Another Boba Fett Helmet (ESB of course)

[Fettastic]

This one is a personal project that will take some time as I work on it in between commission work. I figured I can start a thread though and document the process.

Here is where I'm at...

The Helmet is a Fettpride helmet that stopped being produced sometime after the FPHII became so popular. I really liked this helmet because it came pretty much as a blank slate as far as physical damage goes. I wanted to be able to add these myself using references and try and dial that in as accurately as possible to the damage seen in ESB. Plus I just really loved the size and and overall shape of it. It's a bit romanticized I think but with the right modifications I think it can be made to resemble what was seen on screen almost to the T (imho).

Raw Cast

Modifications:
The right side cheek crack - This took me two or three reiterations using bondo along with a ton of filing, sanding and elbow grease.
The upper right cheek buldge - This part turned out perfect first go around fortunately.
Left Side Check damage - I misplaced the damage by about half a centimeter so I had to bondo that up and try again.
Dent resizing - I made the dent larger and deeper while sharpening some of the inner contours.
Jaw line damage - This damage is very very small and subtle so I was careful not to overdo it.
Mandibles - These were just about 3/16" too tall in my opinion which doesn't sound like much but it really makes a difference.
Jaw line - Because the mandibles were too long the angle of the jaw line was too steep so redoing this was necessary. In addition the left side below the ear needed to be squared off and curved/blended into the jawline which is a contrast to the right side which angle into each other and blend as almost one line.
The dome - This part was not so subtle but needed to be blended to maintain the right geometrical shape. This took a lot of time and elbow grease.

Here are a couple illustrations that show the areas I modified...
(This image is before any modifications but I drew in some damage marks)

This image illustrates a side view of where I made my cuts to the mandibles, jaws and cheek area along with the flattened dome area...(this image is post dome flattening, first try left cheek damage, but pre mandible change and second try cheek damage.

Fortunately I have had two Vintage Casio MQ-1 Calculators just waiting to be used.

I've been experimenting with actual borden connectors and replicas made of aluminum and stainless steel.

From Left to Right...
Stainless Steel Borden by Machinecraft Replicas, Unknown Aluminum Borden Replica, 2 Hole Actual Borden (3rd hole drilled, edges beveled), 3 Hole Actual Borden (cut, flipped, edges beveled and painted to hide brass finish).

So far, in my eyes the best representation for this greeblie is a two hole borden with the smallest hole meticulously positioned and filed or drilled out. To use an actual 3 hole borden would be ideal but wrong in my opinion. Mainly because you have to cut and flip it, exposing the brass, and the holes are still not quite in the right location. So using a 2 hole borden and drilling out the 3rd hole maintains it's shiny nickel plating. Then all you gotta do is file the edges just a bit.

Here are the results...

Alright, so now I've added the MQ-1, and the borden greeblie. I've also installed a wireless servo with an accurate hollow aluminum stock for the rangefinder and have the visor install in place...

Now it's all installed (minus the light kit for the rangefinder, helmet cradle, and chinstrap) It's primered and ready for paint!!

Here are a ton of pictures of the work thus far...

And we are ready for paint!!!

 

[shenphong]

that is some beautiful work you've done on the bucket!

 

[OdiWan72]

Great work!

Will you be doing an accurate or idealized interior?

 

[eethan]

great, always nice to see your work. looking forward to see more! and thanks for sharing

 

[Halliwax]

This is beautiful! I have a old Fettpride myself

I never knew they made servo kits for the range finder! That’s wicked!!!

The attention to detail your doing is unbelievable, I see the huge difference now in the mandibles! It looks awesome!

What did you use to secure everything inside the helmet? The goop you used to hold the brackets that hold the visor?

This is also the first I saw of the real calculator in the helmet.. my fettpride has it cast into it, but there are a few air pockets

I think that’s what I’m going to try and do is hunt down the correct calculator, now seeing what you did I think that’s the only way to go

But are your plans for paint? I wish there were a stencil kit available...

 

[OdiWan72]

This is beautiful! I have a old Fettpride myself

I never knew they made servo kits for the range finder! That’s wicked!!!

The attention to detail your doing is unbelievable, I see the huge difference now in the mandibles! It looks awesome!

What did you use to secure everything inside the helmet? The goop you used to hold the brackets that hold the visor?

This is also the first I saw of the real calculator in the helmet.. my fettpride has it cast into it, but there are a few air pockets

I think that’s what I’m going to try and do is hunt down the correct calculator, now seeing what you did I think that’s the only way to go

But are your plans for paint? I wish there were a stencil kit available...

Christian aka Saifai is selling a MQ1 in the JY right now...hurry up!

