Darth_Nickel Posted December 6, 2008 Report Share Posted December 6, 2008 Now that I'm getting close to being done, I thought I would post the project here incase anyone cared or could use some of the information. A garrison mate received what I believe to have once been a FX. He paid a good price, but more than what i personally think he should have. I don't believe it to be first generation FX, by any sense of the word... The plastic was in pretty bad shape (ripples, odd pull lines, yellow...), and the assembly was less than to be desired. The ears were loose and poorly attached to the helmet. I've never seen resin ear caps... you know what I mean.... resin? how odd.... The vocoder was molded into the plastic... how can that be.... Any who... in order to help out, I offered to work on the bucket to try and turn it into something a little nicer. Since I pretty much was free to do as I wished, it's been a fun project. I hope the owner is happy with the results. Here are all the progress shots. Please let me know what you think. I'll try to point out interesting things as I go along... Before shots. Then I started to strip it down.... this was NOT fun.. well sort of... perhaps a little. The lenses were interesting. Looked to be hand made bubble acrylic. Very interesting... Continued in the next post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2008 After taking the bucket apart (it was assembled with hot glue), I decided to remove the FX seams (I've done this before). One side effect is that it creates even a more dramatic "cliff" look on the back of the FX. It's already present on the FX (one of the worst parts/looks of the FX in my opinion... Here I've glued the bucket together and I'm adding a support "ridge" along the back of the helmet. This gives the appearance of a little more accurate back….for an FX Here you can see some of the issues with the plastic... man it needed some love. Here are some shots where I started fixing some of the issues with the plastic. I've started with the tubes under the chin. There is some ripple there, so I'll remove that. Continued next post... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2008 And with a shot of primer to check the progress. I saw a couple cracks and I still saw the "ripple". I'll continue with another round of bondo.... This was the best shot of the cap ripple I think... After lots of sanding, buffing, bondo, sanding, buffing, bondo... bondo.. sanding... This is just the primer, buffed and ready for the top coat. One item of interest... the vocoder. Since it's molded onto the plastic, which is odd for an FX... it didn't have good definition. I decided to resculpt it on the helmet to provide a little more to it. I also added the "second" bump beat the neck trim... just for fun. I don't have a picture under the bucket yet, but I will... Continued next post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2008 Here is the Top Coat complete (for now) I'm now working on painting the details. I just got the black on last night, so I'll start to add the gray to the frown and traps. I don't know if you can tell in these shots, but I've already outlined the areas in pencil. Just a little trick I picked up here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThayNerd[TK] Posted December 6, 2008 Report Share Posted December 6, 2008 That's looking pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Thanks Thayne. I guess there's not a ton of interest in this. o well... Here are some of the updated shots. Starting to add the details. I've painted the traps, vocoder, frown. I've got to add the ear caps, lenses, ear screws next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThayNerd[TK] Posted December 7, 2008 Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 That looks a lot better, have you thought of opening the fourth tooth on each side up a little more or would that ruin it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Thanks Thayne. For the 4th tooth, I have to keep them pretty small. It's hard because there really isn't any "dent" there so if it gets too big it looks like what it is... I cut a hole in the frown I will take a file and see if I can clean them out a little better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvinrobot Posted December 7, 2008 Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Wow that looks great...has anyone identified what kind of FX this was??? The top of the head is definitely FX but the vocoder as part of the mold...maybe a cast of an MR or Rubies for the face plate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daetrin[Admin] Posted December 7, 2008 Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 I'll confess to not liking the look of the FX, but I have to say the work you're doing is pretty fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Nickel Posted December 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Wow that looks great...has anyone identified what kind of FX this was??? The top of the head is definitely FX but the vocoder as part of the mold...maybe a cast of an MR or Rubies for the face plate? Thanks guys for the compliments. It means a lot. It looked like it was an older helmet. The plastic was really yellow under there.... check out some of those pics above. I think that rules out any MR question. The vocoder really lacked definition. I added a sculpting resin (magic sculp), cut the groves/lines again and added the second little ridge toward the neck as well. Paul - I agree. I don't like the look of the FX. It's just...well... wrong. I DO like the overall size for bigger people, but the FX just doesn't cut it. I've tried to correct some of the points that really get under my skin, but it's still FX.... I do like how the ridge came out on the back. That helped a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NAZGÛL Posted December 7, 2008 Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Good work there! Impressive. The faceplate isnt from MR CE btw. Cheers /Naz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvinrobot Posted December 7, 2008 Report Share Posted December 7, 2008 Good work there! Impressive. The faceplate isnt from MR CE btw. Cheers /Naz I meant an older MR...I have a CE but you are right any MR would of had better symmetry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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