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Active Member
Hey Everyone!
I thought that I would try my hand at building my own Vader helmet. I've never done this before (although I was an art major, so I'm no stranger to the materials, just helmet making in particular) so it will be a learning adventure for me. Join me, wont you?
I started off with the awesome pepakura file by Juvito. Its of the ROTS Vader, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm hoping to modify it to suit my needs, and Juvito's pep file is top notch. At least one side of it is accurate, right? Here it is all built up.
The grill ended up mostly stuck to my fingers, as did the tubes on the sides, so I 3d printed the grill and winged it for the tubes.
The tubes were added after. The only pic I have of them in process is after adding resin and fiberglass. So, usually with pepakura, this is where the bondo comes in. But, that's not really suited to my skill set. In college, I was more of a graphic design/sculpture person, so I decided instead that I could refine the details better if I used this as a base for sculpting in polymer clay (a material I'm much more used to). So, it was mounted up and this is where I am so far with it.
I'm not entirely happy with the tubes now, so I may cut them off and just sculpt new ones in. My thought process with going this route is that I can sculpt in some asymmetricality along the way and make it more "authentic" looking and a little less sterile. I'm certainly not going for absolute screen accuracy here, more the general feel of Vader. I'm drawing from a lot of different sources for details (CSMacLaren in particular is a treasure trove) and no particular movie. This will end up being my particular Vader, a sort of "One New Empire of the Jedi" helmet, with a little bit from every era.
Thanks for looking!
I thought that I would try my hand at building my own Vader helmet. I've never done this before (although I was an art major, so I'm no stranger to the materials, just helmet making in particular) so it will be a learning adventure for me. Join me, wont you?
I started off with the awesome pepakura file by Juvito. Its of the ROTS Vader, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm hoping to modify it to suit my needs, and Juvito's pep file is top notch. At least one side of it is accurate, right? Here it is all built up.
The grill ended up mostly stuck to my fingers, as did the tubes on the sides, so I 3d printed the grill and winged it for the tubes.
The tubes were added after. The only pic I have of them in process is after adding resin and fiberglass. So, usually with pepakura, this is where the bondo comes in. But, that's not really suited to my skill set. In college, I was more of a graphic design/sculpture person, so I decided instead that I could refine the details better if I used this as a base for sculpting in polymer clay (a material I'm much more used to). So, it was mounted up and this is where I am so far with it.
I'm not entirely happy with the tubes now, so I may cut them off and just sculpt new ones in. My thought process with going this route is that I can sculpt in some asymmetricality along the way and make it more "authentic" looking and a little less sterile. I'm certainly not going for absolute screen accuracy here, more the general feel of Vader. I'm drawing from a lot of different sources for details (CSMacLaren in particular is a treasure trove) and no particular movie. This will end up being my particular Vader, a sort of "One New Empire of the Jedi" helmet, with a little bit from every era.
Thanks for looking!
