Saturday 23 April 2016

Clone Commando Helmet part 02

A lot of work has gone into the Clone Commando helmet over the last week. This is down to the fact that the weather has been farily good so i have been able to get home from work and work on it. When I last posted on the blog the priming was done. With all things considered I am very happy with how it went. I do like the plain grey look of the primer it reminds me of the behind the scenes photos of the prop makers on a movie. 




I left the helmet to dry for  day or so then started to prep for the first coat of paint. I wanted something similar to a Clone Captain with a red accents.





This turned out better than I thought and I had very minimal running or dripping. That was nice as I didn't want to spend a great deal of time sanding and repainting. So like before with the priming I let the helmet dry for a day or more. Then once I removed all the masking tap I was very happy with how well it turned out. For my first time at doing this  think it turned out really well. 




Now I know there was a run/over spray that I should of removed but I thought i would just paint over it. After all I don't need this to be perfect it is a test after all. Once the paaint was fully dry I got the helmet ready for the black paint.






Once again i left it to dry for a day or two before removing all the tape. I was very happy with the black look and hopefully will look good next to the red.. The gloss black did dry a slight mat-ish but i am sure that once i use a little polish it will bring out the shinny.... But before I do any of that I still needed to so a clear coat.





Well that is as far as I have gotten this week. I still need to look into polishing the helmet to give it a shinny glossy look. Then there is the T-visor i need to add as well as the blue LED light that runs along the top of the T-visor and the little mouth bits that go on the bottom of the helmet to glue back on Then I think I will be done. 
This project should be mostly complete by the end of next week. Once this is complete and out of the way I can carry on with the Vader amour. And there is still a lot of stuff that I need to do. At the moment Cosplay feels more like work than fun. But once complete all the hard work and effort will be worth it. 

Sunday 17 April 2016

Clone Commando Helmet part 01

Before I start painting the Darth Vader armour I want to have a look around and see if i could find a local car painting place that might be able to help paint the helmet. No I will admit i did not look overly hard but I did look and could not find any place local to me. So thinking about what to do I decide to just go for it and paint it myself......
Small problem though I have never done something like this so i needed to do a test. Not something as simple as paint a small bit of wood or anything but i wanted to do a proper test. After all i learn more from doing than reading about it in a book.
A few years ago i brought a fan made Clone Commando helmet from ebay. It was a mat white not a nice shiny white like I had hoped. But it looked good on the shelf. The idea of repainting the helmet has crossed my mind on a few occasions but never had the opportunity to go ahead and paint it untill now.
On Thursday i popped in to Halfords on the way home and picked up some paint. 
Grey Primer
Red
Gloss Black
Clear Lacquer


I decided that once the weather was go enough I would go out and prime the helmet. But first there was a little filling that needed doing.



There was a small gap where the little light is so that was filled and I knew I had to cover bulb before i painted anything. I tried everything i could think of. I eventually thought to use wax. I lit a candle and waited a few minutes then place some hot wax over the bulb using a cotton bud then waited till Saturday. The thinking behind the wax is that it would be easy to take off once the helmet is fully painted. Well i hope it is. 


Saturday came and the weather cleared up the sun came out and I started priming. I will painting this over the course of two weekends. This weekend priming next Saturday painting the Red then Sunday the Black. That's the plan anyway and depending on what time i get home from work I might try and do something during the week and get this done quicker.





  
All primed and ready for painting. An updated will be done once I have finished the first colour. This should take 3 steps nothing to complicated.   


Sunday 10 April 2016

Darth Vader, Rouge One and a Retro Gaming Market

Star Wars Celebration is fast approaching and with roughly less than 100 days to go I still have a lot of work to do. Things are moving in the right direction but i am facing some parts of the build that I am very nervous about. This being the painting.... 
I have some ideas but i really don't want to screw that up. Nothing worse than a poor paint job after all the hard work that has gone in to this project. I have gone ahead and brought the two upgrades that I wanted. 


The Red Lenses look a little bright but I am hoping that once they are in the face mask with the with the mesh behind they will look darker (well fingers crossed anyway!).   


The month and chin grill and mesh look great and I am happy with how they look in the helmet. Again remember I am not going for a screen accurate look from the Movies or the Rebels TV show. It is more an mix of all the Vader's from the movies/tv and from the 70/80's Marvel comic books. 
That was not all I got. I was luck enough to get my hands on this ....


The Neck Seal for the Helmet is very cool and will be awesome edtion to the Vader Armour. It is a kit so I will have to put it together soon. You can see the difference it makes to the costume when you see guys at a Con in full armour and are missing it. Now I understand that It is not the most essential 
 thing to have as the back of the neck is normally hidden by the back of the dome. But I have always wanted one. The last few bit I have done to the armour is the last bit of filling to the Chest Box and Face Mask. 



Now that this is done I can do the final sanding and then cut out a small amount of wood to act as a lift to the dome so it sits a little higher in the mask.  
 I have a plan to get the sanding done by the beginning of May and painting should be done around the last full week of May. 

On Thursday the Rouge One: A Star Wars Story trailer was released and if you have not seen then go watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wji-BZ0oCwg&nohtml5=False&ab_channel=StarWars


Rouge One looks amazing. It looks and feels like the 1977 Star Wars and that is a good thing. It will be the icing on the cake of 2016.

July - Star Wars Celebration
September-ish -  Rebels Season 3
December - Rouge One.

So that covers the Star Wars stuff....

Last Sunday was the London Retro Gaming Market once again held at the Royal National Hotel. This was a lot better than the last one in February. This was mostly due to the fact that I got there a little late. I had hoped to get there at 11:00 when the doors open but ended getting there at around 12:30/13:00. The good thing was this meant that there was less people there and I was able to have a good look around. I picked up a few games that I was happy to get. So next time I will have to go there at the same time. 


And that was everything that has been happening. Hopefully I can do some more work on the armour over the coming weekend and once I have done that i will update here.