Kamen Rider Black helmet *cheap* build

[jptv]

I've been fairly interested in prop making for a while now, and I wanted to try my hand at actually making something that can pass for a film or cosplay prop. So I decided to start with something I was familiar with and would like to have in real life, a kamen rider helmet.


This is kamen rider black, if he rings any subtle bells of nostalgia at the back of your mind, his successor, kamen rider black RX was used in Saban's masked rider in the US.

Since this is my first build, I figured that there were 2 ways that I could go about this
1) well-done, nicely treated paper mache
2) eva foam sprayed with plasti-dip

I wanted to make this as cheap as possible and decided that if all I needed was a form, paper mache was my best bet. I will tackle using eva foam in later iterations of the helmet when get more of a feel of the form and application.

It turns out making paper mache is a long process



This first "cast" was made from the paper mache balloon trick, unfortunately I blew the balloon too big and got a large, wobbly, disproportionate shell that I was all to eager to spray some gesso on. Fortunately, there were things to be learned and the costs of this was only some newspaper and gesso.

Then I tried again, this time with a balloon size matching my head



And what I got was leagues better than my first attempt. I also picked up a tip that using the paper bags from the grocery store as a final outer layer did wonders for its strength and integrity. I cut out the shapes and moved on to the mouth piece



This piece was fairly easy to make with some cardboard. What is special is instead of cutting out straight geometric shapes, I had some thinner, more flexible cardboard that I bent with armature wire to make most of the piece. The concept I was going for is to have a detachable mouth piece, much like what other prop makers incorporated into their helmets. *which was first seen in kamen rider: the first.*

I'm still in the middle of this build and i'll post more of my progress here. Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[jptv]

After a few days of research and preparation, I've got some updates on the kamen rider helmet build.

View attachment 367598

Above is the mostly finished mouth piece which was just spray painted with metallic silver. The chitin like structure was made with foam strips slightly overlapping each other, although I made the mistake of not sealing the foam with glue first, the silver paint slightly comes off when rubbed.

View attachment 367599

Next I spray painted the helmet a glossy black. Now its from here I began to reevaluate then nature of this build and decided that this iteration of the kamen rider helmet was going to be the first of a few more as I did leave much to chance as I mainly eyeballed the proportions and made a lot of decisions on the fly.

It didn't take long for me notice the unwanted texture I was getting on the helmet.



The layered paper mache texture was a stark contrast to the smooth look from the show, so I researched how to get a smooth look from paper mache, what I came up with was using some kind of filler to fill in the uneven surfaces and sanding it to make it smooth, or using paper mache pulp to coat the shape and sanding that down to a smooth finish. So I decided to test out the filler method and bought some wood filler and followed tutorials on it.



I got some elmers wood filler and luckily I found one that changes color when dry.



At the time, after I finished sanding the thing I was a little too excited to paint it to see how the smooth surface would look, unfortunately I wasn't privy on the process of sanding THEN priming to point out the places that needed more work, so I got this business going on above after one coat.



Here's another piece that I applied two coats of filler to, while sanding in between and after. So far, it seems smoother, but I'm debating if should apply a thin layer of filler all over or go over the imperfections with filler and sanding once more.

To some extent, I tried to make some of the paper mache pulp by using some scrap newspaper and formed it into a cube. It did take about 2 days to fully dry, but that may be due to the thickness of the cube. Its a decently hard material and I'm thinking of making another iteration of this build using the pulp as a base instead of paper mache. But so far I'm digging both methods.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or advice for applying/sanding the filler or tips on smoothing/working with paper mache pulp?

 

[jptv]

 

[wraithkin]

Looks Good, Keep at that learning curve and in my experience there will always be more sanding.

 

[Alpha Proto]

Interesting build. I look forward to seeing it's progress.

 

[jptv]

Here's the final stretch! I put a silver painted foam strip (also mistakenly not sealed with glue, but dry enough to handle without rubbing off) with a red stripe applied with a paint marker.



I also shoddily masked off the yellow stripes and got a strange runny texture. I realized that using spray paint to coat a small surface yielded less than favorable results;i could have just used yellow masking tape for the same thing.



"But i had gone too far to back out now!" I told myself, so after using some black paint marker to clean up my mess, i added the magnets to attach the mouthpiece.




These allow me to easily remove the mouthpiece and hold it in place really well. Next are the antennae which were made with 14 gauge armature wire. I essentially took a long piece and bent it at both ends and poked it through some small holes i made before painting the helmet. I used a piece of foam and some gorilla glue to permanently glue them in place.




Next are the eyes, which i saved for last as they are most difficult and had to do the most research for. The better looking, more expensive and harder method was to buy some reflector acrylic, the kind used for cars or safety signs, but i haven't been able to pinpoint any places that sell it. If i had gotten it, i would have had to oven form it to create the bulbous shape of the insectoid eyes. So i opted for a cheaper and quicker solution.



A bright red plastic mesh from joanns, 50 something cents. Granted, it isnt the exact replica, but it actually makes as a good replacement.





And thats it! Kinda. I intended to add some clear plastic to make an orb around the mesh, but i ran out free time and i figured this was good enough for version 1 of the kamen rider black helmet. I do have a long list of errors i made or things i could have done better, but i'm very glad that i had at least finished it. I gotta say that wearing this thing made me feel amazing and really reignited my desire to make more props.