Zeta Gundam pilot helmet

[amouro]

Hi folks. Yup, this is yet another pepakura project. But at least this is new subject matter. And before you say, "I've seen Gundam costumes before", this is a bit different. I'm not trying to dress up like a giant Japanese robot. I'm trying to dress up like the PILOT of a giant Japanese robot. Specifically the standard pilot space suit from 1985s Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. I may not ever make the full suit, but I want the helmet at least. Here's how it looks in the show.


Now here's what I've come up with. Due to the fact that it's a cartoon, every shot of the helmet looks a little different. So I've had to pick and and choose which features and proportions to use. And I've had to make some compromises to make it work in the real world. Most obviously the way the visor meets the chin area.



Tonight I finished my first test build. I made it out of regular paper, so it's a bit floppy. I'm going to tweak the design a bit and remake it card stock. And if that looks good I'll start fiberglassing

 

[torsoboy]

I am way into this. I've thought about making a Gundam pilot helmet myself. The modeling work so far looks excellent! I'm eager to see how you finish it off. Are you going to be doing the interior padding as well?

Subscribed!

 

[amouro]

Thanks. I'll be doing the padding for sure. I'm also going to try to figure out a mechanism for the visor to rotate up inside the helmet. That part might be tough. For now I'm just trying to make good looking outer shell.

 

[amouro]

A couple weeks later and I have quite a bit of progress. Yet I know I'm so far away from the finish line.

First I tweaked the 3D model and remade the helmet out of card-stock. I put resin on the outside and glassed the inside. I now realize why people do the whole rondo thing, as I have quite a few cavities in the glass around the hard corners. But that's nothing a little body filler wont handle. I ground the outside down and started doing the body work to smooth it all out. Once I got the front section roughly shaped smoothed right, it started looking really promising to me.

I've got tentative plans to make a mold of it after it's done so I can make slush casts of it. And also to make a vacuformed clear visor. The visor, as it is designed in my 3D program, is a cross-section of a sphere but its a squashed sphere. So I don't think I can just find something that already exists to make it out of. I think it will be pretty simple to just make a buck out of pepekura to vacuform one. Then if that all works out I need a visor retraction method. I'm thinking a simple small motor with a rubber wheel could be mounted in the protrusion above the forehead. The wheel would rest on the visor and roll it up into the inside of the helmet. Ugh, so much work before I even get to that point though.

Many pics incoming!

 

[spoudastis]

Very cool, not enough gundam stuff out there.

 

[CSMacLaren]

Extremely cool!

 

[amouro]

Filler, sand, filler, sand, filler, sand, filler, sand, filler, sand, filler, sand...