My Rubies Vader helmet upgrade WIP

[Happy13178]

I think the angle may look off just because of the angle the pic was taken. When the dome is in proper position, the lower edge is just a tiny touch above the brown on the mask. I feel like with it any lower, it's almost hanging over the brow, and because the brow angle over the eyes adds so much definition to the mask, it loses character if its covered. I'm just about done final touches and going to give it another bit of primer and I'll take some more pics then.

 

[Happy13178]

Did another round of priming this weekend, and cut the tearducts and recut the ridges on the bridge of the nose. Did a quick spray on the armor as well, I actually kind of like it primed. Looks like Snow Camouflage Vader.



I think I'm about ready to start painting now, the bulk of the flaws seem to be clear (that I feel like I can do anything about, anyways). I'd like to make the helmet a bit wider, but think I'll try that again on another helmet later. it's fairly heavy, may end up putting some foam under the dome mount so its a little more comfortable. I have padding from fenix, but not sure if its adequate or not.










The only other part I'm going to do is the shins, was going to fill the little dimples on the front and paint them to match the helmet and armor. Does anyone know if there are any major flaws with the shin armor to be corrected?

 

[SofaKing01]

That is REALLY slick so far! What a wonderful job!

 

[Happy13178]

That is REALLY slick so far! What a wonderful job!

Thanks. Only thing that still needs to be done is to very slightly lengthen the tearducts. It was arguably the most difficult part of fixing the mask with the tools I had at my disposal.

I've been thinking about what I would do differently if I started again knowning what I know now. There are a small handful of things I'd change, for those who are trying their own for the first time.

1. Take the nose piece out before the heat gun if you're using that to fix the flare. It's a lighter plastic and it warps extremely easily. Take it out and glue it back in afterwards.

2. Do the nose ridge details and tearducts last. With all the sanding and touchups, I needed to fill them in and redo them afterwards, it's just duplicating work you don't need to.

3. Sand less initially, with a finer grit sandpaper. Saw someone else mention it, it's easy to scar the plastic and it's a pain to sand back down afterwards. The only parts I should have sanded with low grit count were the parts I was putting sculpt over, for better bonding.

4. If you're correcting the flare, do that first. I squared off the "teeth" of the mouth grill, and some of the edges were melted a bit from the heat gun. In hindsight, would have been less work correcting the melted parts if I used the gun first.

5. Don't cut out the mount in the dome fully. The dome is quite heavy, and the sculpt needed to remount it added to that.

Hopefully this helps any other newbies trying it out for the first time.

 

[BigT]

Very, very nice! Keeps me motivated to go further as well

 

[Celtic007]

5. Don't cut out the mount in the dome fully. The dome is quite heavy, and the sculpt needed to remount it added to that.

I cut out the entire mount from mine (both inside the dome and on top of the mask) but I riveted the back half of skateboard helmet to the mask. It support the dome pretty well. I used some pieces of pipe insulator foam cut in half to balance it front to back and side to side. It doesn't have any real mount, I just added a few more pieces of velcro to keep it secure.
After working on one, it makes you want to try it all again.

Looking good so far. Can't wait to it painted.

 

[Happy13178]

I'm hoping to paint this week/weekend, at least the first coat of black. I decided since I'm doing the helmet and armor, might as well spruce up the shins and add a bit of definition. I'm going to rip the crap off the sides and either do straps or Velcro directly to boots, just sharpened the lines up and defined the "spikes" near the tops. I'm debating if that's enough, will have to prime it and see what it looks like, but here's what they look like for now:

 

[BigT]

Yeah, it's worth considering to keep and modify the Rubies shins as an alternative, since the ABS is very lightweight.

I have an additional set of accurate ESB fiberglass shins tough, but they're not ideal for any occasion because a lot heavier and tends to make you clumsy when walking. Feels like the times in military service...

 

[Happy13178]

Yeah, it's worth considering to keep and modify the Rubies shins as an alternative, since the ABS is very lightweight.

I have an additional set of accurate ESB fiberglass shins tough, but they're not ideal for any occasion because a lot heavier and tends to make you clumsy when walking. Feels like the times in military service...

