Spaceballs Dark Helmet

Springboarding off of a Halo costume I was thinking about a great halloween costume character to create and wear at parties. Weighing the pros and cons of a bunch of costumes (including buzz lightyear and the predator) I decided to settle on an old favorite movie of mine from childhood; Spaceballs. With the help of a newly acquired 3D Printer, and the knowledge gained from creating the Halo Armor, I decided to create a Dark Helmet Costume.
Step 1 - Obtain a pepakura file of the Helmet. For that, I used Dark Helmet helmet by Darkside501st. I have to give the creators of the pdo files a lot of credit for their time and effort contributed. Thank you. After resizing and printing the helmet on 100lb stock paper, it was time to start cutting and gluing. Nothing new here, just applying what I did with Halo armor below:
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Used cardboard to reinforce supports. This decreases warping when applying fiberglass resin.
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Step 2 - Coat with Fiberglass Resin:
View attachment 893294
View attachment 893295

Step 3 - Apply the Bondo:
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Step 4 - I decided to pull part of the mask out of the PDO and use the program Blender to help turn it into a 3d print .stl file. The below was the result:
View attachment 893298
Daughter photobomb! Since the mask was too big for the printer, I split it into 3 parts. You can see the seams above. Each seam was sanded and painted smooth. When gluing the parts together, I used hot glue first, then a rondo layer over the seam and fiber tape across the seam as well. The fibers add a lot of strength.
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Dry fit the pieces together. Looking good so far.

Step 5 - Now for the hard part. I need this thing to sit on my head and not my shoulders. I don't have many pictures but I should be able to give you an idea of how it was done.
I took a a hard hat that has an internal head holder like the one below:
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Then cut the top of the hard hat off.
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I cut along the top so that the dark helmet faceplate has a place to go when it is in the up position.
With the hard hat ready, I mounted it to the helmet making sure to place screws on the back half only.

Step 6 - Dryfit the helmet.
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You can see the hinges above on either side.

Step 7 - Create tinted visors using plexiglass and car tint.
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Step 8 - Paint and Finish assembly
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The Clothes were a bit harder. Looking at a reference picture, I needed to figure out each piece of the costume. The easiest parts to acquire were the glovesand boots. The rest had to be sewn from scratch using 5 yards of black pleather, some backer rod, and pyramid studs for the arms, gauntlets and around the coller.
The Shorts:
To sew the shorts, I used this video on youtube to help establish a pattern. The rest came together rather easy. Thanks C Martinez.
The Belt Buckle:
This was rather involved and I needed to know how to use blender. After some time creating, I finished with the following designs:
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Pyramid studs:
I couldn't find any online the right size (3/4" x 3/4") so I made some on the 3d printer and placed a hole in the bottom to screw in an 8-32 1/4" screw. Worked nicely.
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The Chest:
Basically difficult to describe but I used an old shirt as a template on the pleather and stitched along the seams. I placed a seam going up the middle of the chest and used the tie to cover all seams. The tie is sewn to one side and attached to the other with velcro.
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The shoulder pads are attached via velcro and made from the same mats used in a gym (eva foam). It was a very basic design and I used heat gun to give it a curve.
Using an old underarmour shirt and wrapping the backer rod with pleather, the costume winds down to a close.
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The final touch I added was a sound speaker hidden under the cape that plays "The Spinners - Spaceballs" theme song from my phone clipped to my shorts. The only problem is I might be too tall to play the part, that that's not going to stop me.

Thanks for looking.

Until next time, KEEP FIRING A**HOLES!

At the request of some RPF members, I'm sharing the STL files I used to make my costume. Some modifications may need to be made. If you used any of my files, please do me a favor and send pictures of it all done. I'd love to see it. Enjoy!
How did you install your hard hat for your dark helmet cause im stuck at doing that part cause im trying to cosplay as dark helmet next year
 
How did you install your hard hat for your dark helmet cause im stuck at doing that part cause im trying to cosplay as dark helmet next year


This has changed a bit with the new setup but the idea is still the same.
Step 1, cut the construction helmet along the black line:
serveimage (1).jpg

Step 2: attach the back of the construction helmet to the back of the Dark helmet using any means you like. My first one was casting a nut inside of rondo and using a screw with a fender washer from the back of the construction helmet into the nut.

