liquid mask was added so that some of this gray would show through. Then came the top layer of green. The base color was Rusto Oregano, misted heavily with Rusto Spruce, and then mists of Anodized Bronze and Black. This was the most fussy I've been so far with trying to get just the right color.

Once that dried I added layer upon layer of grime with various dark colored Testors paints. This was several hours of work dry-brushing, and using papertowels, etc. to make it look like the helmet has seen some serious use. Finally I peeled off the liquid mask to reveal all the major damage underneath, and then added micro damage with a screwdriver and my gravel driveway!

The next step was to add the kill stripes to the left side of the helmet. A lot of people use vinyl decals -- and I bought some -- but I really wanted to use paint. So I made an elaborate mask with frog tape, and mixed up some orange Testors enamel, and brushed them on.

And we have our final dome and cheeks all finished. You'll note the shade of green changes depending on the angle and light source. The frontal pic below is the most accurate real-life color.