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[Sea_Marshall]

It's alright.

Looks like you made yourself a Pre-pro 2 suit!  You should be able to lighten it with some RIT dye remover.

  The idea of having a PP2 suit really cheered me up.

I'm going to give it two more washes with RIT dye remover. After the hang dry this morning it looks salvageable.

if blotchy now, thought of bleaching and re dying with a thinned blue?
OR boil wash and tumble dry several times to fade and weather?

The discoloration is manageable, some soot will take care of it. After a few more fades we'll see where I stand. I'm worried about tumble drying. It's already a little tight around the arms so further shrinking could require me swear off food and drink for a week.  I'll take the bleach route as a last ditch effort to save it.

[Sea_Marshall]

Updates! Just finished a three day battle with my flight suit. I terribly underestimated the powahhh of both fabric dye and bleach. But I learned a lot about how it works in the past 72 hours. Within this post are my successes and failures regarding fabric dye. I had no previous experience and just went for it - no proper science at all. I don't recommend doing what I did, but failure is the best teacher? (Yoda)

Beer buddies backyard setup: Propane fueled stainless steel 10 gal. brew kettle and wash basin. 



Dumped 75% of the Royal Blue RIT dye and 100% Pearl Gray into a 7.5 gallon wash of 180 degree water after letting salt dilute for about 10 mins.
The result was WAY too dark:



I put a total of 7 RIT Dye Removers into the suit.
Quick Notes: Apply boxes to washing machine, let water dilute the powder for about a minute, add clothing, let wash as normal. If the clothing comes into contact with the powder and water directly, it will unevenly discolor your dyed fabric.



I was pretty annoyed that I couldn't fix the color using the RIT remover. In my defeat, it was noted by several people that my result was equivalent to the Pre Pro 2 Fett flight suit -- that cheered me up knowing I unknowingly did something cool. But I needed to get my color faded, and I was losing sleep over it.

At 3am I decided to bleach the suit in my bathtub. I ran an unknown amount of hot water into the tub, and applied 3/4 cup of bleach to the mix.
Quick Notes: Internet tutorials say to apply a 1 (bleach) to 10 (water) solution and let sit for 10-15 minutes. I applied 3/4 a cup to a tub of water and the bleach went to work in less than a minute.



Fun Fact: Royal blue uses a pink dye to achieve the blue color. When bleaching the royal blue out, it turns hot pink. :eek:

I panicked at first, but then used gloved hands to shake the pink out in the tub to get an even removal of dye. Once I saw most of the blue was gone, I pulled the plug and rinsed until the water was clear. The result was a purply-gray, but at least it wasn't PP2 Blue.



Later that day I returned to battle to add blue back into the literal mix. I added a tablespoon of "RIT Royal Blue" to bring back the dark blue, and added a tablespoon of "RIT Evening Blue". I joked that the Evening Blue was to 'even' out the blue. ...:lol:



Equipped with the knowledge that 100% cotton soaks up color like a sponge, I added a small amount of color to hit, what I figured, was the mark. It's unfortunate that I could have done this at the beginning, tested a 100% cotton sock or rag, and got this on the first attempt. But no, I had to go "learn something".



I checked the solution for color, figured it was enough, then soaked the clothes until I saw the blue color come into the cloth. Happy to see the purple-gray went away with the Royal Blue, and the Evening Blue made it pop that bluish hue. I removed the clothing, rinsed until it was clear water, then put it into a standard wash cycle.

Here's the dried fabric, indoor lighting (tungsten), juxtaposed to the Bespin Hallway reference photo. The camera exposure isn't quite right, but I'm happy with the color. The suit will also appear differently in the sun, which I will update at a later time when I try it on.



Having conquered my flight suit nemesis, now I'm a hot shot, and boiled water on my stove, added a small amount of RIT Dark Brown, and dyed my rope belt Reddish-Brown.




My take away from dying fabric:
1) Don't underestimate how strong the dye is
2) Test a swatch and save yourself the anguish of reducing the color
3) Don't underestimate how strong bleach is
4) Start with small increments and add more to achieve the desired color
4a) If you think you need a certain amount, dial it back a little.

Anyway. Success! Huzzah. You made it to the end. I'm glad this battle is over. On to the next one.

[Ashen Kelborn]

Very nicely done, really glad your patience paid off and you got what you wanted 

[Sea_Marshall]

Minor update.

My first "found parts" came in. I almost don't want to open this, just because. Reasons. Found on B&H Photo, these were on back order for at least a month or two, but eventually shipped. I'll likely paint the casts from Man of War first and see it it clears the approval process and tuck these away as a collectible keepsake.



