Star Wars Republic Commando Helmet Part III: Painting and Wiring

The last time I wrote about this project, it looked like so:



Since it was hard to see out of the helmet, the first thing I had to do was cut out the T-visor:



Then I primed it and gave it a base coat of satin white paint:



Once I'd cut and fitted a transparent blue acrylic insert, it was good to go:



Of note, I'd also molded these little detail pieces for the chin:



It's not canon, but looking at this helmet next to my clonetrooper and stormtrooper helmets, I decided that this one really needed to have teeth cut into the frown:



With the base colors painted on, it was time to add some more detailing and whatnot.  The video game is about a four-man squad and looking at the cover art on the box, I decided the first one I should paint was "RC-1138" also known as "Boss."  He's the one with the pumpkin-orange identification marks on his armor and helmet:



Bringing a video game character into the real world can be a bit tricky.  One of the tougher things for me is matching the colors.  After a bit of looking, I was happy to find Rustoleum "cinnamon" satin spraypaint:



After giving the stripe a couple of coats, I peeled the masking tape and let the paint dry overnight.  The next day I drybrushed a few scratch marks here and there.  Then I gave the whole thing a blackwash to pick out the details:

A "blackwash" is basically just slathering the whole thing with watered-down black acrylic paint. Then I used a damp cloth to wipe most of it off, leaving black paint in the details and recesses of the helmet.


Once the blackwash had mostly dried, I used a pad of 0000 steel wool to buff the black off of the high parts.  I also made sure to add a few wear marks:



Here's a shot of the backside:



It looked good, but I couldn't call it done until I had the lights and padding inside:









Now I just need to resist the urge to paint up more casts of this helmet to look like the other three team members. The way these things go, my willpower will fail and I will make more.


Stay tuned...