Star Wars: Hasbro Clone Trooper Helmet Mod & Radica Tank Assault Binoculars

Radica Tank Assault/Electrobinoculars

I’ve seen a few of these done before on here with scratch built parts, I’m lazy & not very skilled so I ordered the Doopydoos resin kit,

Kit came quickly & was pretty nice, I took the stickers off the game & cleaned it up & rubbed it down a bit then just glued on the resin parts,

Then just Primed in white & given a couple of coats of White Satin,


Hasbro Voice Changer Clone Trooper Helmet

I was excited about getting a helmet, (big gap in my collection, would love a Stormtrooper helmet but for now I just have this!) I’ve looked at these lots of times & wondered how easy they were to work with,

I’ve seen a few conversions done on these usually involving lots of bondo & skill & then casting off the finished one, I can’t do any of that unfortunately so for me it has to be pretty much a straightforward paint job, I also didn’t especially want to disassemble the whole helmet or lose the electronics.

I had an old plastic fire escape sign so I cut it up to make a new visor to cover up the big Hasbro visor, it’s not perfect I just did it by eye & as it’s stuck on top the lenses is now set back a bit behind it, but it will do for me,

Found this helmet to be pretty awful to work with, the plastic is bendy & shiny & shreds when sanded, had a fun time trying to glue the flat visor on, ended up with a combination of epoxy glue & double sided tape.

Once I had finally got the visor to stay in place I sanded the whole thing so hopefully the primer would take, gave it lots of coats of primer, once dried I lightly sanded it & gave it lots of coats of Satin white spray.

I decided I wanted a bit of colour like in the animated series so masked it off & gave it a spray of bright red (it’s what I had in the garage), had a few hairy moments when I took the masking tape off because in a few spots the white paint came with it right down to the plastic, guess I missed those bits with the sandpaper.

Radica Tank Assault/Electrobinoculars

I painted a few details on, just a bit of grey & red, made it up as I went along (wanted it to go with what I have planned for the clone helmet).

Decided that I didn’t like the pristine look plus every time I put it down on newspaper it picked up black smudges, so I weathered it a bit, just a little sanding & some silver paint to give it a knocked about look, reasonably pleased with how it turned out.


Hasbro Voice Changer Clone Trooper Helmet

I touched it up with a brush & some flat white model paint (all I had) & repainted the band with some black Gloss, pulled off the masking tape on the visor & I guess it was finished, the paint scheme isn’t supposed to be anything specific, just liked the red & white.

Didn’t think my paint job was good nearly enough for a pristine/new helmet so I decided to weather & hopefully cover up a few bits,

So I just went at the red bits with a file & the white parts with some black dry brush.

Actually quite pleased with how it looks with the weathering, I could live without the seams, gaps etc. but I guess it is what it is just a kids toy painted & hopefully it looks better than when I got it,

Put me off painting helmets a bit (I was considering ordering an unfinished Phase 2 Clone kit from eBay but don’t know that my limited skills would do it justice)

Maybe if I wish hard enough one day it’ll turn into a nice set of Phase 1, Phase 2 & Stormtrooper Helmets!!!

Nice work. Very inspiring.

By any chance do you have a pattern for those pieces you cut to alter the visor area>

Very, very nice.

Thanks for your comments,

I spent ages online looking for a template for the visor & couldn't find anything, I ended up using some electrical tape to mask out the area & just made a paper template by eye that I cut around,

& then I forgot to keep it!! luckily I'd cut out some visor parts from plastic that I decided was too thin to use,

I've still got them (they're the same size as the ones I used) anyway I've drawn around them on some A4 & scanned it in, so if you print the picture off full page on A4 size they should be right.

bit low tech I know but I printed one out & tried it & it fits ok maybe a mm smaller for some reason

if you can't use the picture here then PM me & I'll email you the jpeg.

I'm not saying I got the visor 100% right but I think it looks ok for a quick, easy fix

I may actually post this template as a seperate thread because I'm sure there are others who could use one.

Paul

Thanks Paul. I saved it to my files. This is one of those thing that I would like to do at a later date so it is good to know I have it for when I am ready.

Many thanks, Country Paul. I've just received a helmet today and I love what you and several other members have done with them.