Also decided it was time to put some weathering on the Man of War boots! Taped off the middle stripe and airbrushed thinned black enamel paint. Airbrushed the base with black, then followed up with a thinned dark gray for the rest of the boots. You'll see the stock color is a light gray, the dark is more in line with film references. I took some sandpaper to the surface to rough up the boots a bit.




Jetpack Beacon is ready to ship from Machine Craft Replicas, but on ice waiting for the Toe Spikes to replenish and ship as well. Once the spikes show up, I'll be popping those on and weathering that detail.

How do you attach the spikes? It appears to have screws, and the first set I got from eBay had screws. I've been following Mi'ix's posts and seems industrial velcro does the job. I was thinking I could install my first set with velcro and walk them until I lose them and install the backup, quality set from MCR. I'm sure either will fit the approval process.

And did anyone see the MCR request for Aluminum Ears?! Orders taken until March 2018. I'm getting in on that, if only to have them tucked away for another project, or added to this one.
https://www.thedentedhelmet.com/forums/threads/aluminum-fph2-ears-by-machinecraft-first-likely-only-run.31307/

Moving forward faster now it seems. Lots of paint to do.

[Mi'ix]

Ha, I actually cut into my shin tool parts last night!

I did see that MCR is doing a run of the aluminum ears.  I sent them an email to get in on that.  Considering it comes with a hollow stalk as well that sweetens the deal for me. Boots look good.

[Sea_Marshall]

Ha, I actually cut into my shin tool parts last night!

I did see that MCR is doing a run of the aluminum ears.  I sent them an email to get in on that.  Considering it comes with a hollow stalk as well that sweetens the deal for me. Boots look good.

That's awesome. Yes, the hollow Ear is a definite plus! I was just talking with folks in Dec about the rarity of aluminum ears. Glad to be part of that order!

[Sea_Marshall]

Quick update: Masked all the armor and then used an airbrush for the first time and kind of knew what I was doing.



Put on a light layer of yellow then masked the next layer, prepped for greens.



Put down a yellow layer on all of the armor, then went over the knees and shoulder with an orange/yellow mixture.



At the end of each color, I added a bit of black to darken the shades a bit and went over the damage areas to bring out some color variation. I may End up revisiting the left knee to add some more yellow in, and likely revisit everything in the end with some black.



Pretty happy with the way things came out for the airbrushing attempt.

[Mi'ix]

That's looking really good, dude.

I'm glad the airbrushing is working out for you!

[Sea_Marshall]

Progress!! And some time to talk about it. I ended up changing jobs and put a halt on the build. Once I stabelized, I got a lot done.

Eventually cut into the knees and popped in the dart launchers after the tips got painted up. Put on the white elastic attached with snaps mounted to a piece of komatex.



Boot spikes from Machine Craft Replicas were put on the boots. Weathering to come later.



In the interest of time, I ended up fashioning an old backpack strap, metal ring, and 1.5 inch white nylon strapping to make my jet pack harness. The gaff tape is temporary until I could judge how long the straps needed to be relative to the jetpack, hooks, and backplate.



Turns out my estimation was spot on, just needed to cinch the backpack strap a bit to level the pack. I also got the vest marked for button holes for the straps to feed through. Setting the hooks on the jetpack, measuring the height to the backplate and accounting for the weight it held, was a chore. I can see how the dive harness would steady the jetpack vs. the makeshift, but it will do for now



Talking with other Fetts, this is the part of the build where you must absolutely have a handler. I imagine there is someone out there who made a Jetpack, back plate rig, but I suppose being a squire for Boba Fett has it's benefits right?

Also! Jetpack beacon by Machine Craft Replicas. I put in two white LEDs running on a 9v battery attached to the inside of the jetpack. It doesn't flash, but hey, the beacon is lit! Mandalore calls for aide.



I'm missing the white dot, a decal on the back, and I just acquired a Silver dental file that I'll paint blue, donated by Syper. Cause, I don't have that stuff laying around like he does, haha.

Big news! Here's my before and after paint job, Rattle Can vs Airbrush Humbrol colors.



I suppose I could have kept the darker green and airbrush the counter shade (I learned a lot about airbrushing, really fast) but decided, if I'm going to airbrush some of it, might as well do all of it. So here's the masked and painted kit, all free handed using RafalFett's stencils.



I temporarily installed the chest LEDs so I can at least admire it. Final placement for another time. Any suggestions on how to mount this to the back of the plate? I'm unsure how to approach it.



