Elumusic

I think it is a good evolution of the original. And I am getting into the 3D printing aspect of these helmets to make molds from. We are building a large format 3D printer as I type this, So as soon as I see the full set of armor and final version of the helmet, I am totally making a helmet suit on a 3D printer and figuring a way to do this. So cool! And I love the bubble lenses.

woo hoo! nice build. I haven't even gotten around to doing a helmet for myself and here you got it all done. I'm book marking this one for when I finally get to do mine.

I use aluminum screen material from Home Depot and from what I have seen and heard it works fine. Others here seem to be using the aluminum as well. But the stainless steel mesh is the beefy stuff you see on many tips. And I do not know the gauge they are ordering. Hopefully someone will chime in as to the gauge if you want the sturdier screen.

Thanks. I am finishing up my second helmet today and shipping it off to Alabama. I haven't even made one for myself yet.

Thanks Mark!

Some finished pics!

Final Pics!!! and I posted it for sale in the sale area.

Sorry all. I've been lazy with the photos. The eye lenses I ordered took 3 days longer than they were supposed to to arrive. They didn't get here until Tuesday of this week. So I finished up the painting and I will get some more pictures tonight and I epoxied some screw posts for the eye lenses. Final assembly by this weekend and then it goes up for sale.

I remember that size was my biggest worry. I ordered an AM helmet to see if mine was similar and size and I am happy to say it is a tad smaller than the AM helmet. Which it should be.

That's the DVH thread I followed as well. Attaching the skull cap is daunting. I used magnets to hold it together while the glue dried. And keep this in the back of your mind, the skull cap and back of the helmet is not symmetrical. They will not line up perfectly so you need to find a happy median. And then of course make sure the glue is far enough away from the seam that it doesn't ooze into the visible areas.

Yeah...I looked at those bumps numerous times and then looked at the original molds from the movies and said screw it. lol. It's got a few bumps. I thought about drilling out the problem areas because it's the figerglass resin reacting to the heat of the plastic. And then filling it and re-sanding it. Maybe for a rainy day.

looking good.

No kids yet. But you can look up Walt. He does kid buckets.

Here are some painting progress photos of the helmet.

Painting update. Yesterday I was able to start painting my BX helmet. It's starting to look like the part. Here are some more photos.

Weekend Update. Sprayed the HIPS with a glossy clear coat, did a little buffing. It looks awesome! Worked the eye molds and have 8 pairs of plaster casts of my negatives ready for the vacuum table. And got the tube stripe templates ready for painting. It looks like I will get 10 stripes per side.

Finished up the eye molds yesterday evening. I had to redo a few things after I cut the eyes out of the helmet and found they needed to be a little bit more contoured. They are ready to go. I also made a few more tweaks to the helmet. Filled a few holes that showed through the HIPS and got a few bumps out of the way. If things go well this weekend with my schedule I am hoping to get a new negative mold of the eyes with HIPS and then pour a crap ton of plaster copies so I can make a whole sheet of eyes in one pull. I'm hoping the smoked acrylic plays nice with the plaster eye molds.

I wish I saw this earlier...lol. This is perfect. Thanks!

Not a lot of time this weekend, however I managed to assemble the helmet and am ready for paint. I used screws on the sides to secure the helmet to the face. Trimmed the ear buds. This took a really long time. Dry fit.... Ear Buds and final assembly.

Couldn't have done it without your help Vern...thanks.

I'll keep you in the loop on my progress.

I built one successfully. Nothing is symmetrical on the helmet and I also don't care for the seam on the back, but the quality is great. And based on my own mold and vacuum forming process I can understand the three piece design. It keeps the plastic nice and thick and easy to pull off the molds.

Next steps I need to take are getting the eye molds to pull with smoked acrylic and getting my mic tip molds ready to go. You can see the eye mold process on my Albuquerque stormtrooper mold thread. I'm still working through a few things. I received the paint for the helmet in the mail a couple of days ago.

Round two...trimming up the HIPS. This part freaks me out a little. But it came out pretty good. Just like everyone else that has done a build I trimmed out the eyes and teeth the a dremel tool and cleaned up all the edges and made the proper cuts to the helmet as well. A rough trim first just to get it manageable. Next the eyes and mouth. Eyes and teeth trimmed out with the dremel. Helmet cut to shape ready to fit to the face. Here is how it fits together. I added the brow rubber to get a better idea. And another angle.

Hey everyone. I am starting a new thread to follow the Albuquerque Storm Trooper Mold thread I did. If you want to see the creation of the molds please check it out. A special thanks to Walt, Vern, and Mark for their valuable input on the mold making and vacuum table process. I am coining my new helmet as a BX helmet. Why you say? Well, I am a retiring from a semi professional music career and have recently been working on artwork and other art related projects under the name of Squeeze Box Designs. Based on a premis of Dia de los Muertos, or day of the dead art. This helmet is a result of that project and although most of the helmets I turn out will be artistic sculpts based on day of the dead art, I am going to also turn out a few movie style helmets for friends and family who have expressed in interest in having one. This is an original helmet mold based on a pepekura sculpt and is very symmetrical, and very much idealized. It has some of the basic characteristics of the movie helmets in the fact that since it is a sculpted mold it is not perfectly smooth, but it is very close. This is my first helmet build with this new mold. Here is the helmet portion as it sits on the vacuum table ready to be pulled. This one is done in HIPS. I plan on hitting it with a glossy car paint clear coat after it is assembled and painted. This is the face and ear buds on the table ready to be pulled. Next it needs to be cut off the table and pulled from the molds. This is not an easy process. Lots of compressed air and time to pull it off without damaging the plastic.