Painting Oz's Budget Rocketeer Helmet

CSMacLaren

I had a problem. My home's motif was too dominated by Star Wars, and too dominated by Vader, and so I needed to diversify. I have an MR Kermit the Frog and a Sideshow Iron Man Mark III bust which helped. But I needed something more.

I needed something simple that I could do up quick n' dirty. I'm very fond of The Rocketeer, so when I saw Oz offering a run of his budget helmets, I decided to give it a go.



But because the weather's cold, using spray paints might not be the best approach. So I used some acrylic paints by Folk Art (Metallic Silver Sterling) and by DecoArt's "Dazzling Metallics" Line, which includes Splendid Gold, Glorious Gold, and Emperor's Gold.



This is my first time ever attempting a Rocketeer prop. I am not studied up on the screen used prop. My challenge was "How do I get this thing to look like metal?" I'm not that accomplished a painter... yet.



The kit arrived already primed. Dremel and sanding work needed to be done to remove the lenses, trim the neck, and deal with excess globs of resin.

I decided not to polish out a lot of the sanding lines, hoping that I could use the texture to my advantage. I dremeled out the eyes and the neck line, but left the teeth because I would have put a black piece of cardboard on the inside of the mouth anyway. The kit came with lenses that fit just about perfectly, and I used clear parcel tape to hold me over until I got a glue gun.



Doing the eyes made me think of all those time I cut out the eye sockets for Vader masks. Heck, if you've done Vader, you can do just about anything! :wink:

I painted with a 1" brush and went front-to-back. I didn't mix my paints perfectly on purpose because I wanted to create not only a worn or slightly patinated look, but I was relying on the unevenness of colors to help give a sense that the metal was alloyed.



(Above: This side is just a teensy bit too clean. I'll have to darken the recesses a bit.)





And there you have it. Again, I'm no expert on Rocketeer. I took a peek at some HD screenshots on a site that turned up on a Google search, and just painted at random.

I'm wondering if I should clear-coat this. What do you guys think? When I wash it, it looks pretty cool, but the movie look isn't as wet.

This helmet will go far to balance out my collection. It has a lot of character to it, and it's broken up the Sithlord monotony of my apartment.

Enjoy!

Darth Mawr

I'd say you've done a great job with it. It looks just like metal to me. I feel that at times people add too much dark patina in the crevices.

fettster

I think you did a cracking job on that, looks great!

Akiriano

I have the fully brass sideshow one and from those pictures i would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Fantastic paint job!

DBOYSLADE

Came out really nice. Great job!

ShrunkenLamb

Fantastic, would love to have one of those one day.