Star Trek Police Mask

[Pennsylvanian]

Hi everybody. I'm going to make this:

This is the only other image I found for reference via Google search:

Kinda repetitive, I know, but those insets are concept art from the film's preproduction.

I looked around the forums, and all I saw were posts with people saying they wanted to make it, but were "uncomfortable" proceeding with the limited amount of reference material. I also saw Fierfek had a pepakura file for this mask up for sale in this thread, but I'm flat broke. So I figured I'd take a crack at it myself. I can't afford any new stuff, so I'm doing this all with supplies I already have. This is also a nice opportunity to stop working on the large scale Risk board that's been taking up all my time recently. I'm a little burnt out on that project as it is.

Anyway, on to progress pics:

As you can see, I'm using leftover cardboard from IKEA. Not exactly the best material to work in, and in retrospect, I should have used an old Pabst box or something. Whatever, sometimes I just want to see results, and rush things. One of my many faults. Also, I can always redo it.

In order to get the measurements, I used a flexible metal ruler and measured my own face. I also used some picture of anatomical proportions from a Google image search in order to figure out exactly what should be where. I'm glad you weren't in my basement, as I must have looked ridiculous wrapping an eighteen inch ruler around my head ala Geordi La Forge.

Similar to the other, but because of the light and the pencil, I wanted to make sure you could see. I first measured out the distance from the tip of one ear to the other, drew the two circles, and went from there. My measurements are far from precise, and my lines are far from straight, but seeing as how I free hand drew most of it, I'm not too displeased with how it came out. As you can see, it still needs a lot of the small detail stuff, but for right now it's workable. Also, I should have mentioned that my preferred way of doing something like this would have been to sculpt it on a bust and make a mold, but as I lack a bust, modeling clay, and mold making materials at the current moment, a piece of Swedish cardboard will have to do. For now.

I cut out the eye slot so I could try the mask on and see what the proportions were like. Fairly close. At current moment, it stands just shy of nine inches tall. Maybe I have a large head. I figure once the forehead area has been curved back and the lower section of the chin area has been added, it'll be a fairly snug fit. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. This is the first mask I've made by this method.

I mostly posted this pic so you could see some scale. Also, so you could see the horrible quality of the blown up greyscale images I'm basing this on. Also, I have not been able to find any image of the left side of the mask. Will make that up when I come to it.

As you can see, I had to add extensions on either side for areas of the mask I didn't account for originally. Yet another lesson in taking my time. I cut out the breathing apparatus, as I will henceforth call it, using an Exacto and a circle cutting compass. I'm just making this up as I go, so if that was a mistake, I'll know soon enough. I also marked out areas on the right cheek to cut, and started in on that in order to start building the mask's dimensions out.

Which brings us to where we are now. I've started working on getting the deeper more dimensional parts of the mask to the correct shape. I know painter's tape is ugly, but it's also temporary and it allows me to make changes on the fly. It'll also allow the mask to fall apart on the fly. Fun.

A slightly better image of the work I've done in the past hour or so. Still a long way to go.

Also, to clear some things up before people start to ask me about them:

This mask will by no means be even close to screen accurate. I'm going to try to make it close, but I'm doing this all on the fly.

I will eventually be doing the resin and bondo method, should the mask come out half decent. If not, I will rebuild from scratch. If I get it to bondo stage, I will be making a mold and casting. If I get to casting, which I have never done before, we'll address a run then.

Otherwise, I'm just happy to finally be contributing something to the community I've already taken so much from. I'm so grateful for everything you folks have done to inspire me. I will try to provide updates on this project as frequently as possible. If I get frustrated with this, though, I will go back to working on my Risk board. I'd like to get it finished, as it has already eaten up entirely too much of my time. Either way, I'll have a finished project at some point, and will be sure to share it with you. Thanks for looking.

Al

 

[SofaKing01]

great work so far! I always thought that was a great design

 

[Monster Dave]

Hey! Nice job!! Actually, I never realized there was a visor on that helmet!! I just thought it was the shape. So you taught me something!! Thanks!!

 

[Alan Castillo]

I have a feeling that the end result here is going to be astonishing ! Kudos on the chosen materials. There is nothing better I like to see than art being made out of rubbish :thumbsup

 

[epilepticsquirl]

If I had one of those I'd be going around asking, "citizen, what is your name?"
I swear, one of the most polite motor cop I've seen in a movie :lol
Looking forward to the end result!

 

[Caveneau]

Definitely looks like you know what you're doing.
Please keep posting those progress shots.
thumbsup

 

[chuckyAPP]

Looks great, what are you going to use as greeblies? Looks like you may be able to canabalize some old cameras perhaps to get those lenses. Really cool build, looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Pennsylvanian]

Thanks for all of the encouragement! It's nice to know that you guys want to see the outcome of this as much as I do. I couldn't sleep tonight, so I figured I'd get to work. I'm sure my wife will be pleased that I'm not in bed. Sarcasm.

