This week, Bryan at MR kindly sent me their Engineering Prototype Boba Fett helmet to preview, in advance of the actual helmets which are due to start shipping in a couple of months.
Note that MR has confirmed to me that this review helmet has been painted in exactly the same way as the final shipped helmets, hence illustrating just how good the paint quality of the finished pieces will be.
My first reaction was WOW!. This really is an impressive looking collectable
Key to the overall quality and accuracy of these helmets is the painting - and note that ALL of the production helmets like this one are hand painted and not painted automatically by some dumb robot. The Green base is initially sprayed on with much of the finer detail such as the yellow stripes and silver "damage" will be tampo printed. The overspray is then done by hand by an operator and thus, will vary from helmet to helmet.
The specific ESB helmet MR used for this basis for this replica was the PP3 that currently resides in the Lucasfilm Archive. Understandably MR was not able to cast it (since would have had to cast the outside and thus potentially damage the helmet) so the best option for all was to 3D scan it.
By adopting this specific process of using Tampo and stencil/mask spraying, MR believes it is able to completely nail the details of the paint process - while still operating within the constraints of a production environment.
The Helmets are about to go into production so I'll update if there are any differences between now and shipping, I presume October time.
More pics and info on my site.
Cheers
Jez