I looked around and the general consensus seems to be that the shins are not that inaccurate, just to remove the zipper flaps and either velcro or put straps on it. I looks at a few pics and the main thing I noted was the lines on better versions tended to be sharper, so I didn't see a need to go spend a fortume on more parts when some simple mods would do the trick. I can't wait to paint everything, weather is getting nicer, but still really windy out.

 

[Happy13178]

Got some painting done this weekend, and dumped some duplicate parts. Will post pics in a bit.

 

[Happy13178]

So the weather was MUCH better this weekend, sunny and no wind, so I got to do a round of painting at long last. Really been looking forward to it. After paying a little attention to the shins and armor, gave them coats first.



And the shins...they came out nicely with the longer spikes around the knees.




Then I was feeling brave, so I went at the dome and mask. The dome needs a bit of work, got a bit of a drip that was sanded out, but I really like this paint, spreads really well.







Now it's looking more like Vader. More painting to come this week, with some more sanding and polishing before I go to the gunmetal.

 

[Happy13178]

Some more sanding and trial and error this week. Pre gunmetal:





Then did some final sanding with a fine grain, and some masking tape added:




Painted the armor with the gunmetal first, to make sure the colour was good:



Had a bit of a mishap, as clearly I didn't sand enough before priming, the masking tape stripped the paint off the center right, but I can repaint that part, and I like the colour match.



So, helmet time.




Pulled the tape, which thankfully didn't pull any of the paint, and with the dome getting a coat of clearcoat, this is now where I'm at.





And with the dome:






I'm nervous about clearcoating the mask, because when I did the dome I got a little bubbling in one spot when the clearcoat was applied, like the layer of paint was wrinkling under the clear. Not sure what I did wrong, thought I waited long enough for it to dry aand cure, but maybe not. Any suggestions?


EDIT: nevermind, I figured it out. Going to try clearcoat again on the dome to try diff technique and see how that goes.

 

[Happy13178]

So I didn't follow the exact steps for the clearcoat, which is what screwed me up and gave me the wrinkles. I re-read this post: http://www.therpf.com/f9/my-darth-vader-helmet-upgrade-rubies-supreme-159549/#post2458012 and realized he was talking about the clearcoat and not the paint underneath. Apparently paint mismatch can cause wrinkling, didn't know that. So, I sanded down the wrinkled spots and followed the directions. Now the finish looks MUCH closer to what it should. I thought it looked good before, but it looks better now. I'm letting the dome dry and will try the mask later this week.

Don't think I can match that metallic look on the bridge of the nose, have no idea how SS3000 managed that, think it may look that way because he's got his pics taken with a yellow light. I used the exact same paint he did for the gunmetal, so yeah. [shrug] The finish on his dome is damn near perfect, think another coat or two of clearcoat and some polishing will bring it a bit closer, but think I'm nearing the end of what I can do to this costume. Once it's painted, have the proper tusks, lenses and grills to mount, and then the padding.

 

[CSMacLaren]

Well, while you're in the process of sanding it down, you also have a lot of clay-like formations from your two-part clay additions to the dome. Not that the original prop was perfect (in fact the little bumps and irregularities are a delight to those who look for authenticity) but you might want to use this opportunity to tone it down again.

But if I'm misinterpreting the photo and what I'm seeing is the paint and clearcoat reaction, then please disregard.

 

[Happy13178]

I was able to clean up some more of the sides and the front while fixing the wrinkles, but there are a couple spots that are divoted from where I tried to grind to define the front brows on the dome before deciding to add to it with the clay. The only place it's truly visible is right at the front, not sure if I'm going to go at it again or not. Truthfully, I like some of the obvious imperfections, they remind me of the process I made to make it. I'm happy with the overall form of the dome at this point, although if I grab another one to do it again I'm definitely going to go about it differently. Now that I have the clearcoat technique down, I like the look much better.

 

[Happy13178]

So this seems to be mostly finished now, worked some compound into the dome and going to do a bit more on that before moving to polish. Lenses, tusks and grills installed...I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out as my first attempt. It's by no means a prefect vader, but its better than it was at least. I'd definitely do a few things different if I did it again...paint in particular, the one SS3000 did looked good as far as the paint scheme went in darker light, but bright light the gunmetal looks a bit off. Trying to figure out if I should lower the dome a bit, it looks to be a tiny bit high.