My Pepakura Stormtrooper Helmet

[omooney]

I've repaired the crack, did some bodywork, and added the vocoder! I used an old firewire cable I had lying around that looks to be about the right diameter. I drilled holes where i wanted it to start and stop and threaded it in! after that I painted over the wires with some rondo, this filled everything in really nicely and i have to say i'm very pleased with the results!

 

[omooney]

also, if anyone is interested in how I repaired the crack I uploaded a video to youtube.

 

[omooney]

Ok here's the update!


I used some opaque black styrene I had as placeholders for the lenses and cut down some rubber that fell of my bumper for the brow trim.
the grey paint is flat so I'll redo that. but all in all i'm really pleased with the way this is coming along!

up next: aerators, earcaps, stripes and weathering!!!

feedback / criticism is welcome and appreciated!

 

[omooney]

Having the helmet painted really helped me step back and look for areas I needed to improve. so here it is after being attacked with a dremel.




I thinned and lengthened the teeth, widened the eyes, enlarged the trapezoids, removed the center of the vocoder to adjust the slope, and reshaped the side bubbles and teardrops a bit!
all minor adjustments that needed to be made! so once again, Its Bondo time!

 

[ffarg]

That's looking awesome. Sorry to hear about the problems you've had but, hey... I'm learning from your mistakes
I've just started my own build (using spacecowboy's file) while I wait for my new airbrush to arrive so I can paint up my ESB Fett helmet. I'm encouragedto see how ell yours is turning out.

 

[omooney]

Thank you! It makes me super glad that I was able to give you a heads up on some mistakes to avoid! Its been a really fun build and the spacecowboy files are awesome!

That's looking awesome. Sorry to hear about the problems you've had but, hey... I'm learning from your mistakes
I've just started my own build (using spacecowboy's file) while I wait for my new airbrush to arrive so I can paint up my ESB Fett helmet. I'm encouragedto see how ell yours is turning out.

 

[ffarg]

Yeah - the flies are great - I'm having some trouble figuring out which parts (when all cut out and stuck together) go where though (as if!)

 

[ffarg]

I downloaded a pdo viewer and it made life a whole lot easier...

It's a bit wonky in places and the teeth are only temporary until I've given it a coat of resin

 

[Saberbay]

This is impressive especially if it is your first try

 

[CapedCrushaver]

Looks great, hope to make one this good some day!

Matt

 

[RogueTrooper]

Great work!!....the TK bucket pep build is one of the hardest to master and look right...I abandoned my tk build, because none of the pep files I tried were accurate enough for me, so I went with the dredd helmet as it's not such an intense build, but still challenging though...keep up with the building, I've seen many who get about half way and then stop.

While pep building allows anyone to build replica props, it's still a ton of work......but enjoyable work of course I think because it's easy to print out entire prop pieces some folks underestimate the work involved to get to the end.

Keep going don't stop!

 

[omooney]

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement guys! i really appreciate it!

here's an update:



I sculpted the earcaps out of some monstermakers sulfur free wax based clay. I cut the bottoms off a couple plastic cups to get the diameter of the top part and then eyeballed the rest from some reference photos. I just sculpted it directly onto the primed helmet. Then I rubbed everything down with a thin coat of petroleum jelly and used smooth-on rebound 25 brushable silicone to make a mold. ive never used this stuff before, and in hindsight should have built a mold wall, it was quite a bit runnier than expected. next step is to build the support shell for the silicone, i'm going to use fiberglass i think, since i'm quite familiar with it and have some on hand.

 

[omooney]

Ok folks! I'm really pleased with the way this turned out! I used rondo as my casting material since I had the stuff on hand and could easily control the viscosity. It took about ten minutes to clean the casting and trim it with a dremel to fit the contour of the helmet. But all in all, I'm really happy with the results!

 

[Toxx]

Turns out really nice!

 

[omooney]

THE LEFT EARCAP
One of the wonderful things about monstermakers clay is that it can be melted and poured into a mold!
So here's what I did:
poured a clay copy of the right earcap
trimmed it and detached the stem from the upper circle
softened the back of the clay circle with a heatgun and attached it to the left side of the helmet
then I curved the clay stem to the mirrored contour and pressed it into place
after this I pulled out the sculpting tools and cleaned everything up
then I hit the whole thing with a heatgun to soften all the sharp edges
and this time I built a clay mold wall to keep the silicone from running all over the place



This is all I had time to do yesterday, but I plan to build the mold after work today.

 

[omooney]

Its getting close! I mounted the earcaps with a couple of little screws in each (pilot holes and counter sinks to avoid splitting)
I also found a different white I liked a lot better and repainted the whole thing!
I'm currently in the process of sculpting an aerator/mic tip. I'll mold and cast that when I'm done with it.
I'm planning to stencil the blue stripes on then give it the Tatooine treatment.

 

[Brandon749]

Awesome build so far. I have a question if you dont mind, im wondering about weight. around how much dose one of these weigh when its worn, is it comfortable to wear for extended periods?

 

[zeca]

très beau travail, les oreilles sont très reussies. ( aujourd'hui j'ecris en français pas envie de traduire )

 

[omooney]

Awesome build so far. I have a question if you dont mind, im wondering about weight. around how much dose one of these weigh when its worn, is it comfortable to wear for extended periods?

It's pretty heavy, though I haven't weighed it or worn it for more than a minute or so. my best guess is that it's about 2-3lbs. As to how tiring it'd be to have that on your head all day, I can only guess. I would think it'd be fine in a pinch, but I personally plan to make a lighter more wearable copy of this one.

- - - Updated - - -

très beau travail, les oreilles sont très reussies. ( aujourd'hui j'ecris en français pas envie de traduire )

Thank you!!! I'm really happy with the way they turned out too!

 

[RogueTrooper]

I'm enjoying your work and commitment to a very difficult project. I've built and bought enough TK buckets to know the challenges of this build.

The TK bucket PEP build is a minefield and you nailing it big time I love the scratch build component.

Keep going...don't stop now.