Star Lord helmet AND accessories!!! by Helagak!

[TechDante]

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started the build these pictures are taken from teh 3d print show london. teh eye grills have a really small mesh over the front of them i noticed when i was looking at it

 

[runeblade48]

I didn't use a head cast to build it on, though I suppose it's a possibility.

You can also check out JFCustom's Star-Lord foam unfold. His is simpler than Helagak's (at the cost of not being as accurate). It might be a better build to start with for your first attempt.
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=148889&page=85&p=3272551&viewfull=1#post3272551

My original thank you reply never posted :/ Anyway I had said thanks for the other pdo link. I am using that one minus the top of the helmet for my first build. (I still want the open head like in the movie) I will use Helagak's as a reference for painting and etching. I slightly moded the other one with some connect disconnects to have the back head pieces align slightly more with helagak's as well. I found a foam head for displaying wigs at Hobby lobby for $5 and according to a hat lol it matches my head size so I will use it to build on. If it works out I will post pics here and give thanks to all. What are people using for the small pipes along the side of the mask. Both pdo files don't have them as foam. One video I saw the guy used pens. I think another used kabobs. Any other ideas?

 

[Yrien]

My original thank you reply never posted :/ Anyway I had said thanks for the other pdo link. I am using that one minus the top of the helmet for my first build. (I still want the open head like in the movie) I will use Helagak's as a reference for painting and etching. I slightly moded the other one with some connect disconnects to have the back head pieces align slightly more with helagak's as well. I found a foam head for displaying wigs at Hobby lobby for $5 and according to a hat lol it matches my head size so I will use it to build on. If it works out I will post pics here and give thanks to all. What are people using for the small pipes along the side of the mask. Both pdo files don't have them as foam. One video I saw the guy used pens. I think another used kabobs. Any other ideas?

That's exactly what I did - I just didn't bother printing out the top of the helmet. Now that I've done JFCustom's, I'm considering tacking Helagak's next (since I didn't take into account the thickness of the foam and the JFCustom helmet ended up slightly too small for me!). Good luck with your build!

I ended up using some black plastic braided tubing that I found at a craft store (the same sort of stuff used for cyberlox) and the white rubber end caps that are used on the cut ends of wire shelving (painted the same colour as my helmet).

 

[runeblade48]

I was wondering about the order of gluing and painting. Does this really matter? I was thinking of doing the majority of my gluing first then painting, but for detail pieces I was wanting to paint them separately and add them after the fact.

 

[Yrien]

I was wondering about the order of gluing and painting. Does this really matter? I was thinking of doing the majority of my gluing first then painting, but for detail pieces I was wanting to paint them separately and add them after the fact.

I painted the helmet first, then the detail pieces, then glued them to the helmet. The problem I had is that the glue-to-paint bond was stronger than the paint-to-foam bond, and the glue pulled the paint up in a few places and my detail pieces came loose. I nearly lost one of my lenses (thankfully the con had a costume repair room so I was able to glue it back on!), and a couple of the bendy straws that I used for the "tubes" came off as well (but again, it was fixable in the short term). I'm really not sure how to improve that long-term, aside from just sucking it up and gluing everything (even the tubes and lenses) before sealing and painting the foam. It would make it harder to paint some of the small details (and you'd have to be careful not to paint over the lenses!), but hopefully it would mean the detail pieces wouldn't come unstuck!

That said, my helmet did (mostly) hold up for a full Saturday (the busiest day), even with getting bumped into a few times, and being constantly put on and taken off (since I couldn't see well enough out of my lenses to wear it while walking around), so your mileage may vary. You may just have to do some repair work during the day, or after the con is over.

