Move ALong Trooper helmet

When i got the helmet i wasnt sure what i was going to do with it but after getting it signed by Tony Forrest at C 13, i decided it was going to be a move along helmet.

This is how it arrived.






I thought the brow was going to be too low for a move along helmet so today i took off the ears and drilled out the rivets and moved the face plate down quite a bit and then drilled and re riveted it back together. These hdpe helmets are really soft and a couple of times i thought i was going to rip the whoe thing to pieces, slowly does it...

Before and after



Then i cut out the teeth and removed the rubber trim and its time for some paint

Anyways the first coat and a half of paint has gone on, i took a pic while it was still wet.

When you read in these threads that paint does not want to stick to this plastic i dont think you really realise how true that is. After the first really thin coat was dry i rubbed a small part with my thumb nail and the paint just came stright off

I will give it another coat tomoro and then see how were doing..

Ok i have 3 coats of paint on this now and its starting to look more like a trooper helmet. The khaki is quite hard to cover with white so i may put a final coat on. The good or bad news (depending on your point of view) is the paint no longer falls off at the slightest touch.
Here are some more wip pics for you good people...

Ok i have painted the frown, traps and vocoder and didnt really have the best time..

The paint didnt seem to want to play nicely today and i think more went on me than on this lid. The grey seemed rather thin and watery today maybe it was the high heat i dont know. Anyway the right ear had to come off to fully paint the trap and what a fun job that was. Trying not to peel off all the paint was a job in its self but never mind...

I re-did the grey traps and i put on the black out lines. Then i painted the mesh on the hovi mic tips black as can be seen in the pics of the real move along helmet courtesy of jez at starwarshelmets dot com. Whether this was post or pre production is anyones guess, but its what i ran with.

They were then inserted as wonkily as i could manage and on with the tube stripes. I must admit i wish i was man enough to try these free hand with paint and a brush but im not to trooper decals will do for now...

Getting the rubber brow trim on was a real hard job as since i re-positioned the back and cap this has become quite tight. The neck trim was quite easy which im glad about.

So here we are, not quite a perfect replica and im not quite finished either, but this is my version of the move along trooper lid :D

Oh i nearly forgot a couple of pics of the lid being signed my Tony Forrest, the move along trooper himself..

Looks pretty good! I just managed to snag one of those TE HDPE lids on the RPF, should be here soon. Guess I'll start a WIP thread on here once it arrives

That is very cool Mark.

Is this genuine HDPE?

Genuine high density polyurethane plastic

Seemingly from TE. I'm confused. I know you don't deal with TE.

It's true I've had several transactions with TE, this was one before it went sour. Nowadays I recommend people do not deal with him at all - I'm trying to recall how long I waited for this to arrive....

I remember now;

This was my first purchase from TE and went smoothly, payment to delivery time was a couple of weeks.

Then I purchased an ABS helmet and waited 7 months - not good

Then a year or so later I purchased 2 Jedi lids and waited - 10 months for them to arrive and 1 was not even what I'd paid for.

So the moral of the story is - avoid him like the plague. There are better products out there from better prop makers with better reputations.

Quote :

"So the moral of the story is - avoid [TE] like the plague. There are better products out there from better prop makers with better reputations."

[Like]

I'm with you now, Mark. I just thought this was a current venture.

What did Terry think of the helmet? If I'm correct he was asked at the last minute to do the Sandtrooper as Alex guiness wanted an Actor to play against rather than an extra and is now an icon as a result.

I got my TE HDPE lid today. Spent most of the evening stripping the remaining old paint, trimming a little here and there and re-assembling it.

Here's a sneak peak, I'll make a WIP thread once I will actually work on finishing it

Can't see the pic Dan.

weird, it's working fine for me - maybe there was a server problem earlier?

I can see them

I'll have better pics up in a bit

I can see them now- must have been a server issue last night.