Painting a Boba Fett Helmet ( With Spray Cans )

Hello, this instructable is to help you paint a boba fett helmet with spray cans, if you've made a cast or a pepakura helmet or just want the correct colours for another project, this is the place to be.

After much researching I discovered that there is not really a tutorial for people that make like me, but can't afford airbrushes and compressors and fancy paints.

To get to the end product in this instructable, I fully painted this lid 4 times, bought or scavenged or raided friends spray stashes, looking for the correct colours, I've spent weeks if not months looking for the correct colours, so this should take the heartache and pain away from you having to do the same,

I'll also show you how to get a good paint finish and which order to do your lid in, to maximize you painting and look of the lid, I'm not a man that likes to blow my own trumpet, but I'm really proud of this one, the time and effort to get to the end result is staggering, and I want to share this with you good people.

But first, here's a tool list and a spray paint/rattle can list for you,

Things you'll need :-
• wire wool ( grade 0000 )
• masking tape ( different sizes helps )
• maskol ( liquid latex )
• a knife or pointy thing ( to cut, score, scratch , poke, prod, throw )
• coffee ( it's a must, always)
• time ( patience, lots of it!)
• paint brushes ( small, for the maskol)
• stand ( for the helmet, it helps so you can work a few angles at once )

The spray paint list is one that took a while to get together, these paints and makes give you the best, closest result to the original helmet,believe me, I've tried every can of green in the world! Haha

Spray paint / rattle cans
• grey primer ( rustoleum )
• metallic silver ( rustoleum )
• matt black ( humbol )
• beige ( desert 4 grey beige army issue )
• white ( rustoleum gloss white )
• off white ( rustoleum heirloom white )
• sand ( matt, humbol )
• light olive ( humbol )
• dessert yellow ( humbol )
• purple ( hycote metallic )
• yellow ( plasti-kote )
• red ( wine red plasti-kote )
• lawn green ( wilko )
• dark green 30 ( humbol )

That last one, the dark green 30 is the daddy! It took me a long time to get that one right, that's the key to the whole helmet, that's the one I had to paint 4 different greens before finding that and being happy with it, even if your not gonna do this project, and you see that colour, get it! And give it to someone that loves boba fett, they'll be your friend for life! Haha

Ok, on with the project, good luck!

At this point I'm going to assume your ready to paint, your all sanded and have a clear work space and your itching to go! So let's go.

Before primer, give the helmet a light sand with wire wool, and get used to giving it a light sand, because your going to need to do this between every coat, that's right! Every coat!!

So,

Primer
Dry
Wire wool
Primer
Dry
Wire wool
Leave it for 24 hours

The first real coat is silver, all over the helmet at this stage, the back will start to have battle damage at this point, so, I'll include the template I used for the maskol.

The way I did the maskol was to lightly pencil in the silver that you can see on the templet, then maskol that bit off, I'll go into more detail on the next step for the back, but for now, mask the little bits on the back that you can see on the templates, and fully spray silver.

Wire wool
Maskol ( small bits on back )
Silver
Dry
Wire wool
Maskol ( same bits again )
Silver
Wire wool
And let harden for 24 hrs

This is where we get into it, it's a long process, masking off areas and maskol, wire wooling and referring to your templates, I'll try to be as clear as possible.

We shall start with the back, as this has the most layers and is quite complex, study your templates and you'll see the first layer is heirloom white.

Mask off the whole helmet apart from the back panels ( mask off the middle vent between the back panels too)

Then it's maskol time again, following your templates, mask off the area you want to keep silver.

Heirloom white
Dry
Wire wool
Re-mask maskol
Heirloom white
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry for 24hrs

The next layer on the back is olive green:-

Wire wool
Maskol ( over silver and a bit of white, check template!)
Olive
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Olive
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry

After the olive is beige :-

Wire wool
Maskol ( again check template )
Biege
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Beige
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry

After the beige is lawn green :-

Wire wool
Maskol ( check template for pattern)
Green
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Green
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry

Now you can pull off all the other masked areas, because you've done the back! Good job!!

As you can probably guess by now, this is a long and repetitive process, sometimes I would spend hours masking off and maskol areas just to spray for 1 minute, then pull it all off to let it dry, then start again.

But it's worth it! And strangely therapeutic.

Anyway, the dome and lower cheeks are the same green, so we'll do them together, and you'll be glad to know it's only 2 layers, but your maskol skill will be tested on this part!


First mask off the back and below the head band, but not the lower cheeks, ( like in the picture), next is the maskol, the "dent" is important, but so are all the other little chips and scratches, study your template and figure what you want to stay silver, then maskol,

The process again is:-
Wire wool
Maskol
Grey
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Grey
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry 24hrs
Wire wool
Maskol
Green ( dark green 30)
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Green ( dark green 30)
Dry
Wire wool
Let dry 24hrs
Peel off all the masked areas

Some say this bit is dark dark green, others say black, I tried a few and I think matt black works and looks the best.

