Rubies Stormtrooper Helmet modification

[alienbuilder]

Hello again,

after I m nearly done with the clone helmets, I thought I wont do any star wars stuff for a long time, but somehow I was not able to resist the idea of having an OT stormtrooper helmet too. of course, its the classic one. and after a while, I decided to go the cheap way an bought a rubies 4 piece helmet for 60€. I know all the discussion of the rubies stuff, but well, for my plans it was ok. so, I dont want to have an really movie accurate helmet, but one that hits my image of a stormtrooper helmet. for that, and because the fact that I still got some material left from the clone helmets, I should get a good (meaning just like I want it) helmet for under 100 €. so, here is where I started from:







for the price, the shape and dimensions on this helmet are not so bad I think. similar to the old don post one in some ways I think. what I m not really happy with are: the 4 piece system especially the cut on the dome of course, the eyes, even if they are not too bad, but they are too bright and you cant see through them because of the material they used. the teeth are also ok, even if the 2 middle holes should have to be cut out, but I like the version with 2 teeth less more, also because its more similar to the clone helmets and shows the evolution a little bit more. I like the teeth to have a little bit more volume too. and finally the hole neck area is too open.

so the first modifications were to cut out the lenses and the teeth. than I glued all the parts together, glued in new teeth and filled the interior up with some layers of fibre glass and polyester to stabilize the whole helmet and create a solid "neckring". than I resculpted these the neck, the eyes and the cut dome with some filler.

here are the results... sorry I dont made photos of the process in between...





as I said, its not 100% screenaccurate. I wanted a helmet that seems to be one piece (including the ears). the bubble eyes will be changed to flat ones, just like the stunt helmets have it. the neck area is also a little bit different and the opening should be smaller than in the movie, so its not so easy to see the head while wearing it.

and finally this is where I am now... just primered the whole thing. next step is to sand everything and than I can start the paint job.

 

[warrenhouck]

Nice work! I thought that fugly helmet was unfixable, great progress!

 

[alienbuilder]

after sanding the filler, I did already some black and grey coat. today the white and tomorrow I ll add the black brow, some other black details and the blue tube stripes to finish the paint job. for now I m pretty satisfied. sorry for the bad photos, maybe I ll do better tomorrow.

 

[Country Paul]

Amazing what you've done with this, looking fantastic

 

[Sv3onSA]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that given your goal and what you started with, you really took the ball and ran with it!

However, after a few weeks on FISD, I can't believe I actually thought of buying one of those at some point... It looks so off, the details are soft or very approximated.

Depends on what you want to do with it but Rubies are obviously in for a quick profit out of unsuspecting fans and it shows!!!

Edited for a typo...

 

[alienbuilder]

well, cant say anything against it. in my case, it was ok, cause I liked to do some modifications but dont want to start from scratch. I really like the efx helmet, but these days its pretty expansive and I ld have to do some modifications too. so I went the cheap way. the cheap rubies one is still better than the one piece version in case of proportion I d say, but never saw one in real though. anyway, my modificated one is still not sreenaccurate but for me its good. here some better pictures of the finished paintjob:



































I m not a stormtrooper pro, but what I can see, the whole mouth part might be not really screenaccurate, just like the eyes are. for me its ok this way so I didnt any farther modifications. the tube stripes are also a little more straight than in movie, but more what I like. anyway, I installed some new mictip mesh today and tomorrow I ll build in the teeth mesh and the lenses.

 

[Country Paul]

Stunning, you've done a hell of job there, can't believe it started life as a rubies :lol

 

[Kroenen77]

Great work,man.I like it to see when people are modding very bad sources to a nice build!
You should repaint the mouthsection like this:

 

[TazMan2000]

Wow. Something worthy of being displayed, now.

TazMan2000

 

[alienbuilder]

you are right kroenen77, the mouth piece look much better and more movie accurate this way. maybe I ll repaint that area. Its a little bit tricky though, because it should be resculpted/modified than too.

I finished the outside view of the helmet today than with gluing in the lenses and the mesh between the teeth. first I tried out the original bubble lenses to see how bubble lenses would work. not so bad on this mod helmet...







...but I decided to go with the flat ones. Its more what I like somehow...

 

[Deltaflyer90]

Wow amazing work sir! Are these rubies buckets similar in size to the originals or the replicas? Or is it smaller overall?

 

[alienbuilder]

I cant really tell about the size compared to the original/replica helmets because I dont have one or even saw one life, but I guess its a little bit smaller. should be nearly the size of the don post helmet though. anyway, for my expectations this helmet was bigger than expected and fits me pretty good, but I have a small head and a skinny body. the size of my modified helmet is pretty much 30x30x30 cm now. compared with my clone trooper one, it could be a little bit bigger, what it s supposed to be in the movies imo. in comparison the stormtrooper is a more flat than the clone but also a little bit wider. displayed alone the rubies helmet is looking very nice in size to me though.







here s a comparison with a TE helmet I found

 

[alienbuilder]

to finish these bucket and to make it comfortably wearable I made a padding here just as for the other helmets too, but uses some artifical leather for the neck area. I did not build in some electrics as this is normally just for display. as I said, this is some kind of idealized stormtrooper helmet in my eyes, so absolutely not screenaccurate and this also counts for the interior. I wanted it to look functional and comfortable and soft, really a contrast to what is shown in the official literature. but its how I imaginated these helmets interior as a child. compared with the clone helmets this interior is a little bit more simple, missing the monitores and so on and its really just a padding though. everything soft and flexible easy to put in and out, without any screws, but for me it works nice too...

