TheRascalKing

You'll almost certainly need to, and I almost certainly wouldn't hahaha Rattle can is NOT the way to go unless you're somehow WAY more efficient than me. This sucked lol

I think it came out good! Definitely has some orange peel, but I expected that. It's very light in most places and maybe approaching medium in a few, but not a dealbreaker anywhere. Same with the white coverage - couple of tiny spots I missed, but overall pretty darn even and smooth. I'm happy with it. Might cut and buff the chest but otherwise I'll leave it be. Definitely no weird reactions, runs, or cracks. My prep largely paid off, it looks like. Sweet. You know, I sprayed just a matte black primer on the vocoder and it looks pretty good for "rubbery"... probably just that, I guess! Brought all the pieces inside this morning - will attempt to re-prep the garage and spray the rest today or tomorrow so they can dry and I can paint the colored details!

Dear Lord Vader help me, it's happening... DarthBiscuit put the fear of God in me (staying away from the Plastidip after all!) but I tried shooting final gloss white and clear today on about half of the parts in my garage. It's drying now after 2 coats of white (10 min between each, then a 30min break) and then 2 coats of SprayMax 2K gloss clear... man I hope turns out okay! I didn't have enough positive ventilation, so the ground is all white and sticky in my garage. Not my finest idea, but at least I masked the walls, table, and my crate I used to place some of the smaller items on. Fingers crossed! Arms, legs, barrel, and helmet in a day or two.

Opened up the eyes all the way... Got my cut line marked out on the AM handguards... they come super big. How's that look? Also disassembled the Hovi mic tips for a lick of white paint on the interior, and prepped the ears - opened up the holes to fit Joseph's slightly larger countersunk hardware, and decided to add extra rank bars. I use vinyl stickers because I can't freehand paint worth a d*mn and rock the "Captain" style since I occasionally like to wear an orange pauldron for funsies if there a ton of TKs at a troop... so even when I'm not canon, I'm accurate lol And got the mic tips holes drilled out to fit Tony's bolts. Progress! Reassembly soon...

Welcome and great work so far!

Masked the outside edge of both main pieces with painters tape and a garbage bag and sprayed the interiors with my favorite Rust-Oleum truck bed liner. Did about 5 coats, ten min apart or so. Removed the masking! Touched up the teeth and eyes with a brush. I think I'll be trying to emulate this helmet and will probably try to mask and paint the frown next!

Well, my ESB decals came in today from TrooperBay! They're definitely... symmetrical in shape. The helmet forsure isn't. We'll see how it looks! Still working on scrubbing the paint off... Goo Gone hasn't really worked, nor Novus... Mineral spirits? Suggestions anyone? Also, before I spray my interior black, can y'all confirm that these eye opening cut lines look proper? Theyre pretty much supposed to be maxed out to the edge for ESB, ya? Thanks!

I just shove em into a piece of cardboard and spray a couple light coats from each side. I could probably push em further down and keep it more out of the threads, but I want to make sure I hit the bottom of the countersunk head, in case it's visible. Luckily only the threads towards the bottom really even engage, so the paint won't bugger anything up. Thanks, Matt!