Here we go:

I started working on the breathing apparatus earlier today. Figured out the depth at which I'd have to mount it in order to have it even out with the bottom of the nose plate, and stacked up cardboard accordingly. As far as greeblies go, I don't know yet. Depends on what I can find. I was planning on making the BA and maybe the recessed left cheek (coming up in another pic) on a separate backing piece that could be cast differently in order to capture the finer details more easily. You'll see how that turns out.

This shows the backplate. Unfortunately for me, I failed to take in to account the fact that the mask is curved. Stupid mistake. I glued the BA and the cheek piece (the piece that says Keep! on it) to the backplate without even thinking about it. Needless to say, when I went to test fit it, things didn't exactly line up. Had to cut it into two pieces. Duh. Curves.

Here you can see the pieces glued to the backplate. One of these days, I'll learn. You can also see the blocks I made and glued in place to space the backplate properly. These didn't work out either. Had to pull them off. You'll see why in the next pic.

Nose plate cut and glued in. It has a bevel done with sandpaper at the top. It's also angled out at the top to account for the visor linery bit. That's coming soon. As you can see, the nose plate adds more thickness. So my original BA spacing fell through. Again, duh. You'll also note that I cut the right cheek and recessed it in order to get the proper angles in the long run. Hopefully.

Test fitting the BA. Works and looks a lot better without the spacers. We'll see what happens when I actually get around to gluing it together.

Now for the fun stuff:

At this point, there's more tape than mask. I ran out of super glue. Irritating, but probably for the best. There's still a lot of work to do, but for a first test fitting, it's not looking nearly as horrific as I thought it would. Pretty rough, but overall not too bad.

Slightly better lighting. And blurrier photography. What do you want from me at seven in the morning. Besides, my fingers hurt a bit from trying to squeeze the last drops of super glue out of that tiny metal tube.

Better shot of the breathing apparatus. Still far from complete. You can also see the sharper cut ins on the cheeks much better. And a lot of blue tape. In fact, mostly blue tape.

Left side detail. Gives you a better idea of what's happening with that recessed cheek plate. Something. I don't know yet. That crude circle on it is where the filter disc thing will be mounted. Still have to do that too. Every time I look at this thing, I see something else I have to do.

Right side detail. Looks like crinkle cut fries and blue tape to me. I promise it'll get better.

chucky, the camera idea is great. Will totally depend on my budget when I reach that stage, and what I can find. This build may get put on the back burner when I'm done building so that I can save the money to buy the right supplies and do it correctly (which I'm obviously very careful about).

I hesitated to put this many pictures in the thread, or even to start one at all, because I know how boring it is to watch a new guy build a pepakura model step by step. But, I also figured that I wasn't building a pepakura model, and that even though I'm just a new guy, this build might just be interesting enough to somebody that they'd want to watch the whole thing. To me, one of the best parts of this forum is being able to watch a build from concept to finished product, and to see each person's individual process. I have little to no actual experience doing this kind of thing, but thanks to all of you, I'm trying. I was at one point going to school for drawing and painting, but because I found this forum however long ago, I'm looking at going to school to do this type of work professionally. I think it's about the only thing I can ever see myself doing in the long run.

Sorry. It's late. Or is it early? Rambling. Short answer: I will definitely keep posting as I go, because it's not only nice to share and get feedback, it's nice to watch my own progress. Thanks again for the encouragement. More soon.

Al

 

[chuckyAPP]

Hey you can never post too many pics IMO. I love seeing wip builds.

 

[Pennsylvanian]

Thanks chucky. I love them too. And there are soooo many more coming.

 

[Caveneau]

I'm blown away by how good this looks already. Wow!

 

[Sundowner]

Coming along quite nicely

 

[Caveneau]

I'd like to try more working with cardboard. I'm really interested to see your next steps..
thumbsup

 

[Pennsylvanian]

I got more super glue.

This is the work I've done in the last two days. I've been fairly lazy.

I cut the top end of the mask (haphazardly), fit the mask on my face, and with a pencil marked out where I'd have to cut away in order to get the right curve. You can tell I don't plan ahead much. Super glued the cuts, taped them to dry, and then got to work on gluing in the rest of the pieces. I won't bore you with photos of a bunch of stuff you've already seen dry fitted.

Cut to an hour or so later:

Here you can see the mask mostly assembled. You can also see that I cut discs for the beginning of the visor holder and glued them in place. During assembly, I noticed just how off this thing really is. The biggest flaw visible in this photo is the dramatic difference in the jawlines. This gets slightly better, but in order to correct it completely, I'd have to tear the whole thing apart. At that point, I might as well start over. It's not like I don't have the time, I just want to see this one reach a finished stage first. I figure I'll finish this one and try my hand at making one via the bust/modeling method at some later point. This is my first real build, and already it's taught me quite a bit.

