Converting ANOVOS kit to ESB Centurion

[shaunpug[TK]]

All ready for a "dip"!

I decided to use the spray plastidip. Personal preference! I plan on doing as many coats as I can to really stiffen up the helmet. As of this post I've done 2 coats already. I'll post pics when I finish tomorrow!

 

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[bpoodoo]

Plastidipping this helmet seems to be the preferred defense against cracks. I'm considering adding it to mine.

On the ESB decal front, I bought a couple of sets from skoooch (CAP-W) a while back. They look accurate and fit my Laws / TE-derived helmets fine. But 2 decals don't fit well on the ANOVOS helmet dang it. Right tear shape mismatches in size and shape. Right rear trap is much larger on the ANOVOS. Decal way too small. Course it's not his fault I actually like them a lot. They fit the helmets they were designed for.

 

UPDATE 3 March 2016:  Actually after comparing the decal fit of Centurion-approved helmets and those of screen-used ESB (the "patch" helmet shown on starwarshelmets in particular), these decals I have should be fine.  The back right trap decal is smaller than the trap area on those examples also.

Edited March 3, 2016 by bpoodoo

[shaunpug[TK]]

Plastidipping this helmet seems to be the preferred defense against cracks. I'm considering adding it to mine.

 

On the ESB decal front, I bought a couple of sets from skoootch (CAP-W) a while back. They look accurate and fit my Laws / TE-derived helmets fine. But 2 decals don't fit well on the ANOVOS helmet dang it. Right tear shape mismatches in size and shape. Right rear trap is much larger on the ANOVOS. Decal way too small.

 

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

I'll be posting some more updates on my decals soon. I bought a waterproof printable vinyl paper that should work for reprinting them in the correct color

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

I've been silent for a little while but I managed to get quite a bit done! Also ran into several issues. Let's begin!

First off, the Plastidip was a huge success!

It's pretty hard to distinguish here, but the finish is a very clean satin. Really cool. I did roughly five coats of the spray and it firmed it up nicely.

 

Next I went about mounting my lenses and ran into a problem. I don't have pictures, but it seems the T-nuts in combination with over - zealous trimming on parts of the eyes resulted in an unsightly gap between the lenses and the eyes. Bummer. It would have been nice if it worked out correctly, but rather than remove the T-nuts I just used them as anchors for the lenses and added a bit of glue. I also gave the lens material a nice hot water bath and conformed it to each eye.

 

Next up was the decals. What a pain. My idea of remaking them myself was both a success and a complete failure. I picked up some waterproof printable vinyl by Cricut from my local Michaels. In Illustrator, I had the colors matched perfectly but in printing I would get a VERY different gray. I went through all 10 sheets of the vinyl until I finally had a color I thought would work.

Here is a pic of the trooperbay color next to mine. So I went about applying the decals and noticed 2 things.

1) The decals (both mine and Trooperbays...they are the exact same size) are NOT a perfect fit on the Anovos bucket!

Very frustrating...but not as frustrating as issue number

2) The ink on the decals I made rubs off ever so slightly, even though the vinyl I got is meant to be printed on!

At this point I'm going to leave the decals I applied on, and either wait for someone more experienced to produce better decals, or provide someone else with my files to make proper ones. :/

 

Beyond that, the tube stripes have been applied using a #2 pencil as a spacer as is required by Centurion.

Also, I applied new black stripes to the ears using Anovos' provided waterside decals. These were super easy to put on and look fantastic. Anybody know how to make waterside decals?

 

And here are a few more pics:

Next up is painting the frown and vocoder once my humbrol paints come in!

 

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[T K[501st]]

Love seeing that you are going the ESB route! Looks very good so far. You might even think about leaving that yellow tape, looks pretty swag.

Edited March 1, 2016 by T K

[shaunpug[TK]]

Love seeing that you are going the ESB route! Looks very good so far. You might even think about leaving that yellow tape, looks pretty swag.

It looks hilarious.  Like yellow lipstick but on the outside haha

[ukswrath[Staff]]

He's got chapped lips 

[Haribon72[TK]]

Looking good Shaun!

[shaunpug[TK]]

Got my Humbrol paints in today as well as my brackets set from MrNostripes.

First coat done! I need to clean the vocoder up a bit. Before anyone asks about the frown, I'm basing my bucket on the purported ESB "MARK 2" helmet seen here:

It has the straight masked edges on the ends of the frown and covers the teeth and surrounding inside lip in black....similar to ROTJ.

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Looking good Shaun

 

Here's some friendly little DO advice, tube stripes are to be around a #2 pencil width from the face. As DO's we generally say if it's close it passes, unfortunately your's appear to be 1/2" away. Since you're shooting for Centurion you might as well address this now. Keep up the great work.

 

Here's a reference pic

Roughly what are the measurements of a #2pencil? I marked mine that way before I applied the stripes...the helmet that I'm using as reference has the stripes far lower than mine.

Reference:

Mine:

 

 

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[ukswrath[Staff]]

Oops! scratch that for some stupid reason I glanced at the reference photo thinking it was yours with the finish frown. Looking at the most recent pic you're spot on brother, sorry if I gave you a heart attack lol 

[shaunpug[TK]]

Oops! scratch that for some stupid reason I glanced at the reference photo thinking it was yours with the finish frown. Looking at the most recent pic you spot on brother, sorry if I gave you a heart attack lol

Haha close one! I was about to drop everything and go and move them. I did have a very small heart attack haha. *whew*

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Looking at the satin finish, I can't help but feel like some of the original helmets were painted with flat (matt) black....what's the consensus on this?

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Second coat done! We're getting there folks!

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Paint = done!

 

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[Haribon72[TK]]

That looks sharp!

[shaunpug[TK]]

That looks sharp!

It better after how long it took me! Haha

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Here is proof showing how much the helmet has changed from the way it comes stock...

Gonna have to trim the end of the S-trim.

 

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[shaunpug[TK]]

Got the mesh in again, and added a couple dabs of glue to help the S-trim stay in place.

 

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[bpoodoo]

Looks good!  I believe the satin black used is correct.  It will look different according to external lighting and from differences in the light reflectance value of the paint itself.  Going with the MKII frown may hit a snag with respect to approval (I'm not in a position to say) since there's not a CRL specifically for this variant even though there are screen-used examples that match.  You might want to get DL/GML feedback.  Changing the CRL is a big deal, but sometimes exceptions have been allowed (e.g. 5 teeth instead of 4 for basic approval stunt ANH).

[shaunpug[TK]]

Looks good! I believe the satin black used is correct. It will look different according to external lighting and from differences in the light reflectance value of the paint itself. Going with the MKII frown may hit a snag with respect to approval (I'm not in a position to say) since there's not a CRL specifically for this variant even though there are screen-used examples that match. You might want to get DL/GML feedback. Changing the CRL is a big deal, but sometimes exceptions have been allowed (e.g. 5 teeth instead of 4 for basic approval stunt ANH).

Uh oh haha. I suppose I should have done a bit more research on this. Walter or Tony...do you guys have any input on this?

 

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[ukswrath[Staff]]

What's the question? Frown color or teeth count?

[shaunpug[TK]]

What's the question? Frown color or teeth count?

Frown style I guess would be the question...it's painted ROTJ style, but for a specific ESB helmet.

 

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[ukswrath[Staff]]

Let me get back to you on this

[shaunpug[TK]]

Let me get back to you on this

Thanks Tony.

 

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