By the way, all of the armor was acquired from Wasted Fett. June will be a year marker since I first ordered his Hero set of armor. I haven't worked with many abs or costumes in general, but the workmanship and quality of his product is spectacular.

I still have to apply the Fett sigil and Mythosaur skull. I am uncertain about how to approach the stencils and again, don't have the patience to sit down and do it. But maybe... I might paint them on. I still have some time to think about it. It the interest of time, I picked up these decals from DeLucksDesigns.net. Got extra skulls because vinyl stickers. 



Wasted Fett also makes an FPH2 (Fett Pride Helmet v2?) helmet and it's amazing stuff. I want more. I will likely pick up another.
My most recent work has been on the helmet. I got it sanded, primed, laid down the base coats.





The back panel will get masked, then airbrushed the blue-green it needs, but that will be all the masking on the helmet, except the killstripes.

I finally broke down and decided to topically paint the helmet, despite my initial desires to mask. I feel the helmet has too much detail and capturing that in a mask would require a tremendous amount of work that I'm really not patient enough to do, haha. I was staring at the silver base coat ready for masking for a few days and knew I couldn't move forward until I masked the whole thing, and I found myself scrapping the mask and starting over. Ain't got time for that. So I just base coated the primary colors and will move forward with a topical application and it'll be great.



Anyway - weather has been nice and I've had a bunch of Boba days. Silicon Valley Comic Con (SVCC) is April 6-8th and I'm looking forward to taking the kit for a test run! I am missing the weapons and holster, but am getting a spot in Sidewinder's next production run. So the goal right now is take the kit for a test run in two weeks, take pre-application photos, send them for review, and work on the fix list while the weapons move along production.

Almost there. The end is in sight.

[Sea_Marshall]

Moving fast! Trying to finish the helmet in a week flat.

I decided to do a topical paint job. I really wanted to do the masking because i like the way the layers look. Unfortunately I don't have the patience to mask everything as I had originally planned. I kept looking at the helmet knowing I needed to mask, but couldn't find the motivation. But to pick up the airbrush and lay down base coats for topcial? I could get behind that.

I spend a good deal of this build fretting over the helmet. Dreading the day I would have to paint it. To be honest, the helmet is probably the most enjoyable and satisfying thing in the whole kit. It even required the least amount of prep compared to the armor and resin kits. And now, all I want to do is get home to paint.

I did the left cheek first, then the right, then the left half of the visor in one paint session. I'm using reference images and free handing the paint job using locations as a "landmark" where to put paint down. I think it took about 6 hours, 2 per section.



I got home after work and put down the right visor and cat scratch leading to the top of the dome. Took two hours to get that part done. I'm pretty happy with this so far.



I might do the kill strips before I do the dent comet. I still need to do the back panels but I've been putting them off. It's a mess of colors haha. The rest of the helmet is gray, maroon, and silver. The dark gray and maroon are great complimentary colors, they help disguise errors or messed up paint jobs. Also allows you to paint in some detail over other areas that might have too much of one color.

Anyway. This thing needs to be done by Sunday.

[Mi'ix]

Sorry bud!

Been slacking on following up with this.  It really looks like you're rocking and rolling!

I probably should've taken pictures of how I installed my board on my protector, BUT I used a lot of hot glue.  My big concern was lining it up properly with the cutouts so I ended up taking a little extra 3mm sintra and cut two long rectangles from it that I glued just above and below the cutouts in the plate.  They acted as a guide so I could slide the chest lights into the appropriate spot and just worry about the alignment from left to right. 

[Mavik]

Lovely work on this build

[Sea_Marshall]

Got the helmet done last night! Well, done as far as con ready goes. I'm wondering if I should matte coat the whole thing or airbrush on a black/gray wash. Not sure how the final look would be, but here's a selection of photos of the last stages!

This is the completed front with the dent down.



Here's my attempt at the Kill Stripes. I went looking for measurements, but discovered that the hemet size is dependent on the maker -- so I eyeballed it. The stripes lined up with the landmarks of the painting okay, but I masked them a little too short and the bottom wasn't conturing to the surface of the dome.

Here's the fresh mask with the fade and the mistakes present after the reveal. The stripes wave and the paint isn't sharp.



I revisited the kill strikes individually  and straightened them out, detailed the damage, and blended the yellow and orange to match the stripe fade.



After tightening up the killstripes, I worked around the back of the dome and did the top of the helmet using the ESB reference photo from Bespin. I was drawing out the damage geographically wrong, but after referencing the photo, just swung the damage forward to point at the dent to salvage the paint job. As you will see, only the keen sharp eyed folks of TDH would ever give me flak. The famous dent is also a bit larger than referenced, but that's my own fault just using the printed guides and not having the film reference open to compare physical size.




