ODST Stryder
Member
Hello Everyone,
This week I have taken to finishing a beautiful casting from Sean Bradley. This is ODST Corporal Taylor "Dutch" Henry Miles' Helmet from Halo 3: ODST. I'm aiming to include more progress shots than I normally do so you can see how it came to be.
View attachment WP_20160114_22_47_47_Raw__highres.JPG
First things first. The overall quality of the casting is excellent. I counted three (3) air bubbles which were easily removed and an ok seam line. I say "ok" because it ran down the sides of the helmet in some tricky places to sand away. I think that if it where to run from front to back the seam would be easily manageable, but hey, perhaps there is a reason?
I used two wet sanding blocks / sponges for the most of the work. Unfortunately, these didn't state their grit - just "medium" and "soft". I also used my knife (not an exacto) to twiddle away the seam in the grooves. After this step there was a few dents and scratches that needed a spot putty.
View attachment WP_20160116_10_07_58_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_10_08_22_Raw__highres.JPG
I inspected the helmet carefully to find any hidden dents and scratches. At times running my finders over areas to find some. When I had found a spot, I circled it in back for later. It was a very hot 38° in Australia yesterday and unfortunately I got heat stroke and a bit burnt doing the spot putty. The largest area of concern was on the top. There was a shallow indentation which I filled with, properly too much, putty. I found that the best make-shift applicator is a plastic clothes peg as I was able to smooth it out and remove putty from grooves that would normally be a massive annoyance once it had cured.
View attachment WP_20160116_11_04_06_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_11_04_14_Raw__highres.JPG
After letting the putty cure for a few hours in the heat, I set up my rotary tool with a flexible arm and a reinforced cutting wheel to cut out the visor and trim away the collar. By the end of this I was covered in shavings - EVERYWHERE! Not very fun without a vacuum attached..
I cut 5mm away from the frame so that I could come back and sand the rest of the visor away with a drum attachment to ensure an even finish.
View attachment WP_20160116_12_31_13_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_12_30_57_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_12_38_17_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_16_51_46_Raw__highres.JPG
The next step was to fit and mark our the visor. First I double checked the frame was smooth and even all around. Then, I took a drill bit that matched the thickness of my desired screws and drilled two holes of each side to fit the visor (the visor came from Sean also, TY Sean). I was careful and wrapped the visor in glad / shrink wrap to protect the delicate finish and fitted it inside the helmet. I then tried to align the visor evenly and mark through the drilled holes with a pen. I won't lie, this was hell. After 30 minutes I winged it and guessed the hole location on the visor and nailed it! Once I had test fitted it and still had the visor attached, I drilled a third hole (the one in the middle).
View attachment WP_20160117_18_42_59_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_18_43_18_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_18_42_38_Raw__highres.JPG
While I had my drill bit out, I took the time to drill out some holes in the side vents where I will be installing some mini laptop fans for either intake or exhaust.
View attachment WP_20160117_18_43_48_Raw__highres.JPG
That's all for now. Tune in next weekend for sanding and priming!
\\ UPDATE No. 1 <<
During the week I had planned to start the priming process but the weather has been either 37°+, showers or 80% humidity, so I resulted to sanding and other detailing.I started with a 220grit wet block to sand the helmet all over. This took about 2 hours for a very thorough finish.After this I took out my rotary tool (which is a Wesco 130W, I don't touch Dremel) and attached a 'boring tool' (The correct names evade me so I have included a photo below).This was for the side vents and the 'boring tool' was used to widen the predrilled holes to accept the cutter. As mentioned last week to Dirtdives the predrilled holes were added to act as 'relief cuts' for the cutter as I didn't want the cutter to go right to the corner. Once this was finished I took out a needle file and worked on the corners to ensure it was square.
After this, I decided to add two exhaust ports on the back as I wanted to utilize the front for intake. I had seen this done somewhere else before during research. I did the same process as the above except used a cut-off wheel instead of the cutter above. I still have some work to do on these as I'm not happy with the symmetry and shape. I positioned them under the back lip as it's out of the way and barely visible. I plan on adding black mesh over these from the inside.
The last thing I did for the week was to add a countersink to the visor screws. This will make the heads of the screws not so proud / exposed when finished.
Tune in next weekend for Priming!
\\ UPDATE No. 2 <<
This week was slow for physical progress, however, I did plan out my electronics which I will cover at a later date.
