A-Wing Helmet Sculpt

[Skaught]

I'm starting work on an A-Wing pilot helmet since it's about time we had one of these, I think. I've made a poor man's head cast of myself (wrapped my head in duct tape, cut it off, then filled it with Durham's Water Putty with a PVC pipe sticky out), to make sure the thing will fit my head.

The first thing I've done is collect what few photos there are of the helmet. No production or promo shots exist that I've seen, so I've taken some DVD screen grabs. There's a scene where a pilot walks by after Han and Lando talk about bringing the Falcon back in one piece that shows the full side. If anyone with an HD copy could capture several frames of this scene, that would be a big help! See the image at the bottom for what I'm after.

The second thing I've done is try to draw the helmet, to get a feel for the shape. Here's my sketch so far. The parts that I'm not 100% about is the angle of the back in relation to the front and the transition between the front and back in the middle area (around the ear cup). I tried to illustrate the ear cup's asymetry with the lines. I'm not sure what happens with the back "trench" where it gets near the cups, either. The top portion isn't drawn 100% accurately, but it's something I can see easily enough in the pics so I'm not too worried about it. It's the hard to see areas I want to plan before starting.

Please comment and critique!

Compare to:

Scott

 

[bothanspy]

Looks like it has a helmet liner, similar to the one used by the Endor solider - a WWII AN-H-15

Only the shell is custom.

I'll be interested in getting a replica of this helmet once the project get started

 

[Skaught]

Yeah, that's know. Same as the other pilots wear. That part is easy! There's also some kind of padding on the inside, but all that can be added later. I'm only concerned with the hard parts.

Scott

 

[yodasan]

Good to see a different kind of helmet being made -

 

[Darth Lars]

Don't forget the mounting brackets between the helmet pieces.
I think the top of the "ear cup" is slightly flatter. The back is also flat. The groove is not uniform, but has a trapezoidal detail (reminds me of the Stormtrooper helmet) .. but it is difficult to tell what is a feature and what is painted on.

 

[Skaught]

I've noticed the "trapezoidal" spot above the the trench in the back, but it could just be a dirt smudge, too. This is why I'm deperate for an HD grab of that scene.

The earcup is raised at the top, but not nearly as much as on the bottom. I think it's raised around the back too, about what it is on the top. There's shadow there that indicates it's not level. That means the area below the cup must somehow rise up as you get closer to the back, though.

Scott

 

[Skaught]

Also, the "walk by" helmet seems to have less cheek area than the cockpit shots. Again, hard to tell from the DVD image.

Scott

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Found some irregularities with your concept drawing, so I tried to draw in the lines as I see them on the helmet. However, it's difficult to get things to match up with so little reference, but hope it's okay that I post this.

 

[Skaught]

Yeah, sure, please! I know I had the top off a bit. I did it last and for some reason found nailing it harder than the rest.

Another person suggested the bottom part of the top is flat across the back (where the white reflection is). That's a possibility, but so hard to tell.

Scott

 

[ywingfighter]

Hey Skaught,
its a fantastic idea to made an A-Wing helmet.Looking forward for this project.Put me on your list for a kit please.I am very interessted.
Thanks
Frank

 

[Howlrunner]

Fantastic project idea! Glad someone's finally going ahead with it!

I collected all the references I could find a while ago - hope they can be of some help. Some interesting different angles at least:

 

[superjedi]

Very cool!! I love Rebel helmets.
Interested to see how this progresses.

 

[rudolpht]

Ditto.

Hey Skaught,
its a fantastic idea to made an A-Wing helmet.Looking forward for this project.Put me on your list for a kit please.I am very interessted.
Thanks
Frank

 

[defstartrooper]

Hope these help cool project :thumbsup

 

[Skaught]

Hey, cool! Thanks. I can see something new now. The front piece almost goes under the back piece under the ear cup. It looks like they don't even connect. The trench in the bottom right pic looks different than the other pics, but there does appear to be a flatter element of the bottom back portion.

Did you notice the error at the beginning of that scene? The further away pilots start out in front of the closer pilot. You can see that in the first (top left) pic there. He's a giant!

Scott

 

[PMTrooper]

nice project scott
i´m very intrested

just wondering about the different flac vest style
first i thougt it´s like an x-wing vest

 

[Skaught]

The vest for the A-Wing is a charcoal color, with a center section that is white and has the ribbing similar to the X-Wing vest. The chest box is all black that resembles a car amp. I have some bad video captures from a bad video tape taken at an old exhibit that show it.

Scott

 

[PMTrooper]

thanks scott
so i´ll keep an eye to this topic

 

[temponaut]

Great project, Skaught! Will be following with great interest. :thumbsup

Based on what we've seen so far, I'd say the two panels at the very back of the helmet are flat. Although in some shots they appear to be contoured, I think this may be an effect of the weathering. In some shots there is a white glare off of the back panels, and it seems unlikely that they would reflect so uniformly unless they were flat.

 

[Skaught]

Okay, I've got my poor-man's bust ready (though in a moment of boredom, I painted it glossy black before realizing that was going to make drawing some lines on it hard. :wacko) and I've enlarged my drawing to full scale for printing and transfering to the bust. This will give me a relatively uniform starting point for each side. In the process deciding the measurements for the obvious front parts, I had to redo the drawing as it neared the back. That's okay since it wasn't really to scale. Now things look good so I'm printing this out. I guess I'll need to use a silver sharpie or somethign to draw the lines, since the head is black now. Well, it looks cool at least! Like a mummy's head!

Scott