As with everything on the project, it's all about prep work, mask off everything apart from the upper cheeks, quick wire wool and your set.

Wire wool
Maskol ( with template to help)
Grey
Dry
Wire wool
Re-maskol
Grey
Dry
Wire wool
maskol
matt black (humbrol)
dry
wire wool
re-maskol
matt black again
dry wire wool
let it harden

Let it sit and harden.

Now the iconic mandibles, taping these off and the band round the helmet and the vent in the back, as they're all the same colour.

It's a tricky tape job, but very rewarding when you get to pull the lot off, ( I love this, taping and masking and stuff, some people chill with wine and tv, others knit or sew, drugs and drink, whatever. Me, I chill with masking tape, bondo and sanding haha ).

Right ho! Same as before wire wool and dry times between coats, don't forget your templet and maskol! It's a big job this one, take your time, remember the more effort here, the better the out come!
The colours in order are :-

Grey
Purple
Wine red ( burgundy sort of colour )


You might notice that some of the pictures look lighter or darker than the end result, that's only because I didn't capture every step of every paint job on the 4 different versions, and I'm using what I have to help you with the process, the steps and end result are the same as the end pictures.

As you look at the helmet, the right ear is green ( olive drab green ) the left is silver and sand and has the range finder. We will start with the right ear.

When I set my helmet up, I made it so I could unscrew the ears and visor, just for future things like touch ups or re-painting. it's not important, but that's why in the picture there separate, anyway the first thing is primer, 2 coats and wire wool in between.

The colours on this ear are slightly different to the main colours, the first coat is heirloom white, then red, then olive green, same as before with the wire wool between coats, and maskol in the same way the have done the rest, with the template.

• Heirloom white
• Red ( lazer red, I had an odd bit for this, as it's only one tiny spray)
• Then the humbrol olive green

The left ear is in a few parts, but it's the same process.

The top part that holds the range finder is sand colour, you can just prime it and then humbrol sand colour.

The bottom part is silver and sand in the middle, prime it, then silver, then mask off the top and bottom so the middle can take the humbrol sand colour, with a tiny bit of maskol for a few scratches.

You do the same process as above with the top part of the ear that will be glued over the top part of the range finder ear piece.

The devil is in the detail, and that's what we been doing, but there is more, on the ears and the kill stripes,

It's the same as the rest of the process, study the template and see what you want to do.

The kill stripe I hand drew, working out the size ( each stripe is an inch high by 1/4 inch, and on this helmet there are 14 stripes).

After working out the size I masked off the basic sizes then, I used maskol to make the different shapes per stripe, I used plasti-kote yellow and gave it 2 coats before removing all the masking.

For the ear detail, on the right is a white curved line across the top, masked and sprayed with rustoleum white, twice then removed the mask and wire wooled it all.

The left ear has a black curved line, I did the same as above for that too, then inside the black curved line is a smaller white line.

At this point I thought I'd show you some of the finished paint jobs that didn't cut it for me, like I said at the start, i tried a few paints and combinations to get this right, here's the wrongs!

Well apart from the range finder, you're pretty much there.
I used rustoleum matt clear coat to seal the whole thing, before I did that I wire wooled the full thing gently, then used a dry rag to clear off the helmet, then clear coat it twice.

My range finder was a problem, because it was cast, it wasn't very strong and I found that it moved and warped, so I used a dremel tool to cut a groove right down the shaft, so I could insert a piece of wire, bondo over that then sand and start with the primer.

The top of the range finder is black, with a clear plastic for the finder bit, that is how it is in the film. My range finder was a full cast so it was all white plastic, I couldn't make it clear so I decided to use the heirloom white for that bit, I think it worked well. The arm of the range finder is just silver.

So now you have a very well painted boba fett helmet, and if like me, you've been a fan since you were 5 Years old, you're a bit giddy with excitement!

I've tried to be as clear as I can,and I know this isn't a fancy airbrushed lid, it's what you can do with rattle cans,to get the fett lid looking good at a cheap price! but if you have any questions or comments or you just want to say hello, please feel free to leave a comment!

I would like to say a big thank you to my good friend joe ( joey24dirt ) who isn't afraid to say it's wrong or looks odd or looks right, only a true friend will tell you the truth! Thanks dude!

Thanks thedentedhelmet.com for your pictures I used as research, and for your templates!

And thank you to my wife haze, who has had to listen to me go on and on about colours and visors and every shade of green, mandibles and masking tape for weeks and weeks, and never complained once!