Well now, this has been a mission and a half.
So, I wanted to enter this competition when it was first announced, as I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. Since I've been a kid I always loved the Brit-Cit judges in the Dredd stories. Their awesome, over the top armour, their silly helmets... all awesome.
I mean, you've got to be going some if you manage to look more over the top than having a gold eagle stuck to your shoulder, right?
So, I wanted to give a more real-world edge to the Brit Cit judges and make a modern, worn-in, roughed up helmet.
Alas, time, money and resources (and even the weather) conspired against me. I didn't even have the time to start the damn thing, let alone finish it for the due date.
Well, that was until this weekend. I suddenly had two spare days. Two days? Is that long enough? I didn't know if I would have any time after those two days, so I'd have to cram as much in as possible and hope for the best. So, here it is. TURBO-BUILD TIME!
I started with a god-awful £6 BMX helmet and some styrene. The helmet refused to stick to the styrene and because of the limited time, I bolted the damn thing on.
What a great start! *mutter*. So, having BOLTED the plastic to the helmet, I started to apply Body filler over the seams and holes. I then added the nose piece and filled that too:
I then sanded, added filler, sanded and added filler. Given this was over a few hours, I gummed up my sanding pads good, as the filler wasn't 100% cured. GO ME!
Then the madness took me. In my design I wanted to leave hints towards the current Police helmet (it's pretty tall), The Brit-Cit design (it's pretty flared and LIONS) and the new Dredd helmets (you can actually wear the damn thing). So... I uh... sprayed some foam on the helmet. Quite a bit of foam actually:
Holy mushroom head! After allowing it to cure overnight (I cut the first batch off after 3 hours to discover foamy goo inside. Good going me, again.) I then shaped the foam into a large mohawk/brow and applied more filler:
Man, was that ever hard to sand down, pointy nasty filler and foam that flexes even under a slight amount of pressure. Ugh.
Well, after three rapid layers of filler and a quick spray with Primer (even though there's a HELL of a lot more sanding to do) we have this:
And I just finished the sculpt for half of the headpiece (the other half is a badge that sits under it, with the mane hopefully flowing outwards over the mohawk:
So, now it's a mad dash to see if I can get the damned thing finished in time. Even if I don't, at least I gave it a shot
So, I wanted to enter this competition when it was first announced, as I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. Since I've been a kid I always loved the Brit-Cit judges in the Dredd stories. Their awesome, over the top armour, their silly helmets... all awesome.
I mean, you've got to be going some if you manage to look more over the top than having a gold eagle stuck to your shoulder, right?
So, I wanted to give a more real-world edge to the Brit Cit judges and make a modern, worn-in, roughed up helmet.
Alas, time, money and resources (and even the weather) conspired against me. I didn't even have the time to start the damn thing, let alone finish it for the due date.
Well, that was until this weekend. I suddenly had two spare days. Two days? Is that long enough? I didn't know if I would have any time after those two days, so I'd have to cram as much in as possible and hope for the best. So, here it is. TURBO-BUILD TIME!
I started with a god-awful £6 BMX helmet and some styrene. The helmet refused to stick to the styrene and because of the limited time, I bolted the damn thing on.
What a great start! *mutter*. So, having BOLTED the plastic to the helmet, I started to apply Body filler over the seams and holes. I then added the nose piece and filled that too:
I then sanded, added filler, sanded and added filler. Given this was over a few hours, I gummed up my sanding pads good, as the filler wasn't 100% cured. GO ME!
Then the madness took me. In my design I wanted to leave hints towards the current Police helmet (it's pretty tall), The Brit-Cit design (it's pretty flared and LIONS) and the new Dredd helmets (you can actually wear the damn thing). So... I uh... sprayed some foam on the helmet. Quite a bit of foam actually:
Holy mushroom head! After allowing it to cure overnight (I cut the first batch off after 3 hours to discover foamy goo inside. Good going me, again.) I then shaped the foam into a large mohawk/brow and applied more filler:
Man, was that ever hard to sand down, pointy nasty filler and foam that flexes even under a slight amount of pressure. Ugh.
Well, after three rapid layers of filler and a quick spray with Primer (even though there's a HELL of a lot more sanding to do) we have this:
And I just finished the sculpt for half of the headpiece (the other half is a badge that sits under it, with the mane hopefully flowing outwards over the mohawk:
So, now it's a mad dash to see if I can get the damned thing finished in time. Even if I don't, at least I gave it a shot
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