I lightly coated the helmet in a black plastics primer and then sanded it off using a 220 grit sponge. This was done in order to reveal any final indents / imperfections that I couldn't see or feel before.
as you can see, the main areas of concern is the middle stripe on the top and the lower section at the back. (The darker the spot, the deeper the area is.) I'll coat the affected area in spot putty and sand back to ensure we're all even.
Primer:
View attachment 22939View attachment 22940
Sanded:
View attachment 22941View attachment 22942
I have decided to put this on project on hold until all the electronics have arrived.
Thanks for viewing!
\\ UPDATE No. 3 <<
Aaaaaand we're back. I have gathered all the electronics and mapped out how I want it to look. I took a break from this build to construct my 3D Printer (Prusa i3 2020) and since that's now done, I'll focus on this.
For some time I have been pondering the use of a sculpting epoxy for lining the inside of the helmet. I first saw this in Jimmy DiResta's Stormtrooper Helmet Build back in 2012. He used the stuff to coat the outside but I thought it would be sweet to use on the inside for two reasons, 1) You could embed the electronics in it and hide wires. 2) You could sculpt the clay like substance to give off a professional finish. I searched around for some brands and came across Apoxie® sculpt. Now, this stuff isn't exactly cheap. This set (it comes in parts A & B) cost $52 AUD for a 227g pot (8 oz.).
View attachment 23882
I thought I would try this stuff out by securing the exhaust mesh to the helmet. I rolled out a 2mm diameter sausage (Yes, sausage. Let's face it, this is adult play doh.) and placed it around the hole on the inside of the helmet. Then, using a cut to size piece of mesh, I placed it on top of the epoxy and pushed it down. The epoxy seeped through the mesh which I then evened out - this is where it will get it's strength. To be safe, I then added more epoxy over the mesh to hold it all down. As a bonus, water can be used to even and spread out the epoxy. This was useful to blend the bulge in better to the helmet.
View attachment 23883
The epoxy has a 4-5 hour curing time.. which is great. I'll leave this to cure over night and if I'm happy with the results, I'll do the same to the front intake vents.
\\ UPDATE No. 4 <<
Right, so this weekend we're down to business. I thought very long about what colour this was going to be and I decided to go with a desert colour scheme. My local hardware stores seem to only be stocking prime colours and I had to venture online. I bought two 340g cans of Rust-Oleum's "Khaki" and "Army Green" (which is just Olive Drab) as well as a can of Boston's Grey Primer, the same I used on the Boom Co. M6H Pistol project.
First off, I stuffed paper in the six vent holes to make sure the spray didn't clog the mesh - this will be kept in for the whole painting process, after that, two coats of primer.
View attachment 24233View attachment 24234
Now, Battle damage! I didn't want this helmet to look like it had been in through the whole war with barely any original paint left. I got out my can of Rust-Oleum's Chrome, that I used in the Kylo Ren Helmet project, and applied one light coat to the areas I knew I wanted the damage and left it for a few hours to dry. Using Step 4B in Sean Bradley's Instructions, I used toothpaste and a brush to apply the spray-paint resist (toothpaste) on the upper left and lower left side of the helmet. I also took this opportunity to apply the toothpaste to parts of the helmet that have scratches that didn't get removed before as this is a perfect cover up. I then left the toothpaste a dry up a bit and turned to the base colour.
View attachment 24235View attachment 24236View attachment 24237
This was a tricky and unprecedented problem. What was going to be the main colour? "Khaki" or "Army Green"?
After looking at some reference shots of desert camouflage helmets, I noticed the lighter colour is always the base / most prominent one.
I gave this two coats with about one hour to dry between as it's very hot here with low humidity.
View attachment 24238View attachment 24239
Rust-Oleum states to allow 5-7 days for full plastic bonding so this is where we will leave the project until next weekend.
During the week I might layout the electronics or give it a third coat.
** On a side note if I have let people down, this wasn't going to be an exact replica of Dutch's helmet. The shape of the helmet is Dutch's model - the colour scheme isn't going to be the same with the teeth etc.
\\ UPDATE No. 5 <<
I had an hour to kill on Friday night before a conference, so what better to spend it masking out the helmet?
