How to custom paint a Helmet

hey guys welcome back to homebuilt and this  week i thought i'd do something a bit different   and uh i think it's time to uh paint my helmet all right guys well um for those of you who  might not have known i actually spent um about   13 years as a professional airbrush artist  doing artwork on mostly cars and bikes and   and that sort of stuff i'll sort of flick  up some pictures here so you can sort of see   some of the stuff that i used to do and i  did it for quite some time before becoming a   firefighter which is my day job these days and  in my time i painted quite a few helmets and   that's the reason why i got myself a white helmet  because i didn't want uh uh somebody else to do   the uh the graphics on i wanted to do something  of my own and i've been meaning to get around this   for a while but it's uh it's finally time to start  making this thing look a little bit cooler and   that means the first thing i need to  do is start stripping it all down so   if you guys are interested in something a bit  different this week let's uh paint this helmet all right so i stripped um everything off the  outside i could i did leave the rubber around   the face just because on this particular helmet  it seems to be really strongly glued on and   yeah it was just going to be too difficult to  take it off so i've made sure i've got a nice   tight mask all around the edge i pulled the rubber  off around the bottom and a lot of the padding and   stuff out of the helmet and got it nicely sort  of sealed up so we can now start going around and   sanding it back so i'm going to hit this with some  800 grit wet and dry sandpaper and get all of the   gloss off of the whole helmet make sure it's nice  and sort of matte finish so the paint will stick   all right so my helmet now is all sanded back  and i've cleaned it all up i've got nice clean   hands nice clean workspace so i can start  masking up the basic design of the helmet now   i went through i did a bunch of different sketches  of different designs to sort of get a rough idea   of what i want to do there's ultimately though  the it comes down to sort of i like to work when   i actually see it it's hard to design a 2d helmet  design on this very very three-dimensional shape   it's very difficult masking out helmets because  there are so many complex curves take you through   roughly what i'm doing now once i start laying  the masking on it will it will start getting a bit   more complicated um particularly when you start  masking up multiple colors um you really need   to have a clear idea at the start where you want  to go because um when you're masking over one and   the other it gets very confusing very quick but  uh so here i went through and i've actually got um   you can't really see it here very well but uh i  went down to my local signwriter and got him to   cut out my my home built logo and also uh my name  that i want on the sides of the helmet either side   i got it cut out this is masking film so it's  not normal vinyl normal vinyl the issue you have   is that often when you paint over it it leaves  gum behind and it's very difficult to get it off   this stuff is a very low tack and after painting  over it you can generally peel it off and it will   it will come off reasonably easily and  not leave a residue so i recommend getting   getting your stuff made out of  masking film if you can get that so to start with i think i need to start laying  on my my name and my logo exactly where i want   it and then i'll start taking you through how  i'm going to sort of design this whole thing up all right so here is my basic design  uh to start with there is more to come   but this is the sort of the main mast areas that  i want to cover now i spent a lot of time getting   it nice and symmetrical it's not 100 but it's  pretty good it's very difficult with free hand   masking all this stuff to get it perfect it's  all a matter of just going by eye so you can see   that's my home built logo on the back i've got my  name jeff on either side i will have my surname   here as well which i'll put on later so this  is the basic shape now i'll run you through now   just a little couple of little tips i've got on  how i trim these bits so as you can see you can   see how some of these designs sort of overlap each  other you might have seen in that time lapse there   me sort of trimming out the centers of these  bits and the way i get these sharp corners   if i want to make a sharp corner it's going  to be hard on this box i'll cross over   i'll cross over my pinstripe tape and the easy way  to do it is to use the top piece and run my blade along the top edge of the top piece peel that bit off as long as you cut  it through enough to try not to cut   the helmet underneath peel that bit off  and you've got a nice sharp line there   and then you just need to cut this one through  the middle somewhere and peel off the top bit   and there's your nice sharp point and that's  how i did uh all of the points on this to get   that basic shape what i want to go through  now is i need to mask up the entire helmet   except for these bits here so i can start painting   my base colors on the helmet you could paint  the entire thing in one color first and then   mask it up and so you only have to mask that  part once it's just because of the types   of paint i'm using in this particular example  it's it's going to give me a better result if   i don't mask over the top of it because of the  thickness of the paint or the second color so   yeah bear with me but i'm going to go through  now and just start quickly masking out or   quickly it's very very time consuming but mask  out the entire helmet ready for the first color   and here you can see i have my helmet masked up  ready for the first coat so this is uh the entire   area that i'm going to paint here is all going to  be going in blue so i'm actually going to use the   blue of uh the 680g i really love that color so  i want to have a little bit of that on the helmet   so let's get out the spray gun  and give it a bit of a blast all right sorry about the noise of  the booth in the background but um   what i've got on this color the color that i  used on the 680 g on my datsun 240z um it's   actually a three layer color so it had a metallic  blue that you've seen me just uh paint on it then   and then it's got this which is almost like a  candy apple so it's almost like a transparent blue   you see that you see how you can see the the color  through that you spray over the top