 

[runeblade48]

I painted the helmet first, then the detail pieces, then glued them to the helmet. The problem I had is that the glue-to-paint bond was stronger than the paint-to-foam bond, and the glue pulled the paint up in a few places and my detail pieces came loose. I nearly lost one of my lenses (thankfully the con had a costume repair room so I was able to glue it back on!), and a couple of the bendy straws that I used for the "tubes" came off as well (but again, it was fixable in the short term). I'm really not sure how to improve that long-term, aside from just sucking it up and gluing everything (even the tubes and lenses) before sealing and painting the foam. It would make it harder to paint some of the small details (and you'd have to be careful not to paint over the lenses!), but hopefully it would mean the detail pieces wouldn't come unstuck!

That said, my helmet did (mostly) hold up for a full Saturday (the busiest day), even with getting bumped into a few times, and being constantly put on and taken off (since I couldn't see well enough out of my lenses to wear it while walking around), so your mileage may vary. You may just have to do some repair work during the day, or after the con is over.

Very good points. My foam is black so I think I could go w/o painting the inside of the eye sockets. I can tap them over during the painting process so I have legit foam to glue them on. Based on what you said I will add my details before painting. I will try the tape method I have seen online. Basically you paint your smaller details first, let the paint dry, put masking tape over them cutting off any excess, then paint the next section. You repeat until all sections are done and then unwrap. I saw a video of this with a star lord helmet and the end result looked good. I have a feeling the taping will be tedious though.

 

[ScarletSpeedstr]

If you get around to it sometime soon please share some pics.

I'm embarrassed to say that I've all but abandoned this in favor of a cast. It wasn't looking as great as I had hoped and so I decided it was best to go with something I knew I liked in order to commit to finishing the rest of the costume.

 

[Yrien]

Very good points. My foam is black so I think I could go w/o painting the inside of the eye sockets. I can tap them over during the painting process so I have legit foam to glue them on. Based on what you said I will add my details before painting. I will try the tape method I have seen online. Basically you paint your smaller details first, let the paint dry, put masking tape over them cutting off any excess, then paint the next section. You repeat until all sections are done and then unwrap. I saw a video of this with a star lord helmet and the end result looked good. I have a feeling the taping will be tedious though.

Do a test with your tape first - I was going to try that on part of the helmet and it peeled up the glue that I sealed it with, so I didn't bother to try with the paint.

 

[morgendonner]

Not sure if anyone cares, but figured I'd share my progress here in case it's useful to anybody. I made mine with the cardstock files. I didn't have to scale because fortunately I evidently have the same head size. Just got my first coat of primer on it last night, so tonight I'll be sanding it again and body filling again. Hopefully it won't take too many rinse & repeat cycles.

 

[TechDante]

my buld so far i found i had to file out little groves for the pipes on the front of the mask that join the mouth cover to the eye section but other than that it fits reasonably well together.
printed on a duplicator 4 with .1mm layer height and 15% fill and 3 shells

 

[skibble]

First I've never used a 3d printer for a mask but I've been looking for a 'good guy' for a while. I've inquired at a local printer for quotes on the 3d print version of the mesh. Their comment was that the mesh had some holes in it and that it was knife edge thin. Not to worried about the holes as bog will fix those but the thinness has me worried for when i coat and sand it. Any comments from people who have printed it already?

 

[Daniel Nelms]

Not that I've seen. I've printed three of those and not had a problem.

 

[Kevin Gossett]

I printed the whole helmet, as you can see in previous posts, abs didn't have any problems. Certainly not "knife edge thin"

 

[Ein]

Likewise, I've printed Helagak's original model, observed some structurally weak spots, but nothing resembling a 'knife edge thin' description. The only thing I can think of is you somehow gave them the pep model instead.

 

[Agent Everfree]

So is there a copy of the paper-craft version of Star lords helmet as the only once I've found are a complete mess
and I have seen that people have them. I would be very grateful if anyone can help.

 

[Ein]

Apparently I double posted. Woops!

 

[Ein]

hey Ein, go right ahead. I have been busy with IRL stuff. so i havent messed with this much at all. post the files and i will link to them on the OP.

Just following up on this, but I posted my revisions to your files in the OP of my progress thread for people to download.