In my mind, I had a semi-clear vision on how this helmet will look. I know I wanted the visor section to be black as that will bend with the dark blue visor but in the meantime keeping aware about the Army Green colour scheme.. I knew I wanted a standard stripe on top. So I started with masking this very carefully. I originally wanted the stripe to follow front to back, but my OCD kicked in and I couldn't get the lines straight, so I compromised to following only the raised section. Once that was done and dusted, I started on the visor section. This area has a lot of curves and shallow ridges. I wanted this section to look like it was set behind the other parts of the helmet - meaning the ridges had to be masked off (see the chin area of photo 2). I cut short strips of masking tape and carefully put them in position with a sturdy knife. If there was any tape that couldn't get even or it over hung, I used a razor blade to cut it off.
View attachment 24494View attachment 24495
Once the masking was done, I filled in the blanks with newspaper to protect it from over spray. In photo 2, you can see the detail of the ridges. I noticed that the black ink in the newspaper had rubbed off on to my fingers which then I unintentionally put onto the helmet.. weathering?
View attachment 24496View attachment 24497View attachment 24498
Saturday Morning - 10:02am, 34°C
After inspecting the masking to ensure no tape had given way, I took the helmet outside with the spray cans to get painting. Mentioned in update 4, I'm using Rust-Oleum's "Army Green" and Boston's Satin Black. I started with the black as that was going to require the most can movement to get into the tight places, this was just one light coat. I wanted to do both colours in the one 'sitting' so I used a newspaper as a shield while painting the green. I left this for an hour and then returned for the second coat. When I was finishing up with this coat, I realized that the toothpaste that I used as a spray resist may not be able to come off under all these layers.. yeah, dropped the ball on that one. Solution, poke some pin holes in the areas you could see the toothpaste - I'll explain why in a bit. There would be three coats for both sections.
View attachment 24499View attachment 24500View attachment 24501
I had to bring the helmet inside soon after the third coat, it was roasting and needed to be slowly cooled down. So I put it in the laundry where it was warm but not cold.
And then it was time for everyone's favorite moment.. the unmasking!
During this process I saw there were areas that spray had gotten through.. annoying. However, I will use this as an opportunity and sand the spray back later so it looks like damage.
View attachment 24502View attachment 24503View attachment 24504View attachment 24505
Ok, time to remove the toothpaste. I put the helmet in the laundry sink under the tap and got a medium-ly stiff nylon brush (do not use a metal one..) and started brushing away the bumpy areas I knew to be toothpaste. The reason for the pin holes prior was to reduce the adhesion of the paint so that the brush would have a greater chance of grabbing onto the section. I kept at this until most of the large areas were uncovered. What also helped was the masking tape, it pulled up some of the base colour when I unmasked the helmet. Some of the more stubborn areas needed the fine sanding block, that didn't need a lot of force. After this, I blasted the helmet with water to get rid of any particles and left it out side, in the shade, to dry off - which is where it currently is.
View attachment 24506View attachment 24507View attachment 24508
What do you think of the current colour scheme? Where would you say another "Army Green" detail should go?
Thank you and see you all again soon.
\\ UPDATE No. 6 <<
Sorry for the two week delay. Some disappointing events came up.
I've really only done one step this past fortnight. After update 5, I fitted the visor. Somehow, after the first fitting, the fitting between the visor and the helmet grew by about 1cm at the bottom and 2-3mm around the rest. I feel this was caused by the fluctuating temperatures we've been experiencing. I could have fixed this buy pulling out the heat gun, but I didn't want to risk damaging the visor.
Solution? Use the Apoxie® sculpt from Step 3 to bridge the gap.
This was a two part process.
I mixed up two equal parts of A and B and had some water on standby. I first fitted the visor and bolted it down. I then used two thin strips of masking tape to ensure the visor wouldn't move. I then applied some Apoxie® from the inside out around the whole visor. This would be the support for the outer layer so it would have something to sit / grab onto instead of you trying to get the outer layer level and even while it slopes down - let me know if that was confusing. This then had to cure for 24 hours. It was very hard to keep the visor clean during this. Every now and then I would wipe any excess away with a damp cloth. The next day I again mixed up two parts and went at it. Using a thick knife, I forced the Apoxie® down in between the visor and helmet. Once it was built up and level, I wetted the knife and used it to soften it down and clean up the corners so they were sharp. Then I cleaned up any run off and the visor. This was done the whole way around.
I'll now hand paint it black and do a general clean up.
