One more time for the rebel pilot
May 5th, 2009OK, I’m obviously not doing this any more so I might as well shut this blog and my big mouth.
But, I got reminded by a comment that I never posted pictures of the finished rebel pilot costume and especially the helmet. So as a farewell I’m showing you the pictures from last years Halloween and the improved version from Fasching this spring.
First of all, the papermache took FOREVER to dry. I had to paint the helmet even though I could still feel the wet paper from the inside of the bike helmet. Second, I was running out of time, as always, so I didn’t spend any time on levelling the surface or sanding. So it looks very uneven in the pictures but it looks actually not quite so bad in reality, the camera flash accentuates the problem.
I put two coats of white paint on for this and after letting it dry, I painted the decorative stuff on it. I made a template for the Rebel Alliance sign, I think it turned out pretty well. I wanted to do more on the helmet but there was lots of other stuff (sewing! I hate sewing!) to be done so I left it at that.
Here is the little rebel pilot:
As you can see, with all the build up to get the helmet into a roundish shape, the helmet became too big! And it was also quite heavy as the inside was still wet, my son started to complain a bit on the Halloween tour.
For Fasching the helmet was finally dry and I improved the decorative paintings a bit and added all the black markings with a permanent felt pen.
So in retrospect I would say this:
- You need a helmet base, the bike helmet was good for that
- Don’t build it up to much, it will look silly
- Start way early! It took 12 weeks to completely dry this thing!
- If you started early you will have time to even out the surface with some filler, it will look much nicer after sanding and painting
Please tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with it now?
Anyway, that’s all folks!
Thanks for reading.


















