Thanks!
Chris, Prime it in primer grey and fill all the faults and pin holes that show when the primer is on. Prime again and wet sand smooth.
Mask off the parts that will be painted black on the bottom half of the helmet. Its important not to mask right up to the edge of were the black will end and the silver will start. Leave a bit of a space and mask inside the black area so the silver paint will go into were the black will be by about 1/2 a cm.
The silver is Halfords Renault iceberg silver.
The other colours were packed away in my shed, i've just been unpacking things to find them for the names (you pain in the ass!)
The blue is ford Cosmos blue from Halfords.
The purple pearl paint is a small aerosol from Hycote. Its Rover amaranth pearl.
Spray the blue into an airbrush bottle and don't hang around for it to thicken, start airbrushing it on the silver ASAP.
I threw the paint away a few times while doing this and replaced it with fresh paint, as the last thing you want is for the airbrsuh to spit out a dot of thick paint on your silver.
Do the same with the purple.
I then sprayed some of the silver in the airbrush bottle to tone down some areas (its easy to overdo the blue and purple).
When you are happy, spray on the lacquer. This is one of the large aerosols from Halfords. 600ml I think.
I spent the rest of the day and into the night spraying the helmet with coat after coat of the lacquer until the can was almost gone. Make sure that hard to reach/sand places, like the ears and the band with the OCP POLICE . 001 receive a heavy coating with no overspray in these areas.
When its dry, wet sand the whole helmet until its really smooth and no texture is left. Its harder to sand inside the band and the ears. This is why these areas should be coated well with no overspray, so they won't need as much sanding.
Take care on corners/edges not to sand through the lacquer.
Then you have the VERY long job of T-cutting it to a glass finish.
Use different forms of light to make sure there are no scratch marks left in the lacquer. I find holding the helmet in front of a TV or computer monitor while switched on in a dark room helps show any scratch marks.
Then its time to paint the black. There will be a silver and lacquer edge into the area that will be black, you can now wet sand this to blend it away. If you maskded right up to were the silver should end, you would not be able to blend this away and would be left with and ugly, thick edge to the silver.
Use Hycote matt black for the black parts. When dry, T-cut it to a smooth finish.
It does not show in the photos, but the black on the helmet is quite glossy and REALLY smooth. You would swear its a natural black plastic or rubber. It does not look as if its painted at all. Infact, the whole helmet looks ten times better in real life than it does on the photos for some reason.
The face part has been airbrushed. Darker tones first, rubbed away a bit, then misted over with the lighter tone. Lips airbrushed, the whole face part clear coated in thick coats of matt varnish. Buff it up when its dry to give it a bit of a sheen.
Fit your lens and your done.
Keith.
:thumbsup Love it!