\\ UPDATE No. 7 <<
Alrighty Then!
I didn't touch this all week until last night. I've painted (by hand) the Apoxie® between the visor and cast, I am still disappointed in myself that this happened.
While I had the blacks out, I did a little bit of detailing and weathering around the helmet, as you can see in the images below. You may recall I had some over spray from update 5. To fix this, I just took some 200grit wet and dry and sanded back the areas, if it scratched the surface, so what? Extra detail! I also painted the vent intakes on the sides.
I took a look at the rear of the helmet and gave that a deep black coat. With the weathering, I just mixed equal parts of black acrylic paint with water and using a large 1" painters brush, gave the whole helmet a going over. I then let this dry by waving a sheet of cardboard at it and then, while it's still just wet, removed the paint with a damp cloth. This leaves very suttle traces of black and, when mixed with a brown, can give a very nice look. I put the helmet under the hose and washed it down so to remove little parts of tissue etc and sat it out to dry.
I feel that only having the one dark green stripe isn't enough, I might colour the lower part of the vents on the side just to break it up a bit.
View attachment 25416View attachment 25417View attachment 25418View attachment 25419View attachment 25420
So, is it finished? No. Not yet. None of my works are, I will always revisit things and do a little more to them. The Mk.VII (MC Halo 4 Helmet) has been going since 2012..
But, in this case, I still have electronics to see to, internal padding and general clean ups.
\\ UPDATE No. 8 << (Hey, that rhymes)
I haven't been able to achieve very much with this week, or last. My mind has been set on other phenomenons.
I really wanted that additional area of green on the helmet. I masked of the area, this time using a type of electrical tape for it's flexibility around curves, of the lower respirator / vent section and got to work. I wanted to cover everything as I didn't want to risk any over spray and ruin my weathering work.
Not much to this update, but I hope to draw this to a close soon.
View attachment 26007View attachment 26008View attachment 26009View attachment 26010
The other phenomenons..
View attachment 26011
\\ UPDATE No. 9 <<
A big thank you to all who have shown interest into this project. The larger part of 2016 hasn't been too kind - I lost someone close to me which resulted in everything to come to a halt. In short, please consider this project complete and watch this short video I made showing the helmet in it's final form.
Cheerio.
WE ARE ODST
This week I have taken to finishing a beautiful casting from Sean Bradley. This is ODST Corporal Taylor "Dutch" Henry Miles' Helmet from Halo 3: ODST. I'm aiming to include more progress shots than I normally do so you can see how it came to be.
View attachment WP_20160114_22_47_47_Raw__highres.JPG
First things first. The overall quality of the casting is excellent. I counted three (3) air bubbles which were easily removed and an ok seam line. I say "ok" because it ran down the sides of the helmet in some tricky places to sand away. I think that if it where to run from front to back the seam would be easily manageable, but hey, perhaps there is a reason?
I used two wet sanding blocks / sponges for the most of the work. Unfortunately, these didn't state their grit - just "medium" and "soft". I also used my knife (not an exacto) to twiddle away the seam in the grooves. After this step there was a few dents and scratches that needed a spot putty.
View attachment WP_20160116_10_07_58_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_10_08_22_Raw__highres.JPG
I inspected the helmet carefully to find any hidden dents and scratches. At times running my finders over areas to find some. When I had found a spot, I circled it in back for later. It was a very hot 38° in Australia yesterday and unfortunately I got heat stroke and a bit burnt doing the spot putty. The largest area of concern was on the top. There was a shallow indentation which I filled with, properly too much, putty. I found that the best make-shift applicator is a plastic clothes peg as I was able to smooth it out and remove putty from grooves that would normally be a massive annoyance once it had cured.
View attachment WP_20160116_11_04_06_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_11_04_14_Raw__highres.JPG
After letting the putty cure for a few hours in the heat, I set up my rotary tool with a flexible arm and a reinforced cutting wheel to cut out the visor and trim away the collar. By the end of this I was covered in shavings - EVERYWHERE! Not very fun without a vacuum attached..
I cut 5mm away from the frame so that I could come back and sand the rest of the visor away with a drum attachment to ensure an even finish.
