I was given the opportunity to do something that I haven't done in a very long time a few weeks ago. A mate of mine has been pestering me to paint a bike helmet for him, so last week I picked it up off him. I asked him what colour he wanted it, expecting him to say multi striped graphics or something like that, as thats what most modern helmets have these days. No, he said he wanted a Welsh theme as he's from just outside Cardiff. mmmm, maybe it was time to do a mural or two.........
He had no idea of what he wanted, or what colour, he just said "I'll leave it up to you"........................ SUCKER !!!! :pmsl::pmsl:
Anyway, here's a few pics of what I've done so far. I'm actually in the middle of waiting for the lacquer to dry, whilst I'm typing this, so's I can give it another coat.
This is how the helmet was, your typical SHOEI.
I flatted it down & gave it a coat of epoxy primer, followed by some hi-build & then flatted down for the base colour.
It was then sprayed a base white, followed by a pearl white, that changes colour to silvers & golds as the flip tone changes
The bottom was then painted a pearl green with an 1/8th inch pinstripe around it. On top of this I then faded in some "scales" to give it detail
The scales...
That was then followed by masking out a dragon, here's a pic of it having been cut out & in base silver. I thought it was trick to have the Dragon holding a Welsh flag :pmsl:. The paints are all candy colours, being reds & oranges
Here's the finished thing
At that point I was going to just lacquer it & call it job done, but then I got to thinking,.......what if the front had a dragons skull on it??? That'd be cool........
So, I masked it up to look as if a dragon was wearing the helmet.....
That was then given a silver base & some basic datum points added in a light coat of black. The area around the eyes was then picked out & detailed.
I the proceeded to put all of the scales & high & low lights on in black
Rather than just having a head full of scales I added some bone structure down the centre.
That was then followed by various candy colours to bring it all to life
I'd decided to make the dragon lookas if he had a big grin on his face as if he were really enjoying screwing the nuts off "his" bike. I figured that it'd look good if his tongue was "drooling" around the side of the helmet. So I then masked that ready to be cut out.
Cutting out the details
Having sprayed the open mouth black, I added some red, orange & purple candies to it to give it some feeling.
The tongue was next up to be sprayed
Then the teeth were unmasked & painted various "dirty" shades with cracks on them
Here's the teeth & tongue unmasked
The helmet had vents on the front of it, so I painted them in red, orange & purple candies to look like eyes
.here's a couple of pics as it was this morning prior to being lacquered
I put a drop shadow under the tongue, so that it gives it a 3D effect of being raised above the helmet
Well, another coat of lacquer & it's done. I'll leave it for a while to cure fully & then flat & buff it up. Once it's done I'll post up the end results. All in all it was like being back in the '70's again, as I've not done anything like this for a very long time, but must admit it was great fun. Hope you like it
cheers....Nige
... How long do you think it took, excluding drying time ?
Cracking job though... 