it's got some   pearls and stuff in it so it's a three layer  color it gives it more depth now i'm going to   get that ready to paint over the top but before  i do that i'm going to go in with the airbrush   and i'm going to do some highlights and shadows  on those pieces that i've just painted so that it it just it'll give it a little bit of a little  bit of a pop um it's probably going to be harder   to see it while i'm painting it here but once  it's unmasked it'll all become clear so uh   let's go in now and do a bit of airbrushing  all right so i'm going to go through now with   the uh airbrush and i'm gonna just do  some of the highlights on these shapes   and i'm gonna do them sort of to make them  look like they've sort of got a bit of   shape and this face okay so i wanna make  them look like they're slightly concave   so i'm gonna put highlights on the bottom edges  and shadows on the top edges to sort of give them   this bit of a sort of a negative concave shape  onto the uh onto the helmet um it'll make a little   bit more sense as i go um i thin the paint out  very very thin uh for the airbrush but i still use   the same automotive paint that i've been using a  few drops in the airbrush and um for those of you   haven't seen this before basically you just press  the button down for air pull it back for paint the   more you pull it back the more paint you get and  that means that i can do a a very fine little line or a uh a big cloud depending on where i'm placing  the the airbrush so let's do some highlights so i actually realized that i messed up  slightly and i've missed a little piece of this   that i haven't unmasked so what i'm going  to do is i'm going to cut it open now   and blow in the blue color with the airbrush  to to make sure that uh it matches up   it's uh it's these little things that catch  you out very easily when painting helmets all right so i've let the paint dry up overnight  and now i'm gonna unmask the other areas and then   mask over the top of the bits that i've already  painted and get ready to go with the second color all right so you can see here that i've masked  up uh back over all the bits that i wanted uh   covered that i just painted in the blue i  still have the my logo on the back there   and everything else masked up ready to go  for the color now the main color of this   helmet i want to match in with harry so i am  going with harry's orange but uh with a twist   so um you'll see it as i go through  it but i'm going to start by blending   doing most of an orange but blend  it through the yellow on the front all right so now i have my basic uh orange  through the yellow blend which looks good but   that is not the entire plant so the reason  i did this is because i want to actually   airbrush uh fire onto this so not flames  in the whole old school hot rod type   flames and i'm talking more real-ish looking fire  uh so flying from the front front through to the   back um i like that look i think it blends well  onto the with these colors so um i'm going to   start with some yellow in the airbrush and what  i do is i like to sort of i build it up and i   just freehand it all there's different methods of  doing it i've always done it just as a freehand all right so i think that looks pretty  good for the time being i think that   is my flames done a nice neat effect over the  entire helmet which i think will give it a   a nice pop so now it's time  to mask up for my final color all right so you're probably wondering what  i've done here and basically what i've done   is i've masked out a whole bunch of tape lines  on here but there is a reason for this this is   the same method i used on harry to get the  gt stripes on him to get it all even i like   laying tape right next to each other  so you get a perfectly even line   all the way all the way through and if i go  through now and i take off some of the bits   it'll leave me the areas that i want masked  and i will be able to paint perfect gt stripes yeah nice even gt stripes ready for some paint so now is the fun bit i have to go through and  unmask the the whole thing and see what it looks   like and then there's going to be some little  bits and pieces of blow through there always is   that i have to go around and tidy up so  there's still a little bit more to go but   i'm really liking the look of it  so far it's really coming together well that is a pretty cool helmet i think i am  really happy with that design i think it uh it   really works but there are a few little bits and  pieces where i need to go through and fix it up   like i was mentioning i don't know if you can  see in there there's just a little bit just a   little bit of overspray in in a few spots around  the helmet that just aren't quite neat enough   so i'm going to go through now i take the  um the razor blade and see how much i can   just scrape back the edges because most of it's  on the white so if i can just pair it back just   really lightly and see if i can sort of square it  all up straighten it up and get it ready to paint   but i am i'm over the moon that's exactly what i  wanted um it's how i envisioned it it's uh yeah   it's a really cool design it's got the uh the home  built logo on the back that's gonna do the job all right and that's the last thing it's  hard to read there but uh that is my   signature and the year mmxxis 2021   uh which i always put in the shadows of my  artwork so that is done and ready to clear   i am stoked with how good this looks it  really came out the way i wanted it to   and yeah i may go back and give it a second  clear coat at a later stage uh just to stand   it all back get rid of any uh build up on the  edges and stuff but that is that's done that is   a uh a nicely painted helmet all right and  that is it um it's been uh quite some time   since i've done any airbrushing and that was  a lot of fun um yeah i really enjoyed doing it   again uh probably seven or eight years ago now  is when i stopped airbrushing professionally   and uh yeah it's it's nice to sort of just dip  my toe back in the water every now and then um   i'm quite happy with the results hopefully that  was something a bit different for you guys to uh   to see and uh it's gonna look a lot better  on track having a nicely painted helmet   so um do all the things like subscribe and  i will see you on the next one see you guys so you

Channel: Home Built By Jeff

Views: 125,768

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Id: D08BG8gLATQ

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021