View attachment WP_20160116_12_31_13_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_12_30_57_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160116_12_38_17_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_16_51_46_Raw__highres.JPG
The next step was to fit and mark our the visor. First I double checked the frame was smooth and even all around. Then, I took a drill bit that matched the thickness of my desired screws and drilled two holes of each side to fit the visor (the visor came from Sean also, TY Sean). I was careful and wrapped the visor in glad / shrink wrap to protect the delicate finish and fitted it inside the helmet. I then tried to align the visor evenly and mark through the drilled holes with a pen. I won't lie, this was hell. After 30 minutes I winged it and guessed the hole location on the visor and nailed it! Once I had test fitted it and still had the visor attached, I drilled a third hole (the one in the middle).
View attachment WP_20160117_18_42_59_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_18_43_18_Raw__highres.JPGView attachment WP_20160117_18_42_38_Raw__highres.JPG
While I had my drill bit out, I took the time to drill out some holes in the side vents where I will be installing some mini laptop fans for either intake or exhaust.
View attachment WP_20160117_18_43_48_Raw__highres.JPG
That's all for now. Tune in next weekend for sanding and priming!
\\ UPDATE No. 1 <<
During the week I had planned to start the priming process but the weather has been either 37°+, showers or 80% humidity, so I resulted to sanding and other detailing.I started with a 220grit wet block to sand the helmet all over. This took about 2 hours for a very thorough finish.After this I took out my rotary tool (which is a Wesco 130W, I don't touch Dremel) and attached a 'boring tool' (The correct names evade me so I have included a photo below).This was for the side vents and the 'boring tool' was used to widen the predrilled holes to accept the cutter. As mentioned last week to Dirtdives the predrilled holes were added to act as 'relief cuts' for the cutter as I didn't want the cutter to go right to the corner. Once this was finished I took out a needle file and worked on the corners to ensure it was square.
After this, I decided to add two exhaust ports on the back as I wanted to utilize the front for intake. I had seen this done somewhere else before during research. I did the same process as the above except used a cut-off wheel instead of the cutter above. I still have some work to do on these as I'm not happy with the symmetry and shape. I positioned them under the back lip as it's out of the way and barely visible. I plan on adding black mesh over these from the inside.
The last thing I did for the week was to add a countersink to the visor screws. This will make the heads of the screws not so proud / exposed when finished.
Tune in next weekend for Priming!
\\ UPDATE No. 2 <<
This week was slow for physical progress, however, I did plan out my electronics which I will cover at a later date.
I lightly coated the helmet in a black plastics primer and then sanded it off using a 220 grit sponge. This was done in order to reveal any final indents / imperfections that I couldn't see or feel before.
as you can see, the main areas of concern is the middle stripe on the top and the lower section at the back. (The darker the spot, the deeper the area is.) I'll coat the affected area in spot putty and sand back to ensure we're all even.
Primer:
View attachment 22939View attachment 22940
Sanded:
View attachment 22941View attachment 22942
I have decided to put this on project on hold until all the electronics have arrived.
Thanks for viewing!
\\ UPDATE No. 3 <<
Aaaaaand we're back. I have gathered all the electronics and mapped out how I want it to look. I took a break from this build to construct my 3D Printer (Prusa i3 2020) and since that's now done, I'll focus on this.
For some time I have been pondering the use of a sculpting epoxy for lining the inside of the helmet. I first saw this in Jimmy DiResta's Stormtrooper Helmet Build back in 2012. He used the stuff to coat the outside but I thought it would be sweet to use on the inside for two reasons, 1) You could embed the electronics in it and hide wires. 2) You could sculpt the clay like substance to give off a professional finish. I searched around for some brands and came across Apoxie® sculpt. Now, this stuff isn't exactly cheap. This set (it comes in parts A & B) cost $52 AUD for a 227g pot (8 oz.).
View attachment 23882
I thought I would try this stuff out by securing the exhaust mesh to the helmet. I rolled out a 2mm diameter sausage (Yes, sausage. Let's face it, this is adult play doh.) and placed it around the hole on the inside of the helmet. Then, using a cut to size piece of mesh, I placed it on top of the epoxy and pushed it down. The epoxy seeped through the mesh which I then evened out - this is where it will get it's strength. To be safe, I then added more epoxy over the mesh to hold it all down. As a bonus, water can be used to even and spread out the epoxy. This was useful to blend the bulge in better to the helmet.
View attachment 23883
The epoxy has a 4-5 hour curing time.. which is great. I'll leave this to cure over night and if I'm happy with the results, I'll do the same to the front intake vents.
