well THAT was more difficult than it needed to be. making the initial textures was fine but i had to do some MAJOR fiddling to get the UV map to line up right. the problem i have is that when i am stuck with a problem that stumps me and ruins my workflow, i dig my heals in a barrel on through until i hammer the problem into submission.

this is the pristine base helmet with no damage or character to it and aside from creating major damage to it in other morphs i would just use this for my drawings and paint all the other details in later. but i have a feeling many of you will want the extra details too