Daft Punk Helmets - WIP

[stan]

another on my list of projects i'm starting up:

Daft Punk's helmets! Starting off with Guy Manuel De Homen Christo. Volpin did an AMAZING build of this helmet, and I'm looking at his thread (here: http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=65166) for a lot of inspiration. I scaled his original side view up to size and used it as a basic template. I have an old motorcycle helmet that fits the bill, and will be the basis for this build. I like this route because the helmet already fits my head perfectly, and is almost a perfect match for the shape.

without further ado, photos!


here you can see I scaled up Volpin's side view image (172% - to match the size of my motorcycle helmet).

checking to see if this is goofy as hell or going to be about the right size:

here i've started to figure out what parts of the original helmet will stay. the areas masked off in blue tape are the parts which will be gold on the final helmet. non-masked area in the front will have to be carved away. I'm thinking to leave a good amount of the inner padding as that will be a great place for mounting the electronics. Will have to figure out how to get the visor for this thing at some point.....

 

[stan]

here i've blocked the face of the helmet off with gaffers tape to see if the shape is proper, already looking cool LOL

 

[Grey]

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, considering the origional's we're made by modifying motorcycle helmets.

 

[stan]

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, considering the origional's we're made by modifying motorcycle helmets.

that's exactly my thought. volpin's came out AWESOME but i remembered reading that the originals were modified motorcycle helmets so I figured I cant go wrong that way. not to mention, the helmet already fits my head really comfortably, so I know I wont end up finishing and going "oh crap, this doesn't fit right"

 

[stan]

now as for thomas bangalter's helmet, that will be made to fit my girlfriend. to me it seems like using a batting helmet as the basis will be the simplest thing because 1) i don't have another MC helmet in her size, and 2) i've seen a batting helmet build that looked decent.

will try and get to a sporting goods store this weekend with her to find one in the right size, then probably use pep to build the other parts of the helmet.

 

[stan]

doing some cursory research on the LEDs

Thomas:

the main display is 11 LEDs tall, and what looks to be about 40-50 LEDs wide - this is the red section that scrolls the images/text.

on each side, he has a set of horizontal color bars, those are 4 or 5 LEDs wide. from top to bottom it is yellow-blank-green-green-blue-blue-blue-blank-red-red-red, where "blank" is an equally sized row with no LEDs. these seem to flash up and down, and sometimes go all on together.

Guy's:

volpin's diagram of the side lights on guy's helmet seem to be pretty spot-on. the "cheeks" have separate banks with square lights, - 6 lights wide at the top, and 6 or 7 rows, these all conform to the lines of the helmet so parts are not there and some rows are as narrow as 2 lights. above those, there is two rows of 8 LEDs wide. above those, the large wedge-shaped lights are diffused lights rather than individual LED spots.

i'm still trying to count out the dimensions of the central LED display that scrolls text / images. thats going to be REALLY hard to duplicate while still keeping the ability to see. I'm hoping i can find a way to accomplish that, as I don't know of anyone else doing it so far.

 

[stan]

slowly trying to make progress on lining things up before i start cutting

 

[stan]

decided I'm going to hedge my bets and make two guy manuels right now and see which one comes out best. the first will be the motorcycle helmet based one, and the second will be my homage to volpin. gotta go pick out some expanding foam tonight but here's the state of things right now:

and finally, all three lined up together.

the motorcycle helmet looks a lot larger but everything is being built on the same scale. also the motorcycle helmet needs a lot of material added in places to sort of square it off, its quite bulbous right now. definitely a lot of work ahead of me.

 

[stan]

foam time! man i hope this works...

the foam i used was the stuff I could find at lowes, $3.75 a can, used about 2 and 1/2 cans to do this.

 

[Agent RayBans]

I'm always glad to see Daft Punk getting some attention on here.

Years and years ago I made helmets out of existing helmets. My first Thomas helmet I ever made used a batting helmet as a base, and everything was built up on top of that with fiberglass and bondo.

For my second Thomas helmet I used a football helmet, since I eventually decided a baseball helmet as not really the right shape, and a rounder football helmet was closer. For my first Guy-Man helmet I butchered a full face motorcycle helmet also. These were the results:

Obviously not by any means exact replicas, but good Halloween costumes for sure.

If there is any way I can help you don't hesitate to ask. I'm a self proclaimed Daft Punk helmet expert, and as Volpin learned the hard way, its hard to shut me up :lol

 

[stan]

SCULPTING STUFF IS SO HARD!!!

i've never sculpted anything in my life, so this is extra special hard for me and i've never messed with materials like this either. everything i'm doing is totally new.


so I cut out the big foam blob, and discovered the skeleton had canted itself while the foam was setting overnight. the bottom rim is crooked and i'll have to figure out how to deal with that.

i took a large kitchen knife and hacked away at it, and then went in more carefully with a razor blade. unfortunately my foam spraying wasn't the best and so there's huge voids in the foam in some pretty bad places. nothing that can't be dealt with though, i think....

here's after knifing away at it:

it was VERY ROUGH. so i dug out the orbital sander and started messing with it. here's what i ended up with:

everything is totally skewed and effed up, and i'm going to have a lot of work to do to fix that. in true volpin fashion i'm going to have to figure out what the hell "air dry clay" is (hopefully thats a common thing and a self explanatory name) and build that up over the current foam. i'll cut out some more full size templates and use the outline to check how much needs to be built on to the foam. wish me luck guys!