\\ UPDATE No. 4 <<
Right, so this weekend we're down to business. I thought very long about what colour this was going to be and I decided to go with a desert colour scheme. My local hardware stores seem to only be stocking prime colours and I had to venture online. I bought two 340g cans of Rust-Oleum's "Khaki" and "Army Green" (which is just Olive Drab) as well as a can of Boston's Grey Primer, the same I used on the Boom Co. M6H Pistol project.
First off, I stuffed paper in the six vent holes to make sure the spray didn't clog the mesh - this will be kept in for the whole painting process, after that, two coats of primer.
View attachment 24233View attachment 24234
Now, Battle damage! I didn't want this helmet to look like it had been in through the whole war with barely any original paint left. I got out my can of Rust-Oleum's Chrome, that I used in the Kylo Ren Helmet project, and applied one light coat to the areas I knew I wanted the damage and left it for a few hours to dry. Using Step 4B in Sean Bradley's Instructions, I used toothpaste and a brush to apply the spray-paint resist (toothpaste) on the upper left and lower left side of the helmet. I also took this opportunity to apply the toothpaste to parts of the helmet that have scratches that didn't get removed before as this is a perfect cover up. I then left the toothpaste a dry up a bit and turned to the base colour.
View attachment 24235View attachment 24236View attachment 24237
This was a tricky and unprecedented problem. What was going to be the main colour? "Khaki" or "Army Green"?
After looking at some reference shots of desert camouflage helmets, I noticed the lighter colour is always the base / most prominent one.
I gave this two coats with about one hour to dry between as it's very hot here with low humidity.
View attachment 24238View attachment 24239
Rust-Oleum states to allow 5-7 days for full plastic bonding so this is where we will leave the project until next weekend.
During the week I might layout the electronics or give it a third coat.
** On a side note if I have let people down, this wasn't going to be an exact replica of Dutch's helmet. The shape of the helmet is Dutch's model - the colour scheme isn't going to be the same with the teeth etc.
\\ UPDATE No. 5 <<
I had an hour to kill on Friday night before a conference, so what better to spend it masking out the helmet?
In my mind, I had a semi-clear vision on how this helmet will look. I know I wanted the visor section to be black as that will bend with the dark blue visor but in the meantime keeping aware about the Army Green colour scheme.. I knew I wanted a standard stripe on top. So I started with masking this very carefully. I originally wanted the stripe to follow front to back, but my OCD kicked in and I couldn't get the lines straight, so I compromised to following only the raised section. Once that was done and dusted, I started on the visor section. This area has a lot of curves and shallow ridges. I wanted this section to look like it was set behind the other parts of the helmet - meaning the ridges had to be masked off (see the chin area of photo 2). I cut short strips of masking tape and carefully put them in position with a sturdy knife. If there was any tape that couldn't get even or it over hung, I used a razor blade to cut it off.
View attachment 24494View attachment 24495
Once the masking was done, I filled in the blanks with newspaper to protect it from over spray. In photo 2, you can see the detail of the ridges. I noticed that the black ink in the newspaper had rubbed off on to my fingers which then I unintentionally put onto the helmet.. weathering?
View attachment 24496View attachment 24497View attachment 24498
Saturday Morning - 10:02am, 34°C
After inspecting the masking to ensure no tape had given way, I took the helmet outside with the spray cans to get painting. Mentioned in update 4, I'm using Rust-Oleum's "Army Green" and Boston's Satin Black. I started with the black as that was going to require the most can movement to get into the tight places, this was just one light coat. I wanted to do both colours in the one 'sitting' so I used a newspaper as a shield while painting the green. I left this for an hour and then returned for the second coat. When I was finishing up with this coat, I realized that the toothpaste that I used as a spray resist may not be able to come off under all these layers.. yeah, dropped the ball on that one. Solution, poke some pin holes in the areas you could see the toothpaste - I'll explain why in a bit. There would be three coats for both sections.
View attachment 24499View attachment 24500View attachment 24501
I had to bring the helmet inside soon after the third coat, it was roasting and needed to be slowly cooled down. So I put it in the laundry where it was warm but not cold.
And then it was time for everyone's favorite moment.. the unmasking!
During this process I saw there were areas that spray had gotten through.. annoying. However, I will use this as an opportunity and sand the spray back later so it looks like damage.
