I have studied the helmet while building my 3d model (my day job does both vacuum forming, vacuum casting and injection molding) so I can say with confidence that the helmet was mold cast(the details are too shape for vacuum forming). The 3d model built for the film was designed for 3d printing and machining metal parts.
View attachment 537689
Vacuum casting is perfect for clear dome, it gives you that perfectly clear visor but it's an expensive process, you have to cut an steel two part mold similar to injection mold but without the core. It uses air pressure to expand the heated plastic to fill the mold. I think that process price tag is beyond us, unless some member has deep pockets or owns a machine shop.
Here is the webbing I picked up a few months ago:
It's foliage green military webbing. But after some wear it gets lighter and passes for more of a silvery gray color as you can see on the strap above.
@1stage the martian app?
do you mean the game?
http://mashable.com/2015/10/03/the-martian-game/#iBPUQquLYmqp
has anyone tried this? is it any good? Maybe good reference for the arm-computer graphics?
-mats
Oh, and as much as I hesitate to reduce my own chances of winning, the Arclight website has a drawing for one of five replica helmets through the next few days. They are not hero helmets like what's on display, but are still really nice. I have three photos of the one on display in Hollywood for comparison.
Good luck, I know all of you will put it to good use if you win!
@Captain April
How big are you modeling the visor(s)? Or have anyone estimated the dimention?
Could something like this work: https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/clear-acrylic-globe-lamp-covers-with-opening/
I assume the inner and outer visors are spherical? If any of the globes are close in size, it might work.
Inspired and informed by Frank Ippolito's post with photos from the Arclight Hollywood display, I made the 60 mile trip there today to see it in 3D. I also took a bunch of photos with my DSLR to try to get the decal details and any lettering that would be hard to catch during the day with all the reflected light off the display glass. Some of the photos look like duplicates in thumbnail form, but they are different focus points since I was at f4 and some were to ensure a clear shot from low shutter speed. The display limited how directly I could get photos of some parts. The helmet top only had a couple decals, but there is also some detail molded into it. Again the display and lighting limited how well I could reach it. It was too dark to get much of the inside of the helmet and I didn't think to use my iPhone's light to help illuminate it, but I was able to get some details of the LED lighting, including the manufacturer and type as indicated on the strips - litegear.com, Tungsten. I can really see why they used CGI visors though. That thing reflects everything and even if I had used my light, I doubt I could have gotten good photos. I didn't notice the outer shoe had more lettering molded into it next to the Ares III molding until I saw it on my computer, so I didn't get a good closeup view of it.
The NASA medallion on the rear appears to be brass on close inspection (from 6" away through the display glass).
Anybody know why there's Chinese characters sprinkled about on the decals?
These were uploaded at half size (10 MP) and I'm not sure what flickr did with that size, I just created an account for this. So if you need a tighter crop to read some small print, let me know.
Hope this helps some of you, this is beyond my budget and skill to join in on a build, so I look forward to seeing what the rest of you can do.
The suit is a real work of art with incredible weathering detail that just looks real from a couple year's worth of use.
Here's one detail shot for a teaser: View attachment 537778
https://www.flickr.com/photos/136848099@N03/albums/72157659509132996
That is really darn close. I can't wait to see it complete, I have been tuning up my printer all week, and ordering a few more parts to improve the quality just for this. Any idea how well it will split in to multiple pieces for printing? Only can print ~8x8x7, so it will take a bunch of pieces.Once I adjust my model with these numbers, we should be good to go for 3d printing.
I am somewhat happy to report that I was wrong, and Andreas Persson was correct. I really hoped it was out there somewhere, but at least I can stop searching now. FBFX has confirmed that the rest of the belt was custom made. Now we just have to find the materials used for it...I was really hoping for something that already existed. Couldn't be that easy though, now could it?I'm almost certain it's a custom belt since it's using the same webbing.