Upgrading the Rebel persona: camouflaged helmet

Ever since completing it back in the summer of 2017, I was never fully satisfied with my Rebel ‘swoop’ helmet. My dissatisfaction wasn’t necessarily with the construction—despite being my first serious foray into Pepakura, I think I pretty closely nailed the shape and paintjob (accurate light gray, not white!)—but rather with its usefulness to a Rebel fighter….

As an exercise in experimental archeology, wearing a swoop helmet was very informative. You wouldn’t realize it until you put one on, but that swoop sticking out the back means about 2/3rds of the helmet’s length is behind you, which is really ungainly if you’re in a situation where you have to move your head side to side. Additionally, its hard, concave surfaces make sounds reverberate annoyingly – it’s like a wearable echo chamber. Finally, the helmet’s big smooth shape and bright gray color are useless as camouflage…at least if you’re anywhere outside of a polished starship hallway.
After keeping my eyes peeled in the intervening years for more camouflaged variations on the standard gray helmet, I found one in the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook (FFG, 2014) that was just what I was looking for:

Since the ‘donut’ helmet is my go-to rigid Rebel headwear anyway, I wanted to try repainting my swoop helmet in this style and see what it looked like. Since I had already removed the swoop a couple years ago (it had long before started to crack and warp), to avoid the mobility and ‘echo chamber’ side-effects, I would just be painting the helmet proper (though I’m sure including the swoop would really sell the effect).
As it was too cold to spraypaint outdoors, I just used acrylic craft paint (‘pewter gray’ and ‘mistletoe kiss’). As has become my new standard for painting by hand, I used three coats (the first two running perpendicular to each other and the third patted with a foam brush to hide brushstrokes) of gray followed by satin clearcoat. I then taped off the edging and painted on the green designs with three more coats, followed by a final satin clearcoat over everything. Pulling off the tape masks gave me some very interesting chipping patterns around the edges that would be hard to replicate otherwise. Originally I had some stripes that came out spaced unevenly that bugged me enough to repaint them (that’s what I get for not measuring), which looked much better, but it was still missing something…

Since the helmet is all smooth surfaces (plus one comm box), my original paintjob just wasn’t cutting it…the colors were still too bright, and I wanted to bring out as much detail as possible. Going over everything with my standard weathering materials gave it something approaching a proper level of partisan grubbiness we’ve come to expect.

Considering the Pepakura is starting to show its age, overall I am very pleased with the final result! Painting by hand instead of spraypainting was a nice bit of serendipity, since it meant my brushstrokes and masked edges just wound up adding extra texture in the weathering phase. I now know my decision to add weathering was definitely the right move: even if an extra step takes more time, if it helps to better achieve the correct ‘used universe’ look, it is time well spent!
So, how did I do? Let me know any thoughts or critiques you have in the comments below, or come discuss the partisan aesthetic in the SWLH facebook community! See you next week!

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