Below are pictures of the original:
20180926_194106.jpg


Step 3: Attach a hinge for the front mask to get attached to. The hinges on the side of the helmet are just T-nuts glued to the inside. The metal brackets are Simpson Strong Tie Tension Bridge cut up and drilled as I needed them. These simpson straps run to the face plate through the 2 slots on either side and secured with a screw.
20180926_194056.jpg


Step 4, attach a string from the hinge (close to the helmet) to the construction helmet on both sides. This will prevent the helmet from fully swinging forward and down.
20180926_194005.jpg


Can this proceedure be perfected? Sure, but this was my proceedure even on my second helmet with the 3D printing.
 
This has changed a bit with the new setup but the idea is still the same.
Step 1, cut the construction helmet along the black line:
View attachment 1649921
Step 2: attach the back of the construction helmet to the back of the Dark helmet using any means you like. My first one was casting a nut inside of rondo and using a screw with a fender washer from the back of the construction helmet into the nut.

Below are pictures of the original:
View attachment 1649918

Step 3: Attach a hinge for the front mask to get attached to. The hinges on the side of the helmet are just T-nuts glued to the inside. The metal brackets are Simpson Strong Tie Tension Bridge cut up and drilled as I needed them. These simpson straps run to the face plate through the 2 slots on either side and secured with a screw.
View attachment 1649919

Step 4, attach a string from the hinge (close to the helmet) to the construction helmet on both sides. This will prevent the helmet from fully swinging forward and down.
View attachment 1649920

Can this proceedure be perfected? Sure, but this was my proceedure even on my second helmet with the 3D printing.
Thank you for the pictures so I can do my dark helmet cosplay
 
Hey Moe, quick question. Where did you get the glasses for your costume? I didn't see that mentioned in the thread.
That's just plexiglass you buy at the big box home improvement store. There is a picture of it on page 1:
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It is basically plastic so you can cut it with tools like a band saw. Just take it slow as this likes to chip when cutting. I usually go a little big and run it under a belt sander to get perfect.
 
That's just plexiglass you buy at the big box home improvement store. There is a picture of it on page 1:
View attachment 1738314

It is basically plastic so you can cut it with tools like a band saw. Just take it slow as this likes to chip when cutting. I usually go a little big and run it under a belt sander to get perfect.
Sorry let me clarify. I am talking about the round black eye glasses that your wearing under the helmet! HA I have the plexiglass already figured out.

I am trying to find accurate ones and while I have found some that are close to the design from the movie. The ones I have found are not quite right.
 
Sorry let me clarify. I am talking about the round black eye glasses that your wearing under the helmet! HA I have the plexiglass already figured out.

I am trying to find accurate ones and while I have found some that are close to the design from the movie. The ones I have found are not quite right.
Too funny. I'm pretty sure those are harry potter novelty glasses I stole from my son's previous costume. You can find a pair here.
 
Hello MoeSizzlac ! Sorry for messaging you on multiple platforms, but I'm desperate! I have been using your amazing Dark Helmet build as a basis for making my own halloween costume. I wasn't sure what kind of hinges you used to make the mask go into the helmet and where to obtain them? If you could give me any info it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for any help you can give!
 
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Hello! Sorry for messaging you on multiple platforms, but I'm desperate! I have been using your amazing Dark Helmet build as a basis for making my own halloween costume. I wasn't sure what kind of hinges you used to make the mask go into the helmet and where to obtain them? If you could give me any info it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for any help you can give!
You can call MoeSizzlac to this thread. Otherwise he might not get a notification
 
Hello MoeSizzlac ! Sorry for messaging you on multiple platforms, but I'm desperate! I have been using your amazing Dark Helmet build as a basis for making my own halloween costume. I wasn't sure what kind of hinges you used to make the mask go into the helmet and where to obtain them? If you could give me any info it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for any help you can give!
The Hinges I used were custom made. These were the parts I used:

1) 8/32 t-nut (m4 if using metric)
2) 8/32 screws (cut to length)
3) 8/32 Nuts with nylon
4) Nylon String
5) Simpson Tension Bridging tie (Hammered Flat)
6) Foam Pad
7) Red Thread locker

1698162782956.png


The Foam at the top is to provide friction for the helmet to stay up when pushed in the up position.

The red thread locker is so the screw does not come out of the T-nut glued to the helmet. Use an epoxy to glue the T-nut.

The String prevents the helmet from falling down too far.

The tension bridge on the inside of the face mask prevents the helmet from tipping forward too much

Since the hard hat is cut, this allows the face mast to glide up above your head. The majority of the weight is being held by the back of the helmet where it attaches to the hard hat band.

I'm sure you'll have more questions so let me know and I'll try my best to help you out.
 

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