Stiilus' Armour & Weapon Builds (PIC HEAVY)

[Stiilus]

And I'm back...

Once I was happy that the yellow was thoroughly dry I began masking off everything I wanted to stay yellow... Excitement got the better of me, and so there is no photo of the masked off helmet prior to me spraying the "mechanical" parts of the helmet, only after shots, however the masked off area is still the same... I like to use the proper painters making tape because it doesn't leave any unsightly goo on the surface, plus it peals off easily enough despite having a reasonbly good tack... Unfortunately it can cost quite a bit, and so I resort to doing this...

Yes, that is a torn up shopping bag... cling wrap also would do the same thing, but I find the bag easier to handle... Gotta make sure to tape down around the edges or else you'll get paint where you don't want it...

Two coats was plenty to get a proper fill of colour with this grey... It made for a pleasant change from the multiple coats for the yellow. I didn't give this area the same super gloss treatment as before however, I just want it to be a regular gloss finish and so I left it as is...

Same thing, different side...

After that had dried all day I taped off the area I wanted to stay grey, which is basically just the "mechanical" bits... Seing as they were small enough I got away with just using the tape and didn't require the services of another shopping bag.

Once again, my excitement got the better of me, and there are no pics of that area post masking/pre painting, so you'll just have to use your imagination and extrapolate from the data I've already given you...

Several fine coats of metallic charcoal (another refugee can from my last helmet) later and all the base painting was done, so I left it all to dry for a few hours (i.e. overnight) before removing the tape...

Once the scratch marks are added the neck... Well, you have to wait to see the photo's (damn you photobucket)...

I'm fully loving the brim now...

It's a shame that it looks like there is some kind of mark on it in these photo's just in front of where the visor will be, but I assure you, that is just the reflection from inside the helmet, or maybe it's the sunset...

This'll have to be my last post for the day, it's midnight here, and I'm very tired now, so nighty night 405thr's, I'll put some more pics up tomorrow...

 

[Stiilus]

Ok... So now the fun stuff begins...

I'm very happy with how the base paints turned out. To the point I was almost considering leaving it as a new looking helmet, but where would be the fun in that...

So first things last... I taped off where I wanted the stripes to sit on the sides...

Same tape as I told you about before, it has a feature called "edge lock" but I think that's a load of 5hi7, the paint still bleeds through no matter how well you apply the tape...

Anyway, I used Tamiya acrylic paints (the little jars) to apply my stripes, the reason being, the acrylic paint won't bond 100% to the enamel paint, making battle damage very easy to achieve... also, it means that if you get it where you don't want it you can just wipe it off with a wet rag...

I taped off on the "mechanical" parts and used the same technique as before with my stripes...

All was looking good but I still wanted something different to set the helmet apart from the rest (not that it wasn't already a freaky mish mash from a few different helmets)...

And so I decided on a few extra stripes down the front...

Was it difficult to mask off for this... Nah, it wasn't... It was damn near freakin' impossible! So many angles... Unfortunately, with me being me, that just made me want to do it even more...

Ah, tumeric... Fine spice, excellent anti arthritis additive and superb colourant of clothes and foods from far off and exotic lands... And now prop/stay of Halo armour... Is there nothing you can't do?

Meanwhile, I don't think it looks too bad...

While I had the paints out I thought I might add in the little warning tags that sit behind the ears...

Seeing as 343I put the Troll guy in Anniversary, I thought I might have a little bit of internet fun with this helmet as well...

Once it's all dirty and scratched up they won't stand out quite as much, but I'll always know that it's there ...

Anyway, more pics up soon... I've almost caught up with the pics to where I'm at now... Back soon...

 

[Stiilus]

I had to go back and redo the paint work over the top of the mechanical bits, I'd introduced a new colour into the mix so I needed to make it look not quite so odd... The real reason is that I went to the city earlier this week and picked up some new Tamiya colours and wanted to try them out, mainly the yellow green colour, and this is what it looks like...

I like it, it actually ties in the gold chrome colour of the knobby thingies sort of, even if the colour is not the same, it is kinda reminiscent of it anyway...

I've always liked the idea of a washed out Spartan II who wasn't fit for battle with his/her comrades to be working with ONI instead, doing their dirty work behind enemy lines and infiltrating the insurrectionists. Someone who wasn't going to get all the glory and publicity of the rest of the team, but rather working under strict secrecy and doing what they were originally designed and built for... Anyway, I decided that this was going to be that Spartan's helmet... And so...

