Re: Star Lord w/ lights and sound - 10/3 - Light up earpiece, because why not?
I will note, honestly, that there are a couple thin spots on my helmet model revision where, as a result of multiple adjustments that I made in the course of printing test copies, things got a little compressed. I solved this problem with a bit of JB Weld, and I would recommend you guys consider doing the same. JB Weld is a two-part epoxy that is... fairly runny, with a working time of 20-30 minutes before it really starts to gum up. It is also
super strong. When I was building the helmet, my method was to line up parts, put superglue on the seam, then hot glue the inside of the helmet to create a quick connection between the two parts while I waited for the superglue to dry. Then I used a tongue depressor to smooth some JB Weld across the whole seam. At this point I have no doubt I could stand my entire weight on the helmet and it'd survive, though I'm not about to try. In any event, because of the fact that this is fairly liquid, it's a great material, imo, to thicken up any parts that need reinforcement on the interior of a printed helmet.
The strength of JB Weld is also why I had to
wire the gap in the helmet shut with anchor bolts, because I couldn't get it to close up otherwise.
That gap is more my sloppy construction rather than a flaw in the base model, though. I ended up printing the front parts of the helmet last because they were the least important with regards to the actual fit around the head, so I ended up with a gap that I hadn't accounted for when I attached the eyeplate to the temples of the helmet.
The helmet, as-is, fits on my head without any padding required, although I will be putting a few millimeters of weather stripping inside for comfort's sake around the forehead and back plate. I printed Helagak's original helmet at .9 scale and it was comically large on me, and I'm a 6'2" guy, but the changes I made to the helmet files in the OP are proportionate to me. I'd say if you have a 22 head or larger you could easily get away with wearing it at the default size, to be honest.
I spent the day doing some test paintjobs on the barrel shrouds to see what worked and what didn't. I ended up trying 4 or 5 different rattlecan metallic paints and I gotta say I'm
really not impressed with a lot of these. Most of them don't look metallic so much as glitter in a can. I think I've figured out a decent method now, though, involving Krylon Looking Glass Mirror paint. When applied over a black base coat you get a really solid metallic looking finish that I'm pretty sure I can gently hit with steel wool to get a brushed metal look. The Looking Glass paint reveals pretty much every imperfection underneath, though, so I'm spending the rest of the night sanding. I
don't want a chrome look for this, since Star Lord's gun is fairly hard-worn and more of an aluminum or steel from what I've seen.
