My new helmet has arrived!

This is my third, and hopefully (yeah right!) last upgrade. I will once again be painting this in RotJ style

First up, the MS3 compared to my MSH2. I tried to make the field as level as possible... tripod mounted camera, constant focal length, rotated helmets on their bases, etc, etc...

The MS3 is shorter from top to bottom. The difference most visible when I put it on. For the MSH2 I need about an inch of foam in the top in order to get the helmet up off of my shoulders. With the MS3 it was more like 1/2"

The first thing I did was sand out the ear caps. They are cold cast AL, so once sanded they look like metal. No photo of these yet.

Next was cutting out the visor area. There are differing opinions as to when the right time to do this is. I always do it before painting, so that I don't need to do touchups on my paint later.

And of course I had to tape in the visor and try it on...

And here you see why you shouldn't cut your visor while wearing a black T-shirt!

Then came the silver base... I used Rustoleum Metallic silver. They also have a super-bright silver, but I don't really like it. The finish is so shiny that paint doesn't seem to like to stick unless you lightly sand it first. Plus by the time the helmet is all weathered the finish would be dull anyway!

I spent 2 nights masking out the silver layer of battle damage. Any area that should be silver in the finished product has been covered in yellow tinted latex masking fluid. The damage was drawn on using a pencil, based on reference photos from the Magic of Myth exhibit.

In the last one you can also see some of the scratches in the helmet... I used hobby files to carve out the damage, and then touched up the silver base. I really should have done the scratches first, but I forgot. DOH!