 

[Chicagovader]

The interior looks beautiful! Great work Sir!

 

[warrenhouck]

I'm blown away from this transformation! Sad that Rubie's can't put in the work and make something this badass. Instead they rip people off with inaccurate stock photos

 

[mugatu]

Once again, great work. The metamorphosis you've executed as well as your finishing skills...it speaks for itself. Great job.

 

[artimorty]

wooooow, that´s awesome
I did exactly this conversion last christmas as a present to my six years old son, but mine isn´t as great as this. In fact was my first approach to mods an conversions and was a very fun way to start... I also chose flat smoked lenses cause I think they look better on this bucket and make it easier to see through as intended for a little boy´s toy.
For the frown I used liquid rubber paint in order to get a more "standar frown" look and it worked great, but I never could get that polished shinny white of your final pictures. That´s excellent!
I used carpert foam pieces to pad the interior but yours is fan-tas-tic... Any chance to get templates for that awesome interior padding? I´m actually plannig to start a conversion for three hasbro clone trooper helmets and having templates for the interior padding to be used as references would help a lot.
Thanks and again... excellent mod!

 

[alienbuilder]

hi artimorty,
would like to see your helmet the shiny white is pretty easy with a good car paint though. I m not an expert. but anyway, the stunthelmets werent even shiny at all, right? rubber paint for the frown? very nice! never saw this in germany.

for the stormtrooper helmet padding I dont have tamplates. just made it as it comes and fits step by step. just made a picture of some parts I made for the phase 2 clone helmets, have a look here: http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=228161&page=10

maybe this could fit for the hasbro one too. well its not really templates, but my pc-drawing skills are not the best. I had a moded hasbro helmet for some years. but I was always frustrated it never looked perfect and was not so stabile, so that was the reason for me to do the aluminum casts though the helmet itself is not the worst option to modify I think, but for 100% movie accurate a kit might be easier. but some easy modifications making the hasbro helmet looking much better.
here are some pictures of mine, I painted it as a commander...

























that time I used a silver foil under a tinned foil so you ve got the reflecting effect of the cgi clones, but also looks dark. wored not bad, but I dislike foil though. now I always use these welding face shields or motorcycle visors.

 

[artimorty]

Hi alienbuilder...
only 3 aviable pics of my son's bucket. The rest lost in who knows wich computer... In fact, the last two are real time pictures from his bedroom. It's not weathering, it's real dirt and cracks after seven months of heavy service in the front line of playground battles, wich I love, cause it means he is enjoying it a lot.
I will definetly recomend this conversion for a low cost but good results stormtrooper helmet (ideal for kids to play), and I red somewhere that the molds can be Don Post after Rubies won the license....
for the smoked lenses I used the cheapest ski mask I could find (about 3'5 $) but I take note of your advice for motorcycle visors.
I must confess I already had your templates for the interior padding of your aluminium ep3 helmets (what a master piece I must say!) and I will try to adapt them to the hasbro project. That can be easy once you have the hasbro helmet separeted in pieces.
That conversion for the hasbro helmet is top of the line. Apparently you used the "building up the cheeks" approach instead of the "glue new cheeks on top".... I don't know yet what I'm going to do...
Probably my rubies mod didn't shine due to poor regular spray paint (general purpose) and bad primer... For the hasbros I already have a rustoleum white spray can... Will see where that takes me...
thanks for your time!

 

[alienbuilder]

very nice helmet. the "used" look is charming I think. ski mask glasses are an option too, of course. I just had the welding mask because I needed a larger scale for the clones. for the stormtrooper I had some rests of these. nice material cause its thick, strong and pretty black, but you can see through good. for the boba fett helmet I might go with a cheap motorcycle visor maybe.

well, the information that the rubies is made from the don post is what I heard too, just some little modifications. but for the price its not to bad to modify. I m pretty happy with it now. of course its not movie accurate, but a kind of idealized, what I like. for the hasbro, there would be more to do and my modifications were miles away from the movie correct helmets. thats one reason I sold it. well, for the cheap price its still not too bad looking though. but the time I bought it, I had no idea of what I want to do with it and not really experiences with such helmets. so it was a little nightmare. first i tried to repair the visor,.. did nt knew about these templates for new cheeks that time, and it went not so well, but I wanted to finish it fast, so I painted it and than it was laying at home for years. and my anger about it grew and grew and than, one day I decided, I ll fix it all. I than read some tutorials too. so I bought some putty and filled the whole dome and all the slits and holes and so on, and because I was too careful, it took so long till I was finished to paint again. but than the visor was full of scratches and so I tried these foil. did I already said I dont like foil very much? so thats my experience with the hasbro helmet I think, if I d do it today, I d to it different. and maybe with a neckring too.