drknotter
Active Member
I'm hoping posting here will help give me some motiviation to actually finish this. 
Thanks to mmilan's fantastic unfold of rundown's fantasic model of the TFA Stormtrooper helmet, I was able to make my very first foray into the art of prop helmet making. I cut out all the pieces from cardboard, used hot glue to stick em all together, bondo'ed the outside, and then paint. I used roll-up sunglasses for the visor. Here's what I got:
As you can see, it's very VERY rough. I got pretty impatient with the bondo at the end since I needed to finish in time for Halloween, and making it out of cardboard rather than card stock meant I lost a lot of the small details. BUT, it was good enough for traipsing about during Halloween, and people generally seemed to like it (although maybe they were just being nice, ha).
Anyways, bottom line is I'm not very happy with how it turned out. So I decided to go for a second pass, and doing it correctly this time. So, first I got the unfolded pepakura file laser cut in card stock, without tabs. I used tape to temporary hold pieces together, and then superglue + superglue accelerant to join the pieces. It was my first time using superglue accelerant, and let me tell you that stuff is awesome/scary. It kicks off the superglue INSTANTLY, which causes the glue to get REALLY HOT and sometimes SMOKE. It lets you use a lot of superglue on the joints though, which made for a really solid bond. Anyways, this is where I'm currently at:
Next step is doing a light coat of epoxy on the outside, followed by glassing the inside. I got some fiberglass + fiberglass resin, but then when I tried out the fiberglass resin on some test pieces, I discovered that it tends to warp and be a little too flexible for my taste. After doing some more research, I found out that fiberglass resin is actually a completely different product from epoxy resin, and the catalysts are completely different. SO, I ordered some epoxy resin from Smooth-On that was recommended in one of cerealkiller's YouTube videos.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks to mmilan's fantastic unfold of rundown's fantasic model of the TFA Stormtrooper helmet, I was able to make my very first foray into the art of prop helmet making. I cut out all the pieces from cardboard, used hot glue to stick em all together, bondo'ed the outside, and then paint. I used roll-up sunglasses for the visor. Here's what I got:
As you can see, it's very VERY rough. I got pretty impatient with the bondo at the end since I needed to finish in time for Halloween, and making it out of cardboard rather than card stock meant I lost a lot of the small details. BUT, it was good enough for traipsing about during Halloween, and people generally seemed to like it (although maybe they were just being nice, ha).
Anyways, bottom line is I'm not very happy with how it turned out. So I decided to go for a second pass, and doing it correctly this time. So, first I got the unfolded pepakura file laser cut in card stock, without tabs. I used tape to temporary hold pieces together, and then superglue + superglue accelerant to join the pieces. It was my first time using superglue accelerant, and let me tell you that stuff is awesome/scary. It kicks off the superglue INSTANTLY, which causes the glue to get REALLY HOT and sometimes SMOKE. It lets you use a lot of superglue on the joints though, which made for a really solid bond. Anyways, this is where I'm currently at:
Next step is doing a light coat of epoxy on the outside, followed by glassing the inside. I got some fiberglass + fiberglass resin, but then when I tried out the fiberglass resin on some test pieces, I discovered that it tends to warp and be a little too flexible for my taste. After doing some more research, I found out that fiberglass resin is actually a completely different product from epoxy resin, and the catalysts are completely different. SO, I ordered some epoxy resin from Smooth-On that was recommended in one of cerealkiller's YouTube videos.
Thanks for reading!