I had it looking pretty good too, but then remembered that this was a battle worn helmet, so had to go back and scratch the logo up a bit...

I had a heap of fun in ODST running around doing what I envisaged my imaginary Spartan would do, so I decided to put a bit of a tribute to the game on here as well, again, in the yellow green... This symbol is for the sleuth achievement I believe from ODST, I'll have to go back and check on that, but either way, I think it suits the style of the helmet anyway...

And again on the base of the skull, it really stands out better than this photo depicts on the metallic charcoal...

Once the paint had dried on the mechanical parts, I went back and started to add some extra details...

And there's that magic 7 ... It wouldn't be the mish mash that it is without it, and I'm sure the guys at Bungie appreciate that kind of thing... I've still got to put a Marathon symbol on it somewhere and I think I've covered most of the Halo mythos in this one helmet...

Next up, Blackwashing...

 

[Stiilus]

So this here is a small(?) video of of how I apply my blackwash... I know oil based paints aren't for everone, but I prefer to use them for this as it tends to be a bit smudgy, which gives a more realistic feel to the battle damage... If you've never used oil paints for this before, but would like to give it a try, watch the vid, or send me a message, I'll help out where I can...

More importantly, try it out on a mock up first, you don't want to mess up your paint work with something you've never done before ...

And that's basically it... Rinse and repeat... I didn't want to show the whole helmet getting done as it's a lot slower going than the standard water based option or even the spray pack variant, but there is enough there to get you started and direct you where to go... Good luck if you want to try it out, and remember, I'm here if you want any advice...

(Go easy on the quality of the vid, it's my first ever upload to youtube...)

I'll probably post some photo's up of the brushes I use too, the clarity of them isn't the greatest in the vid... Thanks for watching, I'll be back with more pics soon...

 

[Stiilus]

I don't think I'll win any Oscar's or Academy Awards for my last post, but I hope you all enjoyed it anyway...

So I finished the blackwash off, didn't take too long, about an hour or so, but like I said, it normally takes longer to do it the way I do rather than the other conventional methods...

I think it blends in nicer with the smudges, makes it look like it's been worn for a very long time...

I came up over the sides of the grey area a bit too, across the metallic charcoal even though it doesn't really show up too well against it, I still know I painted there...

I probably should have scratched this logo up a bit, but I just felt that not all the paint work would look messed up, even if it had been in a major battle... It lost a little nick in one of the corners anyway while I was removing the tape stencil, so I guess it still has some battle damage ...

I had to go over some of the blackwash on the back a few times just to thicken it up a bit. Because there is no real detail on the yellow area there, I had to make the paint job really interesting...

It's a long way to the top...

I love the way this logo stands out against the yellow...

This is where little imperfections shine with the paint work, the shallow areas don't wipe out as well the the smooth areas, and so you end up with a real depth of texture... Uh, sounding a bit like back in my art school days here... Moving on...

 

[Stiilus]

Sorry about the break, I didn't want too many pics in the one post...

I love how the rebreather vents turned out. I even painted them from the inside of the helmet with the matt black so that any light that went in deep enough wouldn't show up the yellow that had traveled all the way inside ...

That last photo shows what happens when there is too much moisture in the air or the paint underneath hasn't dried long enough before putting the next layer on. Normally I would shoot (emphatically) any customers that came in to work complaining about their spray can doing this to them, but in this case I think it kinda lends to the story behind the helmet... "The paint started to boil away from a near miss from an over charged plasma pistol..." Yeah, that's what happened here... A plasma pistol...

You really can't see it from a distance anyway... Still, that's not the attitude to have...

Oh look, isn't that so-&-so from that movie we saw earlier?

One of these days I'll learn how to focus my camera properly... In this pic you can "clearly" see that I've done the same brush technique around where the visor will fit in... I don't plan on putting any paint on the visor itself, but like the rest of the helmet, I believe this part should be just as dirty and banged up...

Uh... Yeah, everything I said above...

So that's it for the blackwash. I did put some in around the back of the neck but I didn't bother taking any photo's of it because it just doesn't show up any of the details just yet...