Alrighty time for a little update! Started disassembly on my helmet today! This isn't exactly rocket surgery, but I'll take you guys along for the ride if you've never seen it done before: Step one - start peeling off that bottom neck seal trim. There is a bit of adhesive on it, so work slow, especially around the ears. I'm not a huge fan of the Anovos neck seal trim, so I may replace it anyways, but one thing I always do is at least spin it around - I like the split to be in the front where it's hidden a little better by the black of the vocoder. It helps to leave the rubber trim outside in the sun for a bit to soften it up and make it more pliable before reinstallation. Always leave it a tiny bit longer than you think it needs to be if you're cutting it - the pressure will help it wedge into the tight corners and stay in place better, plus no visible gap. Next up, pop out that lens and peel off the frown mesh carefully - they're held on by double sided tape, sticky foam blocks, and a little velcro. Next up, mic tips! You can see where the helmet is a little deformed in the depression - be SUPER SUPER careful, as this is one of the weakest areas of the entire helmet, due in part to how far the ABS has to be stretched to make those deep depressions. Anovos just screws right into the resin tips... not my favorite system and should probably have a washer at minimum. I've seen the outer casing separate from the white insert too, so be mindful. Next up, remove the foam covering the ear screws... it's not bad to have, but I just chuck it. Carefully remove using some pliers to hold the nut and a small flat head screwdriver. Love those smooth cut lines, Anovos... *eye roll* Be careful - my ear was glued a little down at the very bottom from the neck seal trim, so gently pry until it separates. There should just be two more screws holding the back cap and front mask together - these must have had a little dab of CA on them as they were stubborn but eventually worked loose. Boom, now you can separate the two main parts of the helmet. Pull that brow trim off... And you're pretty much done! Here's everything all laid out. You may be asking why I bothered doing this, and there are several reasons. First up, I like to spray the insides of all my helmets black - it's not technically accurate but I like the look better and I feel like your features are less noticeable in a dark helmet. The inside will be getting several coats of Rustoleum truck bedliner spray - I'd like to think that it adds the tiniest extra bit of strength, and I like the look and texture. It will also be easier to rub all the painted on graphics off for replacement with ESB decals - just be careful, I forgot how thin these helmets are. If you hold this one up to the light, you can see almost see through the white, and in several spots, you could tell how scary thin it is... Another reason to pull it all apart is to replace the hardware and mic tips with more accurate ones for Centurion. The hardware is from @justjoseph63 - I painted the screws white and used nylock nuts and washers that I painted black already. The mic tips are from @ukswrath and I'll need to sand them a bit and paint the interiors white - he left em black for me but I ended up using another set for my R1 build. Here's a little comparison of the inaccurate, rusty stock Anovos screws on the left below (right above, oops) and Joseph's set on the right below if you haven't seen the difference before. Ironically, I want to say the incorrect Anovos helmet screws can actually be used as correct Thermal Detonator clip screws last I checked! Anyways, when I get a chance, I'll paint the interior of the helmet black, remove the painted details, then reassemble with more accurate odds and ends. More to come! Thanks for stopping by!

Donated $25! I'm admittedly a shameless sucker for forum badges - will there be an updated Supporter 2020 one?

Surprise, delays. Decided to sand the inside of the shins where they overlap to try to get them to sit a bit more flush. Especially since I have that ultra thin Velcro, I'm hoping to minimize visible gaps. Some if the parts just didn't line up 100% right, but they were a little better after dremeling/sanding. I ended up exposing a bunch of low spots and pin holes, so I felt the need to fill those. I also noticed that the bottoms of the shins were a bit long as well, so I trimmed and sanded and bondoed those edges... then of course sprayed the whole thing white over again. Similar setback with the thighs - I had previously repaired a small crack at the top of the inner thigh with super glue and thought it was fixed, only to have it open back up again. I ground it out and filled it with two part epoxy and sanded again... and sprayed white... again... Same as the shins below. Bonded: Sanded: Almost disappears with paint: Fiddling with the last little imperfections on the helmet too, finally pretty happy with it. Found some pinholes I didn't notice before along the neck seal edge, so you guessed it, I filled and sanded those too. The interior unfortunately had some white overspray from some masking tape that failed, so I sprayed it with one more coat of bed liner. Masking makes it look like a luchador mask haha Also started prepping the vocoder, almost forgot about it! The ab section also developed a couple weird tiny cracks, probably from flexing it "open" too wide while sanding. My bad - it'll flex but don't go crazy. I just filled these with filler, I hope they'll be okay. Too hard to get shots of it. Sorry, didn't take too many photos. More little fixes this weekend then I swear I'll get to final paint soon... Rushing causes problems! Hopefully getting my HWT Centurion app in this weekend too. Did my first "virtual troop" this week and my first in a couple months! We got to crash an elementary school STEM class's Zoom call and in costume, then suit down and talk about the club's charity work, Galactic Academy, costume building techniques, and STEM skills. Was a blast!

Pro, HA! When I'm all done, I'll post how many cans of paint I went through getting mine right. I 100% regret not paying someone to paint this thing for me, but I'm not sure anyone else would have put the level of attention to detail in that I have... Definitely not for cheap anyways. Probably much more efficiently with the experience and right tools tho. You'll get there. Patience and positivity.

I used a tiny bit of filler on the pinholes - couldn't get em to go away with wet sanding alone. Wrinkles like that are often humidity related, so make sure it's fully dry. I would start at like 400, then 600, then 1000 or you'll just clog your 1000 grit paper up most likely. A heat gun or heat in general can help with runs, and even lighter coats. Paint has been extremely frustrating for me as well, so you're in good company haha

Multiple light coats and noting dry times is key - spray within an hour or wait a full 24 for this paint, I wanna say. Plus, if you're going for perfection, it's going to take several coats and several rounds of high-grit sanding. I think I'm on my 7th or 8th coat, including primer. Also, keep your nozzles super clear or use fresh ones. And keep an eye on temp/humidity. Lots of tiny factors can complicate paint... Occasionally you'll just get a bad can, but that paint shouldddd work fine...