View attachment 24502View attachment 24503View attachment 24504View attachment 24505
Ok, time to remove the toothpaste. I put the helmet in the laundry sink under the tap and got a medium-ly stiff nylon brush (do not use a metal one..) and started brushing away the bumpy areas I knew to be toothpaste. The reason for the pin holes prior was to reduce the adhesion of the paint so that the brush would have a greater chance of grabbing onto the section. I kept at this until most of the large areas were uncovered. What also helped was the masking tape, it pulled up some of the base colour when I unmasked the helmet. Some of the more stubborn areas needed the fine sanding block, that didn't need a lot of force. After this, I blasted the helmet with water to get rid of any particles and left it out side, in the shade, to dry off - which is where it currently is.
View attachment 24506View attachment 24507View attachment 24508
What do you think of the current colour scheme? Where would you say another "Army Green" detail should go?
Thank you and see you all again soon.
\\ UPDATE No. 6 <<
Sorry for the two week delay. Some disappointing events came up.
I've really only done one step this past fortnight. After update 5, I fitted the visor. Somehow, after the first fitting, the fitting between the visor and the helmet grew by about 1cm at the bottom and 2-3mm around the rest. I feel this was caused by the fluctuating temperatures we've been experiencing. I could have fixed this buy pulling out the heat gun, but I didn't want to risk damaging the visor.
Solution? Use the Apoxie® sculpt from Step 3 to bridge the gap.
This was a two part process.
I mixed up two equal parts of A and B and had some water on standby. I first fitted the visor and bolted it down. I then used two thin strips of masking tape to ensure the visor wouldn't move. I then applied some Apoxie® from the inside out around the whole visor. This would be the support for the outer layer so it would have something to sit / grab onto instead of you trying to get the outer layer level and even while it slopes down - let me know if that was confusing. This then had to cure for 24 hours. It was very hard to keep the visor clean during this. Every now and then I would wipe any excess away with a damp cloth. The next day I again mixed up two parts and went at it. Using a thick knife, I forced the Apoxie® down in between the visor and helmet. Once it was built up and level, I wetted the knife and used it to soften it down and clean up the corners so they were sharp. Then I cleaned up any run off and the visor. This was done the whole way around.
I'll now hand paint it black and do a general clean up.
\\ UPDATE No. 7 <<
Alrighty Then!
I didn't touch this all week until last night. I've painted (by hand) the Apoxie® between the visor and cast, I am still disappointed in myself that this happened.
While I had the blacks out, I did a little bit of detailing and weathering around the helmet, as you can see in the images below. You may recall I had some over spray from update 5. To fix this, I just took some 200grit wet and dry and sanded back the areas, if it scratched the surface, so what? Extra detail! I also painted the vent intakes on the sides.
I took a look at the rear of the helmet and gave that a deep black coat. With the weathering, I just mixed equal parts of black acrylic paint with water and using a large 1" painters brush, gave the whole helmet a going over. I then let this dry by waving a sheet of cardboard at it and then, while it's still just wet, removed the paint with a damp cloth. This leaves very suttle traces of black and, when mixed with a brown, can give a very nice look. I put the helmet under the hose and washed it down so to remove little parts of tissue etc and sat it out to dry.
I feel that only having the one dark green stripe isn't enough, I might colour the lower part of the vents on the side just to break it up a bit.
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So, is it finished? No. Not yet. None of my works are, I will always revisit things and do a little more to them. The Mk.VII (MC Halo 4 Helmet) has been going since 2012..
But, in this case, I still have electronics to see to, internal padding and general clean ups.
\\ UPDATE No. 8 << (Hey, that rhymes)
I haven't been able to achieve very much with this week, or last. My mind has been set on other phenomenons.
I really wanted that additional area of green on the helmet. I masked of the area, this time using a type of electrical tape for it's flexibility around curves, of the lower respirator / vent section and got to work. I wanted to cover everything as I didn't want to risk any over spray and ruin my weathering work.
Not much to this update, but I hope to draw this to a close soon.
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The other phenomenons..
View attachment 26011
\\ UPDATE No. 9 <<
A big thank you to all who have shown interest into this project. The larger part of 2016 hasn't been too kind - I lost someone close to me which resulted in everything to come to a halt. In short, please consider this project complete and watch this short video I made showing the helmet in it's final form.
Cheerio.
WE ARE ODST
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