I had a problem. My home's motif was too dominated by Star Wars, and too dominated by Vader, and so I needed to diversify. I have an MR Kermit the Frog and a Sideshow Iron Man Mark III bust which helped. But I needed something more.
I needed something simple that I could do up quick n' dirty. I'm very fond of The Rocketeer, so when I saw Oz offering a run of his budget helmets, I decided to give it a go.
But because the weather's cold, using spray paints might not be the best approach. So I used some acrylic paints by Folk Art (Metallic Silver Sterling) and by DecoArt's "Dazzling Metallics" Line, which includes Splendid Gold, Glorious Gold, and Emperor's Gold.
I am not studied up on the screen used prop, so this is my first time ever attempting a Rocketeer prop. My challenge was "How do I get this thing to look like metal?" I'm not that accomplished a painter... yet.
The kit arrived already primed. Dremel and sanding work needed to be done to remove the lenses, trim the neck, and deal with excess globs of resin.
I decided not to polish out a lot of the sanding lines, hoping that I could use the texture to my advantage. I dremeled out the eyes and the neck line, but left the teeth because I would have put a black piece of cardboard on the inside of the mouth anyway. The kit came with lenses that fit just about perfectly, and I used clear parcel tape to hold me over until I got a glue gun.
Doing the eyes made me think of all those time I cut out the eye sockets for Vader masks. Heck, if you've done Vader, you can do just about anything!
I painted with a 1" brush and went front-to-back. I didn't mix my paints perfectly on purpose because I wanted to create not only a worn or slightly patinated look, but I was relying on the unevenness of colors to help give a sense that the metal was alloyed.
(Above: This side is just a teensy bit too clean. I'll have to darken the recesses a bit.)
And there you have it. Again, I'm no expert on Rocketeer. I took a peek at some HD screenshots on a site that turned up on a Google search, and just painted at random.
I'm wondering if I should clear-coat this. What do you guys think? When I wash it, it looks pretty cool, but the movie look isn't as wet.
This helmet will go far to balance out my collection. It has a lot of character to it, and it's broken up the Sithlord monotony of my apartment.
Enjoy!