TKCaleb

I finally went by the printers and made up some tube stripes. I also made 4 sets of decals last night. Applied one of them to try out on my helmet, they look much better than before. Please excuse the cheap helmet stand.

PM sent man.

beautiful suit man!!! Looks awesome!

What would you make of these straps then? They appear awfully flexible for ABS.

Thanks Vern, they will be perfect once I properly learn to silk screen, cutting each piece out by hand is just not feasible. Caleb

Big difference! The original paint I was using looked to ESB. The flat finish also adds a lot to the finished look of the decals, due to the fact that the black vinyl layer has a bit of sheen to it. Caleb

UPDATE I picked up a can of flat/matte paint today after work, reformulated the color to better match the CFO decals, as the first can of paint was to gray. Old satin paint on left, New flat/matte paint on right. and some pics of the decals when applied to the helmet I think I am getting closer and closer to making these look as screen accurate as possible. I am still planning on making a proper stencil and silk screening these bad boys.. Caleb

I said the same thing to myself after making them. Im making more tonight, hopefully they will look correct.

Added them on to my CFO bucket.

Thanks a lot man! Ill definitely try that out! Stay tuned for updates.

It was most likely user error, but I masked off my screen with drawing fluid, which was used to fill the design of the decals, then I used screen filler for the negative space. After I rinsed the drawing fluid, I went to test out the screen. Once I lifted the screen, I had nothing but epic blotchiness. the print looked like decals with a Gaussian 20px blur applied to it. There were no well defined lines, or anything.

I think I gave up to quickly on the silk screen method, Im going to talk to a professor of mine tomorrow who has a MFA and has done print making as a career back years ago. He is truly a master, so he may have some good suggestions on how to properly achieve the screen accurate decals without all the cutting.

Thanks. I used a squeegee. But I had to dry off the paint, then apply another layer to build it up to the proper thickness. Its quite exhaustive. I'm trying to figure how ILM did the decals. The pattern is certainly not silk screened through. I've tried silk screening the decals, but it was an utter failure. I strongly believe they had transferred the paint onto a layer of vinyl through means of mesh or silk screen, to keep an even coat, then had them either die cut or hand cut following a template. After word, it would be applied on top of a solid layer of matte black vinyl which was then cut out free handed with a blade or scissors. At least, that's my theory, and its pretty much what I did here.

I had been tinkering with the idea of creating my own screen accurate decals.. I think it needs some fine tuning here and there, but overall not too shabby. For those who have not seen ROTJ decals, here are some pics. I plan to use a finer mesh when applying the paint to the vinyl. I also plan to use flat paint next time around, not satin. What do you think??

beautiful lid man!

that is awesome man!! a whole new way of building a blaster, out of plastic!!!

I concur with Mathias, other than that, it looks great!

did you ever pad out the inside of your shoulder bells?

good call Paul. I didnt notice the one black stripe missing. that and the ears are trimmed differently.

It looks like it Paul. Look closely at the weathered paint around the ears, practically the same pattern of paint loss in both photos. Rob... You may be on to something. I did a quick google search and found several different underlay with the same pattern as that of the straps, only they were in colors like yellow and green.

any updates?

thanks for the video tutorial Rich! your armor is looking fantastic! Nice technique with the forearms by the way!

Looks great man!

HAHA! Nice one Martin.

This thread is epic! Thank you for all you are doing! Keep up the great work! Caleb