 

[Fettastic]

Great work!

Will you be doing an accurate or idealized interior?

Thank you! For this one I will be doing a mixture. It will have some screen accurate pieces like the helmet cradle, the chin cup and strap and the mq-1 but just by putting a servo in it makes it non-screen accurate. The determining factor for me on this was the fact that I'll be wearing it a lot...so I gotta have fans in it. If I gotta have fans then it will not be screen accurate. Period. Plus I wanted the servo for the rangefinder (again not screen accurate).

In the future I will do a display piece that has all found parts and accurate interior.

This is beautiful! I have a old Fettpride myself

I never knew they made servo kits for the range finder! That’s wicked!!!

The attention to detail your doing is unbelievable, I see the huge difference now in the mandibles! It looks awesome!

What did you use to secure everything inside the helmet? The goop you used to hold the brackets that hold the visor?

This is also the first I saw of the real calculator in the helmet.. my fettpride has it cast into it, but there are a few air pockets

I think that’s what I’m going to try and do is hunt down the correct calculator, now seeing what you did I think that’s the only way to go

But are your plans for paint? I wish there were a stencil kit available...

Thanks Halli!
As for the goop I use JB weld in areas that will remain rigid and not flex and other areas I use 3m 2 part apoxy, this works well in places with a bit of flex and places I need magnets as jb weld will not work while it's setting, because of the metal in it.

Yeah the MQ-1 is a really cool touch, even though most people wouldn't be able to tell it from a casting since it gets painted over.

Yes I'm just starting to put paint to it. Yeah a stencil kit would be cool but I'm not sure how reliable that would be. Still, nothing beats eyeballing reference pictures and going crosseyed.

 

[Fettastic]

Edit:
Before I started painting any particular portion of the helmet, I first painted the entire helmet with a couple good coats of an enamel metallic silver base. Even though I will be painting the silver damage topically with a brush and this silver base coat will get covered up entirely, it will come in handy when doing the physical scratches. The enamel base is harder and much thicker than the acrylic layers on top so if you do it correctly you can get nice really fine scratches that replicate the original better than topically painted scratches. I'll touch on this a bit more when we get to that stage.

Again, Starting with the back panels per usual.

I airbrushed on the Concrete color mixture. Since I use acrylics they dry super fast but I still like to let it dry for 24 hours or more before doing anything to it. This portions will be the only time that I use masking fluid to mask off the reveal damage. After it's masked off I will paint the Dark Blue/Green over it with an airbrush.

 

[ABE]

excellent work!!! as always

 

[Trooper_trent]

That Borden mod just blew my mind!
I have a real 3 hole borden (didn't know of any other kind) and just stuck it in the way it was positioned on the real deal, which means brass side out. I just assumed it was either painted or oxidized or something to make it look like that.
Do you think whoever did this actually had a 2 hold borden and drilled a third hole in exactly the right position and size as a three hole but from the other side? Why would they do this?
Or do you think the original owner of that particular borden modified it to fit the 3 hole version somehow, before it got scrapped and used on the Fett helmet?

Mind.. BLOWN!

Can't wait to see how this turns out. Always love watching your builds.

 

[captainsolo]

Love seeing all the detail on this..... beautiful work...

 

[Fettastic]

That Borden mod just blew my mind!
I have a real 3 hole borden (didn't know of any other kind) and just stuck it in the way it was positioned on the real deal, which means brass side out. I just assumed it was either painted or oxidized or something to make it look like that.
Do you think whoever did this actually had a 2 hold borden and drilled a third hole in exactly the right position and size as a three hole but from the other side? Why would they do this?
Or do you think the original owner of that particular borden modified it to fit the 3 hole version somehow, before it got scrapped and used on the Fett helmet?

Mind.. BLOWN!

Can't wait to see how this turns out. Always love watching your builds.

Thank you. I was in the same boat actually until recently. I always thought it was obvious they used a 3 hole borden until I actually got one and did it myself. I started analyzing high def reference images and then noticed that the brass finish that would be exposed due to cutting it and flipping it for orientation, and the tiny hole placement was just incorrect. So I started looking at all the images I could find of 3 hole bordens past and present. It looks to me that there is an industry standard for the three hole bordens as far as hole placement which leads me to believe IF they used an actual borden connector they would have had to use a two hole borden and drill out the 3rd and smallest hole. And they would have had to do this for all preproduction helmets as I have compared them closely and all of which have relatively the same hole placement which brings the tiniest hole closer towards the center than an actual borden does. So...IF they did this the question remains, why? This is the same question for a lot of greeblies. I don't know.