 

[stan]

also @arafinwe and whoever else would have knowledge about the intricacies of the helmets:

i'm figuring out what I want to accomplish exactly and here's my thoughts - i like the somewhat squared off jaw of guy's helmet during the discovery era. i don't really want to get the rounded off look of the human after all helmet so much.

i also really like the lighting on the discovery era helmet. i do however want to be able to see, so my main concern with the lighting will be the side banks. the central lighting is a future goal but for the much later term.

that being said, i don't like the "cheekbone" banks on the discovery helmet. i've seen shots where its all lit up and its basically just a few rows of LEDs in primary colors, with no masking. i'm not sure what era it is but i'm thinking to go with a mask / dividers between the LEDs so i can get the block type LCD look on the cheekbone lights. to be more clear, when i say cheekbone i mean the LEDs that sit below the large color bars.

as far as coloration, i think again i want to go more on teh discovery side of things with a copper-gold sort of color, not the yellow gold of the HAA helmet.

i also want to go black with the visor, the gold one doesn't look good to me. i think gold was only on the transition helmet but i'm not sure.

the feature i don't want to share with the discovery helmet is the large umbilical cord of wires that comes out the back of the helmet. i plan on powering the unit with an arduino (which i have already, and am learning how to write code for), and either using shift registers, or maybe rigging up some slave processors that will decode serial inputs, i think i can reduct the number of wires that need to go to the controller. basically i want the back of the helmet to look like the back of the HAA helmet - clean and no visible cords.

as far as teh color bars my thinking is that i could do the following: make little divided pockets that are colored in teh desired color, and matte finish. mount white LEDs on a thin (5mm wide) pcb that spans the center of the pocket. LEDs face downwards and reflect off the inside of the pocket. a colored translucent lens covers the top of the pocket, and that is mounted inside of the visor. this way the light would be very diffused, and the color would be more or less correct because of both the diffusing surfaces and the colored lense.

 

[stan]

progress update!

made some guides by cutting out side and front views from a larger board, and then fitting helmet through to see what areas need to be built up, and what needs to be trimmed down. did some more cutting with the razor, and here we are:

i know a lot of you are really good at sculpting and building helmets, so if you have any advice, it would be much appreciated. i totally have no idea what i'm doing and just kinda winging it / approximating what volpin did on his build.

 

[Agent RayBans]

Sounds like you have things planned out pretty well.

So, if I am understanding correctly you pretty much want to emulate how he appeared in DJ hero, correct?

They too skipped over the "equalizer/cheekbone" details and made them look like extensions of the rainbow.

I also hear you on wanting the blockier look. I'm a fan of the shape of GM's helmet in the discovery era, also. But then again GM was blockier himself back then, too!

I also agree on going with the black. I think the reflectiveness of the gold visor would make the rainbows hard to see probably. Also I am not even sure where you would find a place to gold tint a visor for you, anyway.

Your idea for doing the LEDs makes sense, but one thing to think about is if you had the LEDs pointing down, there might be a shadow cast on the colored gel of what ever bracket you come up with the hold the LEDs in place (does that make sense?). Granted, having LEDs facing outward would probably make little bright spots on the rainbows, but that's a problem that the real helmet had, also.

You're making good progress though, and It looks like you are on the right track. Keep it up!

Btw I haven't forgotten about the file I'm trying to send you. I think its just going to have to wait until I go home where the internet doesn't suck :thumbsdown

 

[stan]

so i picked up some air drying clay, and started patching up the voids in the foam:

10lbs of clay later (literally):

if anyone has any suggestions please speak now before the clay dries! this is my first time sculpting anything ever, with clay or otherwise!

 

[stan]

seems like not many people are following this build but hey just in case, here's a quick walk around the clay sculpt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mk2px8fV34

i fixed the back hoop after shooting that, but other than that im pretty stoked on how its coming along!

 

[Patattack]

Watching with interest! This kind of build-up always intrigues me.

Looking great so far!

 

[stan]

thanks pat!

since the clay has to dry now, i spent several hours researching how to do the molding part of the process. i was worried about it but feel pretty confident now! i think i'm going to go with something like dragon skin, with fiberglass for the mother mold.

on the plans so far, in vague order:

once clay dries, sand out the sculpt a little, then start dealing with bondo.

gotta make the MDF ear pieces, and sculpt in the hoops and fine details.

once the master is done, then gotta mold it in silicon w/ fiberglass mother.

on teh side of all that, gotta construct a rudimentary vacuforming setup to make hte visor.

going to have to source a boatload of LEDs, but luckily my mom works at a place that manufactures LED pool lighting so i'm going to see if can get the hookup there.

more posts tomorrow! anyone know how long i should expect the clay to take to be ready to work on? and do i need to be concerned about cracking? i put it in a closed dark / cool pantry so that it wouldnt dry out too fast.

 

[stan]

worked on teh clay a little bit today, its firmer but definitely not dry yet.

can't wait to move forward and start making it all smooth and shiny

 

[stan]

sharpie on the clay = very cool to look at