Wanted: Darth Vader helmet painting tutorial

[Twofoot]

I will shortly be painting my reworked esb fibreglass Darth vader helmet but I could really do with a painting tutorial. I know the colour scheme but I am a little unsure of the Oder to paint it. E.g. Do I spray yhe black 1st without masking , then mask the black parts and spray the gunmetal?
I have looked everywhere and just cant find one.
Any help would be great.

 

[DS Operative]

I can't help you, but you're more likely to get more responses in the Props forum for this question. Good luck & post pics while in progress and when finished! We love to see things going step by step around here!

 

[NWagstaff]

You should paint the face mask with gun metal first, the mask off rough up and paint the black areas because there is far more gun metal on the mask than the black. If you know how to, wet sanding the piece will really make it look great.

 

[Twofoot]

You should paint the face mask with gun metal first, the mask off rough up and paint the black areas because there is far more gun metal on the mask than the black. If you know how to, wet sanding the piece will really make it look great.

I was allways under the assumption that you can't paint a black over a gunmetal paint as it will show through.
The paints I will be using are duplicolor 2 part gunmetal grey, gloss black and when the paint has fully cured it will receive several coats of clearcoat.

When you say wetsand, do you mean using a 2000 grit wet'n'dry paper between each coat of paint and clearcoat?

 

[chuckyAPP]

Do a search on youtube. There are tutorials for painting and wetsanding the helmet.

 

[tango'd fett]

Paint it black first (BMW black) then mask and do the grey , I masked with fineline automotive tape around the edges and normal tape and newspaper over the rest. A real fine coat of the grey(ford polaris grey) is enough ,just enough to cover the black then laquer over the two after, this worked great on mine.

 

[sskunky]

I painted my helmets all black then masked off and painted the gun metal.... But each to their own.....

 

[sskunky]

This might help. It was done by Too much Garlic.... Carsten. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it......

 

[Twofoot]

You should paint the face mask with gun metal first, the mask off rough up and paint the black areas because there is far more gun metal on the mask than the black. If you know how to, wet sanding the piece will really make it look great.

This might help. It was done by Too much Garlic.... Carsten. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it......

I'm sure he won't mind. He is one of the people guiding me through the project.
Found this which is better as it has both sides shown.

This it the state of the helmet as of this morning. I still have to extend the neck about 1cm and tidy up the mounting ring I basically ground off to get the dome to sit right.

 

[chuckyAPP]

Great posting. Need to do this too..didn't realize how intricate the paintjob was.

 

[swfan67]

Ok, so out of curiosity which color did you paint the overall face mask with the black or the gunmetal? I had someone tell me to paint the gunmetal first then mask off for the black.

 

[Twofoot]

Ok, so out of curiosity which color did you paint the overall face mask with the black or the gunmetal? I had someone tell me to paint the gunmetal first then mask off for the black.

Paint it black first (lots of thin coats) then mask off the black areas and give it a couple of very thin coats of gunmetal (be careful as you cannot wetsand metallic paint).
It's very difficult to paint a solid coat over metallic paint and you may get a LOt of problems with the metallic paint showing through.
Then give it several coats of clearcoat.

 

[swfan67]

Thank you sir! I had painted one a couple of years ago and I had a big issue with a orange peel effect. I really want to avoid that this time around. I don't know if maybe it had something to do with painting the gunmetal first. I've been a member here for awhile,but I haven't posted a lot due to having a issue of feeling and/or sounding a bit ignorant.:$