Wanting To Design a Helmet

[TTLego]

Hi Guys,

For my next personalized project, I wanted to tackle the creation of a Scaled Helmet to fit myself, based off of the conceptual art for Star Wars ANH & the Newly released Rogue One, hoping I can use the information from learning this process to help with my projects at Uni, whilst I have done some preliminary sketches and designs just to get the ball rolling, I hope to expand this project by bringing my idea's to life. My question would be on the best route to go with this?

From my own research I've found that there's primarily two processes either Digitally sculpting then creating a Pepakura file to bring to life / 3D Printing, or to Hand Sculpt the project itself, whilst I've dabbled within Sculpting in the past, what would you guys recommend in creating a 3D form which I can then work ontop of and develop further? My attempt of finding resources through Youtube have been unsuccessful to this date, so if anyone is able to provide any videos or other information on how I could go about starting this project further it would be much appreciated.

I've heard about how people use materials such as Fiberglass etc for structure and the use of WetSanding and Priming to coat and cover the project, is there any other threads which have encountered these processes before, once again any links or useful information would be much appreciated!
Thanks for taking the time to read guys

 

[pitchforknumb]

All of the helmets I make I hand sculpt the old fashioned way. If you're still not sure about how the final design will look, I would make a 1:4 scale helmet and play around with that until you nail down all of the forms you want on your 1:1 scale helmet and go from there. To me I like working in real world 3D. That way you know exactly what you're going to get, and exactly the size your final helmet will be. But that's just me. I've seen people do amazing things in digital 3D as well.

 

[TTLego]

Thanks for the advice, pitchforknumb
Like I mentioned im running through various designs at the moment, and creating some 1:4 scale models might be the best way to go! At least that would give me a better definition on the concepts and shapes I have managed to sketch up. I'm more of a practical guy myself as well, and find Digital Sculpting a tad overwhelming which is why I wondered if it was possible to create master props physically, as most sources I found described 3D files, but great to hear I would be able to work from Real life aswell!