I started painting on 7/26/16. One or two coats before work and then one to two coats of a different paint after work. Drying time was roughly 8-10 hours. Metallic primer coat went on over the primer. I then painted on my hunter green as the overall base coat.
The hunter green has a beautiful finish on this helmet, I really like it.
I painted the dome and ear area a army green. The cheeks/face area was with this grass green. Not too thrilled with the colour, distracts too much from the environmental colours of beasthunter. The clay for my jawbones is dried out though.
I coated my bones with a cream colour paint, added slight brown undertones, and finished off with a sandy gritty tan colour. I also repainted the cheeks/face area with a mud/chocolate brown colour and added two stripes on either side of the center line. This will allow me to figure out where my bone spikes will go.
The bone/claw/talon spikes turned out amazing. I used a butter knife with the slight serrated edge to carve off the sandy gritty tan paint, which revealed the brown undertone. They really look like bone/antler material now.
The stripes down the center of the helmet turned out quite well and even work to break up the solid army green dome a bit. The brown cheeks/face area also work well to set the right mood. I used my brass fittings from Ace Hardware with a few washers to screw from the inside out (after making two holes with an 3/4″ wood bit on my drill). I still need to figure out how the hoses will not get in the way when I turn from side to side, but they are in and I decided not to do it like Roki’s bucket because it needed to fit into the Late Crusader Era still.
I then used a 2-part quick set epoxy to adhere my bone spikes to the top of my helmet. They are irregular in size, but it makes it more authentic this way. Whoever heard of a beast with perfect teeth/claws?
After some thought and wearing it around the house, the jawbones are a no go. They don’t work with the kit I’m going for. I then went outside and rubbed the helmet over everything. Through the brush, through tree branches, across a boulder, in some sand, the grass, and random objects in my garage.
The effect is priceless, it really makes it look like a beasthunter, who has been through the thicket hunting prey. The last thing I needed to do before completing the helmet was to pop in the visor. I used Sentinel’s method of using Velcro to attach the visor. It worked really well in my first kit and my wife’s kit.
I also smeared black, brown, and rust colours into my metal braided hose to give it the same weathering effect.
The only thing I have left is to figure out how to get the hoses to get to my back apparatus and still be able to move my head from side to side. On a really good note, those side brass fittings allow enough air in that my visors isn't fogging up. There is so much room in this bucket, that I'll probably get some fan kits and maybe a voice amplifier in there. Padding will also be used.