I do plan on building an ODST helmet eventually, but I may have to rethink using the metallic charcoal as my main colour as it is just too much of a pain to blackwash and show any real results... More on that project though when I actually do start it...

Stay tuned people, I'll be back real soon with the photo's of the scratch marks...

 

[R8b]

Wow great helmet! Still jealous of how this came out!

 

[Stiilus]

Wow great helmet! Still jealous of how this came out!

thanks R8b. i'm surprised myself at how well it came together in such a short period of time... i can't wait to have it all wired up. i went and bought the LED's, a housing box and some wire yesterday, but i'm feeling kinda lazy today, so i might put it off til tomorrow. i've still got a whole week and a half of holidays left, so i've got all the time in the world...

I checked out your MkV. very nice... how true to the photo's is the orange you settled with?
the orange tends to look deeper than it really is on mine, not by much, but in reality it sits a little more toward the yellow side of things, hence why i keep referring to it as yellow...

 

[R8b]

thanks R8b. i'm surprised myself at how well it came together in such a short period of time... i can't wait to have it all wired up. i went and bought the LED's, a housing box and some wire yesterday, but i'm feeling kinda lazy today, so i might put it off til tomorrow. i've still got a whole week and a half of holidays left, so i've got all the time in the world...

I checked out your MkV. very nice... how true to the photo's is the orange you settled with?
the orange tends to look deeper than it really is on mine, not by much, but in reality it sits a little more toward the yellow side of things, hence why i keep referring to it as yellow...

It's pretty close to the color in your images. It's a good mix of orange and yellow.

 

[Stiilus]

It's pretty close to the color in your images. It's a good mix of orange and yellow.

i have this problem at work, where what the screen shows and what the colour really looks like can be different with the paint machines. sometimes it's just easier to read what the tints are that make a colour up and imagine the end result just by knowing what each tinter will do in what quantity. the taubmans paint computer shows a rough idea of what the colour will look like once mixed, but if a customer looks at the little swatch on screen, 9 times out of 10 they say something like "that's not the colour..."

Unfortunately it costs about 5 - 6 grand to get a proper colour calibration for the screen to the actual paint swatches, so it's easier to not show the customer the screen in the long run and just get all the relevant data ie. manufacturer, year, type of colour, etc. and just mix it from there ...

as for calibrating my camera to my computer at home, well, thats a whole different kettle of fish ...

 

[p bro]

You handpainted all those tiny logos on!? That's skill, I'm still looking for a way to avoid doing that. What's the story around the breather scar? Energy sword?

 

[Stiilus]

You handpainted all those tiny logos on!? That's skill, I'm still looking for a way to avoid doing that. What's the story around the breather scar? Energy sword?

i guess they're more like racing stripes. i want the spartan who wears this baby to be a real individual, someone who doesn't mind being on their own while doing ONI dirty work, but revels in their own quirks and makes small modifications to their armour like the stripes. a bit like jorge or emile in that way i guess... if i do ever get around to making a full suit and not just the helmets, i want it to have a real personality to itself, maybe hang a trinket or two off it like rosie from halo:legends or something like that...

 

[Stiilus]

So finally once I post the scratched helmet pics up we should all be up to speed... I promise to post updates on a more regular basis...

So anyway, the scratch marks were painted on the same day I did the blackwash... If you checked the vid I put up about that, you'll know that the paint is already fairly dry in the tin, so once it gets on a surface and the air starts to take hold, it dries off in no time at all... I usually leave it for a few hours after the blackwash is touch dry, just to promote proper painting practices... I can't tell my customers how to paint if I don't practice proper painting techniques myself...

Anyway...

A nice wide opening shot, it's a shame the light was starting to fade outside at this point in time...

All the crazy masking off with the tape paid off with the stripes I think... It was a real pain in the arse to do at the time, but knowing what it was going to look like it was worth it...

I'll admit I used a stencil to do this logo initially, but when I removed it, half the logo came away with it and I ended up having to hand paint most of it back in anyway... The irony that I then proceeded to rub some of it back off anyway ...

I love how these cheek guards turned out, knowing I could have left them on from the original pep and glassing and just reshaped them to this, I'm glad I took the route I did... I don't think I would have achieved the fit with the visor that I do if I hadn't used the method that I did...

Super sleuth...

Lots of fresh air... Once I've got the mesh in there, you shouldn't be able to see my face at all...

