Identifying decals on Red Leader's Helmet from ANH

el toro

Sr Member
I've been planning on painting one of Walter's X-wing helmet kits with Red Leader's markings. However, I'm not sure of what to make of these peeling red decals that I circled in the attached photo. They resemble the V's aligned on the helmet edge, but are red. The decals don't appear to be the red wings decorating the mohawk sides either. Anyone have any ideas?


Screen Shot 2018-04-30 at 10.37.32 PM.png


I leave you a photo of Red Leader seemingly stoked, because he was shot by his hero, Anakin Skywalker, whom Red Leader met once when he was just a boy.

Screen Shot 2018-04-30 at 10.38.59 PM.png
 
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This helmet has been pretty well documented and I believe it still in existence. I don't believe that what you're seeing is actually coming from the helmet. I think that image is something behind the helmet.
superjedi ?
 
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I've been planning on painting one of Walter's X-wing helmet kits with Red Leader's markings. However, I'm not sure of what to make of these peeling red decals that I circled in the attached photo. They resemble the V's aligned on the helmet edge, but are red. The decals don't appear to be the red wings decorating the mohawk sides either. Anyone have any ideas?


View attachment 817105


I leave you a photo of Red Leader seemingly stoked, because he was shot by his hero, Anakin Skywalker, whom Red Leader met once when he was just a boy.

View attachment 817107

What you've circled is a sliver of the R5 droid's head. The droid had red markings on it.

EDIT: Oops! Didn't see that you had answered your own question.
 


Good luck El Toro! I painted one of Walter's as Red Leader - I think you already saw my thread: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=287680 It's a lot of fun!

I wish I'd seen that picture posted by Division 6 - I could find no shots of that side of the helmet when I was weathering, so I took some liberties. Maybe I can go back and add some more scratches! Every time he turns his head that way in the film it's a reversed shot of the other side. That's also something to bear in mind if you are using screenshots for reference for the placing of the stripes on top - don't be fooled by mirror images!

One of the other peculiarities was that the black stripes across the cheeks don't quite seem to be at the same height on either side. On one side (pictured above) it goes across the lower ridge of the raised area on the cheek. On the opposite side it runs straight through the middle - you can kinda see on the pics below.

20180224_174528.jpg20180224_174602.jpg20180224_174637.jpg20180224_174657.jpg20180224_175010.jpg

P.S: @DeLucks Designs - I don't think I ever showed you the decals you sent me for mine - they look great thanks!
 
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Just remember when replicating damage that the exhibit helmets ave been kicked around for 40 years and have picked up a lot more damage than what's seen in the original films.
 
@division 6 thanks for the side photo.

@Somerset many thanks for the tips. If you have any more I'd definitely appreciate them. Your helmet and superjedi's are definitely inspirational. I'm hoping that my final product will be half as nice as your helmet.
superjedi and somerset Can I ask what ratios of tamiya yellow-green and desert yellow you mixed? Also do you recall what are the dimensions of your black and grey stripes?
 
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Just remember when replicating damage that the exhibit helmets ave been kicked around for 40 years and have picked up a lot more damage than what's seen in the original films.

Another one of the interesting things about Red Leader's helmet is that at some point during production on ANH it must have been re-weathered. If you look at the outermost black stripe on the right side of the helmet as you look at it, the scrapes appear different throughout the film. It's not as if it has just naturally picked up a little more weathering and lost some paint through rough handling because it's a different pattern, so they must have decided it needed re-doing.

I know they redecorated and re-weathered Luke's helmet during different scenes as shooting went on, but since almost all Red Leader's scenes take place in the cockpit (in the scene with Luke and Biggs in the hangar it looks much cleaner) I'd be surprised that it needed a touch up if they were shooting most of it at the same time and that he's not a "hero" character. I'll add some screenshots when I get back to my computer.

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Well it was reused it for ESB and ROTJ so maybe repainted then. I really hope they didn't muck with it during Rebel Assault 2
 
I have no first hand knowledge of this but I believe I heard from the folks associated with Icons back in the day (2002) that no original X-Wing helmets survived in the LFL archives. But there were X-Wing helmets in the archive.

Take the following with a grain of salt...

The ones that did exist at the time was recreated for a video game. Not sure if it was used in the game or promotional material or publicity, etc... I also do not know what versions were recreated but I do believe the Red 5 that went to all these exhibits like MoM was one of them.

As stated, this only had to do with LFL archives. I have no idea what original helmets might have made their way into private collections.
 
@division 6 thanks for the side photo.

@Somerset many thanks for the tips. If you have any more I'd definitely appreciate them. Your helmet and superjedi's are definitely inspirational. I'm hoping that my final product will be half as nice as your helmet.
@superjedi and somerset Can I ask what ratios of tamiya yellow-green and desert yellow you mixed? Also do you recall what are the dimensions of your black and grey stripes?

It's been quite a while since I painted mine. But I think I just used Tamiya yellow zinc chromate. Any variation is just from a black acrylic wash that I applied after painting.
 
I dug up superjedi's thread and it says he used the Tamiya yellow-green as a base coat and then misted it with Floquil reefer yellow. https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=30930

I used the desert yellow because I thought it was the closest I could get from the nearest hobby shop. I mixed it because I didn't have enough cans of air for more than 2 coats. I cannot remember the exact ratio, but it would have definitely been no more than 3:1 and probably less.

I will measure my stripes later, but my advice is that if you are going to use decals for the red sunbursts, wait until they arrive before mapping out the stripes. I painted mine first and when the decals got here in order to position them correctly in relation to the ends of the stripes I had to put them too close together in the middle because the stripes were too short. I also suggest getting good masking tape because I kept having a messy edge.
 
Thanks Somerset!

I dug up superjedi's thread and it says he used the Tamiya yellow-green as a base coat and then misted it with Floquil reefer yellow. https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=30930

I used the desert yellow because I thought it was the closest I could get from the nearest hobby shop. I mixed it because I didn't have enough cans of air for more than 2 coats. I cannot remember the exact ratio, but it would have definitely been no more than 3:1 and probably less.

I will measure my stripes later, but my advice is that if you are going to use decals for the red sunbursts, wait until they arrive before mapping out the stripes. I painted mine first and when the decals got here in order to position them correctly in relation to the ends of the stripes I had to put them too close together in the middle because the stripes were too short. I also suggest getting good masking tape because I kept having a messy edge.
 
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