This model is a remix of @Helagak's original helmet. All credit should go to him, as without the helmet, I wouldn't have been motivated to even bother doing Star Lord stuff. I spent a few hours resizing, rescaling, and revising parts of the helmet to bring it more in line with the screen version. The biggest changes happened on the front and back of the helmet. The front was flattened out and re-proportioned to eliminate the large amount of curvature on @Helagak's original helmet's front plate. The back of the helmet was curved outward to leave more room for the wearer's head, and the nape of the neck on the helmet was moved up a substantial amount. This change reduced screen accuracy a bit, but also made the helmet substantially easier to get on and off as a single piece, since the opening in the bottom of the helmet was made a bit bigger.

I also incorporated @Jonny's revised cheek parts that removed the pipes on the cheek plates because they were repeatedly not printing very well for me, and I figured I could make something that'd fit in those slots just as easily by hand. They have been proportioned accordingly with the rest of the model. Likewise, I haven't actually printed the hose parts for the mask, but I'm pretty sure they're just as easy to make via other means than 3d printing. Do what you will.

This is designed to print at 100% - no rescaling is required. However, that scale is to fit my head, which I worked up by 3d scanning my noggin and referencing it against the model. I have a 23.5 inch head circumference and a prominent nose, and the mask fits me snugly - it's a bit of a process to slide on over my ears, but once on, has just enough space on all sides that a bit of padding for comfort makes it perfect.

A last note: this mask is not perfect by any means. I love Helagak's original model dearly, and I owe him a great debt for making it available in the first place, but there were some substantial problems with parts of the model. By way of example, the way my printer kept trying to slice the piping on the mouthpiece resulted in them repeatedly falling off, or needing filler applied to them from the inside of the mask to hold them in place properly. You will need to do some sanding/cutting/patching during assembly to get this thing to go together, but it's a very useful base all the same.

You can see how much more curved Helagak's faceplate was on the right side here:

 

[PrimoOptimoso]

Guys - question about the foam pdo from Helagak: I see in the unfold that all the pieces are basically cut from the outer surface of the mesh... What I can't quite figure out is, it looks like the pieces just barely butt up against each other's edges; are the pieces supposed to be mounted to a substrate sheet, or is there extra built into the pieces to allow for overlap? Even better question I guess - can anybody show some assembly shots of the foam in progress?

Thanks

 

[Yrien]

Guys - question about the foam pdo from Helagak: I see in the unfold that all the pieces are basically cut from the outer surface of the mesh... What I can't quite figure out is, it looks like the pieces just barely butt up against each other's edges; are the pieces supposed to be mounted to a substrate sheet, or is there extra built into the pieces to allow for overlap? Even better question I guess - can anybody show some assembly shots of the foam in progress?

Thanks

You should be able butt the foam pieces up against each other - are you using the floor mat foam? It should be close to half an inch thick, so you should be able to glue those edges together rather than needing to overlap them like you would with a thinner material.

I can post some pictures of the inside of my helmet tonight if you need them, but I won't be home until late (and may actually not be able to post until tomorrow, depending how late I get home).

 

[PrimoOptimoso]

You should be able butt the foam pieces up against each other - are you using the floor mat foam? It should be close to half an inch thick, so you should be able to glue those edges together rather than needing to overlap them like you would with a thinner material.

I can post some pictures of the inside of my helmet tonight if you need them, but I won't be home until late (and may actually not be able to post until tomorrow, depending how late I get home).

That makes sense in theory, but for instance taking the "eyes" piece and then adding the "eyebrow" above it, if both are made of floor mat foam and are the same thickness, is it just a matter of offsetting the eyebrow outward by however much looks good? By contrast, if I were building from scratch in my normal fashion, I'd have the eye piece and forehead piece joined as one and then lay the brow ridge on top of it.

Sorry for the dumb questions; even though I've been building in foam for quite awhile, I've never used a pep model at all for anything before.