Here you can see the cut in on the left cheek. As I mentioned before, there are no reference photos of this area, so I'm just making it up. As it is, I think it's a bit dramatic, and I may tone it down a bit before I'm happy with it. However, even with the cut in as deep as it is, and all of the extraneous cardboard inside the mask, it's still wearable and comfortable.

Here you can see the fix to the jawline issue. The mask has also been tightened up a bit with a piece of scrap cardboard stretched across the back and taped in place, so it looks a bit longer. Not perfect, but it'll work.

At this point, I attached the chin piece. Between the chin plate and the curve at the forehead, the mask is beginning to hold shape fairly well.

Just for fun.

Here, I attached the rim around the eye slot. Did it in separate pieces for ease. Super glue dries too quick to be fiddling around with fitting a large piece like this. This also allowed me to force the mask to keep the same contour top and bottom.

The corner pieces for the viewing slot glued in. Looking rough, but at least there's no blue tape everywhere.

This brings us to where we are now. Finished up the rim, including the lens hole. In retrospect, cutting out the viewing slot was a mistake. It allowed the mask to warp, and it was not easy to get it to match up. Now, because of all of the stuff that was glued in before this, the view slot is actually kind of a sloped curve if looked at from above. There was no real way to fix it, short of tearing it all down, so I'll learn for the next one instead.

I also think that using cardboard is definitely not the easiest way to do this. It's too stiff, falls apart if cut into small pieces, sometimes absorbs the glue instead of bonding. Will probably not use this as a base again. At least not on something as complex.

Thanks for the encouragement. I greatly appreciate it. More to come.

Al

 

[Pennsylvanian]

Hi all. Been a minute.

Not a lot to post this time, no really major updates, but still some stuff.

I cut away some of the excess in the left cheek area in an effort to slim the mask down a bit and force it to match up a bit more. This was not easy, and involved a lot of re-gluing and praying that I wasn't going to irreparably damage this thing. But in the end, it kinda worked. Made it a little thinner.

As you can see here. Compared to what it was, this is much better. I also added the mounting points for the breather cartridges, which we'll get to in a minute.

Left side looking a little thinner. Had to compensate for the cut in with a bit of extra Swedish. Doesn't look too bad. You can also see that little piece I glued in over the eye. A guide for later.

Right side for comparison. I also went after this thing with a sanding drum on my Dremel to smooth out some of those nasty glue joints and get the shapes down a bit better.

The breather cartridges. The more I worked on these, the worse they got. I'm going to redo them. Not even close to what I wanted. I made them in two pieces for casting purposes, and that's wood filler on the top bit. That worked out okay, but I just don't like them at all. Not good enough. Yet another thing to add to the list.

The visor base. This took forever, and I didn't think to take pictures. At this point, I ran out of Swedish cardboard, so I'm using cardboard from Minnesota. Pabst brewing to be exact. That's all well and good, but it's arguably tougher to work with. Doesn't take to super glue all that well. As you can see, I have this thing nailed to a jig I made from scrap wood so it maintains its shape. Also, so the glue joints don't pop. I still have to add the end points where it'll actually join the helmet, but what I'm planning on doing is hitting this thing with resin so it'll keep its shape and adding the flaps on after. Then, I'll add on excess resin coated cardboard to make a buck, and build a vacuum table. You know where it goes from there. This project is going to be expensive in the long run. It'll be worth it solely for the tools and supplies that it'll force me to buy.

As far as the time line goes, I may or may not get much done on this thing in the coming months. I have a job interview tomorrow, and another job already lined up. Both in fields I have little or no real experience or qualifications. Awesome. I'm also thinking that in order to keep paying bills and surviving (because that's what I've spent the last few years focused on), I'm going to take both of them. Yay working seven days a week for not enough money! Anyway, I'm going to try to get the resin and all of that as soon as I can, but I may or may not have the time to do all of the work in the coming months. I really wish I did this stuff for a living. Someday.

In the mean time, I'll make as much progress as I can. My father always says that patience is his only virtue. I suppose this is going to indicate to me whether patience is a genetic trait. Thanks for looking, see you next time.

Al

 

[Caveneau]

Good luck with your new jobs. You're not alone in wishing you could do this for a living, hehe. At least you've got your patience(hopefully) and your skills.

Curious, were you planning on using resin with fiberglass?

 

[Crank729]

I'm loving this! Budget builds are definitely my favourite, because they are always the most interesting to read through.

 

[Yellowjacket]

Fantastic scratch build.

 

[Ghost Host]

Very cool. I love paper and cardboard construction.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

I can't believe the types of shapes you're able to get with the cardboard! Fantastic work!