DOOM Eternal helmet replica upgrade

TimDRX

Active Member
I'm currently working on a replica DOOM Eternal helmet, sized to fit my large dome. I'm 3D printing it in PLA, cut into 7 sections to be glued together. I use MEK as glue, it'll be a fairly strong bond, but it's such a thin structure (about 3mm thick, I believe) that Im worried about it holding together long term. So I'm considering using this as a master to create a mold and slush cast the final helmet. I've never done it before, but from what I'd seen online a few years back this was the preferred method for crafting a helmet. Is this still the case today? Any recommendations for how to structure the mold (open vs sealed / quadrant?) and what kinda resin I should be using?

Somewhat related Im thinking about making a little mold to resin cast the clear visor, as I don't have access to a vacuum former. Any reasons against doing this?
 
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For the strength I would use fiberglass. lay it down and rotate the mold a few degrees and lay down some more fiberglass, repeat as many times as necessary. Make it strong and line it with soft foam.
 
There’s this:
Hahaha that's actually the very video I was thinking of when I considered slush casting! I only asked cause it's a few years since that vid, was wondering if any hot new techniques had been cooked up since.

(Also they never did part 2!)
 
Bit of a progress update; the main body is assembled in PLA!

IMG_20240806_204305249_HDR.jpg


Fairly happy with the alignment of parts. It's almost perfect, just a few small areas will require putty to smooth out the joins.

Current major concern is the visor. Turns out this model, despite appearances in previews, doesn't have the visor actually connect seamlessly to the helmet, it just sorta floats free. It's an irritating thing to discover AFTER printing it all out lol



So I'm debating what to do now. I had been planning to resin cast the visor, but maybe a vacuum form is the way to go? That way the extra flash around the edge would fill the gaps around the visor.
 

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I would vacuum form the visor, it takes care of a lot of clarity issues. If you have the 3d models of the helmet and visor, the visor model can be modified to fit out past the mask cut out and shaped to fit in properly. I usually model two visors with my helms, one to fit in perfectly that can be printed, and then a slightly undersized visor with flange meant for vac-forming.

You could also attach a flange to the back of your printed visor with styrene or whatever, to give it a 1 or 2 inch bit of flashing around the edges, and then vacuum form a visor off of that; The flange will give your visor material that can be glued into the inside edges of the helm (and of course fill your gap).
 
I ended up pivoting pretty hard on this project. I purchased an official bit of merch, the helmet sold as part of the collector's edition of the game (and later as a standalone product) so it's not quite a rarity, but not easily acquired today either.

It's a little larger than the one I had scaled and printed for myself, but comparing it to the in game model it appears to be the most accurate one around in terms of geometry. But! It's not perfect - missing some small details! And the paint job is very inaccurate.

So I stripped it down to it's components and I'm reassembling it to remove seam lines. Then I'm considering still doing a slush cast of it - mainly to simplify the internal structure and remove an inconvenient battery box from the mold, then I could add a smaller setup for lights and maybe include an air fan instead.
 
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