Benjo
Active Member
Hi everyone,
I'm new to this forum and I wanted to share one of the biggest/crazier project I've ever made.
In summer 2014, I felt the sudden need to own a stormtrooper helmet. I couldn't afford a replica and I was used to build every SW stuffs I wanted to have, so I started with a space cowboy pepakura model.....but wasn't satisfied with it for obvious reasons.
Here began a growing obsession for Stormtrooper helmets...
Two years later, after months and months of research, dust, work and trials, I ended up with that guy.
That helmet is made from four pieces of vacuum formed HIPS (back/cap, faceplate, ears). I painted it off white to match the ESB MKII from the propstore of london (I love that helmet).
I'm not truly obsessed with total screen accuracy so I was pretty happy with it.
some progress pics:
first I had that pretty sad pepakura attempt.
I took it as base to sculpt vacuum form bucks. I separate the helmet in two pieces and started to fill the blank parts with whatever I could find (fiberglass, bondo, wood, cardboard, resin, epoxy putty)
Here started the painful part of the process: sanding, sanding, sanding, bondoing, sanding, comparison pics, then resculpting, bondoing, sanding, sanding, sanding.....
At that time, I wasn't looking for a super accurate helmet so I've stopped working on it at that point. I've started to sculpt the ears bucks and built a vacuum forming table:
Then I've made my first pulls out of 3mm and 2mm HIPS in my kitchen oven:
Not that good but pretty encouraging for me. The back/cap piece was the hardest part to pull, I had to try many many times to obtain something correct ad usable.
I'm new to this forum and I wanted to share one of the biggest/crazier project I've ever made.
In summer 2014, I felt the sudden need to own a stormtrooper helmet. I couldn't afford a replica and I was used to build every SW stuffs I wanted to have, so I started with a space cowboy pepakura model.....but wasn't satisfied with it for obvious reasons.
Here began a growing obsession for Stormtrooper helmets...
Two years later, after months and months of research, dust, work and trials, I ended up with that guy.
That helmet is made from four pieces of vacuum formed HIPS (back/cap, faceplate, ears). I painted it off white to match the ESB MKII from the propstore of london (I love that helmet).
I'm not truly obsessed with total screen accuracy so I was pretty happy with it.
some progress pics:
first I had that pretty sad pepakura attempt.
I took it as base to sculpt vacuum form bucks. I separate the helmet in two pieces and started to fill the blank parts with whatever I could find (fiberglass, bondo, wood, cardboard, resin, epoxy putty)
Here started the painful part of the process: sanding, sanding, sanding, bondoing, sanding, comparison pics, then resculpting, bondoing, sanding, sanding, sanding.....
At that time, I wasn't looking for a super accurate helmet so I've stopped working on it at that point. I've started to sculpt the ears bucks and built a vacuum forming table:
Then I've made my first pulls out of 3mm and 2mm HIPS in my kitchen oven:
Not that good but pretty encouraging for me. The back/cap piece was the hardest part to pull, I had to try many many times to obtain something correct ad usable.