Here is my final product. I still have to sort out washing the helmet or matte coating the helmet to pull all the colors together. The original colors are very vibrant and will take it for a test run as is before deciding the next step.

This is my first helmet, definitely not the last. After reading about painting level of detail, I think this is somewhere past 'costume', but a ways off from 'archival' o_O

I'll post up a photo once I get suited up for the first time! I will also document out what my gear looks like once I find some time to lay it all down. The plan was to get this suit "table top ready" and good enough to do a troop in without being spot on identical with found parts. If there is anything I have learned about costuming, it's to take it slow and upgrade over time once you have something that's 'good enough'.

Thanks for following and commenting! Upgrades are going to be never ending, but I'm at a really good stage and can suit up. Just waiting on a list for the sidearm, holster, and EE-3. Minor tweaks, then application to 501st and MMCC. Can't wait to put it on this weekend at Silicon Valley Comic Con!!!

Here's the completed obligatory selfie.

[Sea_Marshall]

I got to take the suit out for it's first test run this weekend at Silicon Valley Comic Con. I learned a lot, and the first thing that was apparent was that I should have tried everything on at home, not at the con o_O

Besides having all of the pieces, I didn't have final prep on a few items and of course they malfunctioned at some point. The range finder needed additional work to secure it's position, the rope belt needed a backing to keep the strands under control, as well as longer nylon straps (I didn't anticipate the length to go over the top of the cod!) and the ammo belt wasn't positioned the way it should be. The jetpack strapping system also threw me  when I realized the straps were on the border of the vest, and could be seen once in a while. Also, didn't have the jetpack securely fit. Oh, and lets not forget that I didn't have time to matte coat the armor, or wash it in any way to subdue the colors and tie it together. Weapons! Yes, I have no... weapons... how inadequate am I??

Good enough for a con! rofl. Strategically hidden tape held a few things in place. :lol: It was a good test run and it made mistakes apparently pretty quick.

Here's my front, left, right, back. I didn't get to look in the mirror at all. I'm aware of all the issues, believe me. The only reference I had were photos and I had to learn on the fly. Fortunately I had @14killstripes to give me some pointers. The major thing I learned was to keep your chin up and you can't look anyone directly in the eyes, you're always looking down your nose, over the visor to keep that Fett look about you. Otherwise the helmet sinks low and makes it seem you don't have a neck! The more you know...



Here's a side by of the Bespin continuity shot:



The colors recommended from the "paint by colors" template floating on TDH could have a few shades darker on the green. I wanted to follow recommendations before striking off on my own for color choices, but in the end, this is Mk. 1. It should do good for a while before I decide to take the costume to the next level and really dial in the colors and paint job. It's close enough and some changes are already being made.

First update was to subdue the colors by airbrushing a black shade (Citadel's Nuln Oil). No thinners, just right out of the bottle to the airbrush. It acts as the black wash, allowed for light shading, and after a few coats it cleaned up surface scratches, muted the colors, and helped blend the battle damage and topical paint job.

Top two are from the con, bottom two are subdued after the shading:



To solve the rope belt dilemma of loose strands, it was suggested to glue down the strands to Craft Foam, a .99cent sheet from Michaels Crafts store. I'll be picking up some new nylon strapping to help with my XL body type. I used Gorilla Glue Gel to bind the foam and the rope. Fun fact: the gorilla glue chemical mix caused the foam and rope to smoke when bound together. It fused together forming a rather solid bond. I'm sure hot glue would have been fine.




Anyway. That was my first stroll and everything stayed on despite a few costuming hiccups. Next con is San Francisico Comic Con in June! I'll be making a few more updates and changes to the suit and hopefully take it for Round Two. Doubtful, but hoping to get the weapons before then - I'm on the unofficial wait list for Sidewinders' resin EE-3 and sidearm kit with no timeline established yet.

More to come.

[Sea_Marshall]

While I wait for a production run of a resin EE-3 and Pluce, I've decided to scratch build an EE-3 to hold me off until the kit comes in - which has an undetermined amount of time on it.

I used the video found on youtube or HappyTrooper.com to make an DIY ESB EE-3. Its about $60 in parts and the build is probably 10-12 hours of work. I really like the way the first one is coming out. I got enough materials to make two, because, why not?

Looking forward to another prep session to get it sanded smooth for paint. Trying to get this ready for May 4th then upgrade/finalize it for submission quality. The woodgrain on the stock should look pretty cool.