I quickly touched up the rebated bit in the top of the helmet after this photo... I realized that there would be a few scratches in there as well...

Like so... I don't know if you can tell, but I sometimes go back over some of the scratches with another light layer of blackwash... It basically changes the colour of the scratch marks in those areas and reinforces the idea that not all the scratches are the same age or from the same battle...

Back after the jump...

 

[Stiilus]

So, here's some shots of the neck...

I know it's not Hollywood grade stuff, but I'm pretty chuffed at how the neck turned out, I think it was worth using the original Halo:CE pep file by Rundown just for the neck alone ... Again, I would like to thank him for a great model to work with. It was a breeze to pep and I had no complications figuring out what parts went where...

I think it ended up with a bit of the Anniversary feel to it anyway, when you look at it side on ...

Hmmm ... Apparently in some parts of Thailand this is considered a "mirror chrome gold" visor... I would call it a smoke gold visor, and I probably wouldn't end up with an irate Aussie send me emails trying to find out why it doesn't look like the one on eBay... It's all good if the photo is taken with the maximum amount of light turned up as bright as it can go and if you have a major retailer in Italy selling the same thing under the same description... I was told the Italians never had my complaint... I never told him I was half Italian, living in the largest Italian community in Australia ... Instead, I just resigned never to shop with him again...

Of note, never argue with an idiot... They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience...

On a happier note... The visor fits pretty good, held in place by five 3/4"x1/4" screws, which I think I showed the insert nuts for earlier. There is one in the jawline and another set in both the cheeks and the temples... I normally would have settled for just the four (one in the top and bottom and a set on the sides) but I wanted to try something different with this helmet... I'll put some pics up of the screw layout when I start to line the inside ...

The visor does look gold in these last two pics, but I'm not going to be walking around in twilight all the time... The annoying thing is that it's also kinda see-through... I'll have to make a really good seal around the neck to block out any superfluous light from creeping in and showing my face...

And so that's all I got for now, you're all up to speed and you're seeing what I'm seeing... I'll be washing my very grubby car tomorrow, but might be able to get some wiring done in the afternoon hopefully ...

As always, any input is appreciated, even the negative stuff, so keep it coming... Ciao...

 

[DesertFare]

...not bad :3

 

[thorn696]

Love it!!!! The tech in which you went thru for paint was Awesome. With the color choices, shading, blending and washes, You added so much depth to this Helmet. Finely the attention to detail is just out of this world. Thank you for sharing this work of Art with us. :cool

 

[Stiilus]

...not bad :3

thank you...

Love it!!!! The tech in which you went thru for paint was Awesome. With the color choices, shading, blending and washes, You added so much depth to this Helmet. Finely the attention to detail is just out of this wold. Thank you for sharing this work of Art with us. :cool

i'm more into making them look like something you could put on a shelf in any home, something that anyone, not just people who love Halo could appreciate... i used to be into drawing and painting back when i did art as a tertiary course, but now i tell people that i do sculpture as well... it just adds some kind of credibility to what i do i guess, if i tell them i make fiberglass coated paper armour then i tend to get laughed at or looked at funny... the first helmet i made, even my mum laughed at me... she's not laughing so hard now... infact, she suggested some colours for the stripes on this one and even tells people about what i do now too ...

 

[Satchmo III]

Phenomenal work, Stillus! Great work overall and I love your bubble-curved face-shield. Even if it's somewhat see-through that curve really gives the product extra points for accuracy.

 

[Stiilus]

Phenomenal work, Stillus! Great work overall and I love your bubble-curved face-shield. Even if it's somewhat see-through that curve really gives the product extra points for accuracy.

thanks Satchmo... i've seen a few of the MkV helmets online, not just here, but on other forums as well, and the ones with the bubble visors always seemed to look the best to me.

i had to keep looking at old shots of the original MkV from Halo:CE for reference and one of the things that really stood out to me was that the visor was more like a bubble visor anyway, so i guess it makes sense why they look better ...

i just wish it had been the proper mirror chrome gold that they were advertising and not the one i ended up with... better luck next time, eh?

 

[Sgt Forge]

Man, that helmet is. . .THE BEST! It reminds me of why the MkV is still my favorite of all the helmets in the Halo universe.
and why is this still in the Noob forum?!?!?!?! Its almost blasphemy to deny this topic the right to upgrade.