Wheww, been a little bit since my last post. But I have been working. Began rondoglassing some of my vacuum formed armor, starting with the toe plates (because they are the smallest and easiest complete piece). This was my first time working with Rondo, and despite being a giant mess, it came out pretty dang good.
Ended up doing parts of the forearm pieces, as well, no pictures, because, well, looking at rondo more than once just isn't particularly impressive.
On Saturday, Queen came over to work on armor, and I got the urge to paint up my helmet instead of continuing on my piece strengthening. (Rondo feels like a pain when you have 20+ pieces to do all at once). Finally found some proper dark grey metallic paint for my basecoat, and dang. Here it is just after spraying.
Shiny! I put in the visor and did a picture inside, just for kicks. On a related note, I put the helmet right next to the helmet of my ODST: Rookie action figure, and aside from a slight green tint (that I still say is just the lighting from the promo shots), the paint is very close to identical.
Got out my painters' tape and did the masking for the black parts (around the visor and in the back). Here it is just after painting.
But when I peeled off the painters' tape, some big chunks of the basecoat paint came right off with it! D'oh!
The primer was fine (and on there pretty dang good), so I spent a while sanding, masking, and repainting the spots that had been damaged. Still not happy with it, I guess I'll save a picture of it for next post, since a few spots still need some mild touch-ups. Whew! Onward and upward, see you guys next time.
Edit: I made progress on the helmet! Finished touch ups and got everything nice looking without having to repaint the whole dang thing.
To prevent additional scratching and paint loss, I'm considering giving it a clear coat of some kind. Assuming I can get one that won't make it look glossy and plastic-y.

Ended up doing parts of the forearm pieces, as well, no pictures, because, well, looking at rondo more than once just isn't particularly impressive.
On Saturday, Queen came over to work on armor, and I got the urge to paint up my helmet instead of continuing on my piece strengthening. (Rondo feels like a pain when you have 20+ pieces to do all at once). Finally found some proper dark grey metallic paint for my basecoat, and dang. Here it is just after spraying.

Shiny! I put in the visor and did a picture inside, just for kicks. On a related note, I put the helmet right next to the helmet of my ODST: Rookie action figure, and aside from a slight green tint (that I still say is just the lighting from the promo shots), the paint is very close to identical.

Got out my painters' tape and did the masking for the black parts (around the visor and in the back). Here it is just after painting.

But when I peeled off the painters' tape, some big chunks of the basecoat paint came right off with it! D'oh!

The primer was fine (and on there pretty dang good), so I spent a while sanding, masking, and repainting the spots that had been damaged. Still not happy with it, I guess I'll save a picture of it for next post, since a few spots still need some mild touch-ups. Whew! Onward and upward, see you guys next time.
Edit: I made progress on the helmet! Finished touch ups and got everything nice looking without having to repaint the whole dang thing.

To prevent additional scratching and paint loss, I'm considering giving it a clear coat of some kind. Assuming I can get one that won't make it look glossy and plastic-y.