With that being said, It's very likely they just custom machined this piece to look like a borden connector (putting that tiny hole closer towards the center) and made enough for all production helmets.

So in my head, I can either have a custom piece made to match and spend a lot of money for something that is screen accurate but still not a "found part" or I can use a found part that was either actually used (debatable), or at the very least obviously the inspiration of the greebly, and make a (debatably) screen accurate piece. So that's where I'm at with this greebly at the moment.

It is interesting that this piece was noted as 1 dental "greebly" in the preproduction Boba Fett parts list though.

 

[Trooper_trent]

Thank you. I was in the same boat actually until recently. I always thought it was obvious they used a 3 hole borden until I actually got one and did it myself. I started analyzing high def reference images and then noticed that the brass finish that would be exposed due to cutting it and flipping it for orientation, and the tiny hole placement was just incorrect. So I started looking at all the images I could find of 3 hole bordens past and present. It looks to me that there is an industry standard for the three hole bordens as far as hole placement which leads me to believe IF they used an actual borden connector they would have had to use a two hole borden and drill out the 3rd and smallest hole. And they would have had to do this for all preproduction helmets as I have compared them closely and all of which have relatively the same hole placement which brings the tiniest hole closer towards the center than an actual borden does. So...IF they did this the question remains, why? This is the same question for a lot of greeblies. I don't know.

With that being said, It's very likely they just custom machined this piece to look like a borden connector (putting that tiny hole closer towards the center) and made enough for all production helmets.

So in my head, I can either have a custom piece made to match and spend a lot of money for something that is screen accurate but still not a "found part" or I can use a found part that was either actually used (debatable), or at the very least obviously the inspiration of the greebly, and make a (debatably) screen accurate piece. So that's where I'm at with this greebly at the moment.

It is interesting that this piece was noted as 1 dental "greebly" in the preproduction Boba Fett parts list though.

Wow! Now I'm wondering if maybe there was another manufacturer that made what essentially could be a standardized part but in stainless steel or something so that cutting it would render a silver finish. or maybe was built as a mirror image or something.
I HIGHLY doubt they hand machined something to look like an existing part rather than just using the part. But it does seem likely that that part was from another manufacturer than what was discovered. Very interesting!

 

[Fettastic]

Wow! Now I'm wondering if maybe there was another manufacturer that made what essentially could be a standardized part but in stainless steel or something so that cutting it would render a silver finish. or maybe was built as a mirror image or something.
I HIGHLY doubt they hand machined something to look like an existing part rather than just using the part. But it does seem likely that that part was from another manufacturer than what was discovered. Very interesting!

I agree that it seems unlikely and silly to replicate what is almost identical to an actual part. I've looked for steel bordens as well but even then, steel doesn't produce the type of sheen or polish that the nickel plating does and you can tell that the original part used was very reflective like chrome, nickel, or polished aluminum. My bet would be on a steel borden with the standard nickel plating but I have yet to find one.

 

[Halliwax]

Christian aka Saifai is selling a MQ1 in the JY right now...hurry up!

Always when I’m broke.... recovering from Xmas. My niece made out like a bandit this year thanks to uncle Danny

 

[OdiWan72]

Always when I’m broke.... recovering from Xmas. My niece made out like a bandit this year thanks to uncle Danny

get it anyway...you won´t find another one that "cheap"

 

[mugatu]

Great work! And exploratory research.

 

[Fettastic]

Made quite a bit of progress on the back panels. The more time consuming aspect was dialing in my mixes. I made a few swatches with a couple new mixes I had been working on with the concrete base, deep sea blue, and the grey all layered on top of each other as they would on the actual helmet to see how the new mixes would react together. Then in particular areas I would apply slight weathering to the swatches again to see how the colors will react and look as a final finish. After seeing them together I made a few slight adjustments and finally made a decision.

Again, this stage (concrete damage reveal stage) is the only stage I'll use masking fluid. Mainly because there are such large areas of concrete damage and lighter colors tend to show brush strokes more easily.

I also like to add weathering in between stages. It's easier to fix just in case I mess up. Just in case

For the silver and grey damage I apply topically and intermittently depending on the level of detail in the section I'm painting. I do this in order to refine edges and adjust the detail while I'm focused on that area. I rely heavily on close up reference photos.

 

[Halliwax]

What are you using to chip the paint?! This is coming along amazing

 

[Fettastic]

What are you using to chip the paint?! This is coming along amazing

For the physical scratches and distressing I'll use steel wool that I'll rap around the butt of different size pens based on the size of scuffing, I'll use a sharp piece of clear acrylic for really fine surface scratches and then I have a slightly bent at the tip airbrush needle that I like to use for deeper scratches.