Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter/Guy Manuel Dual Scratch build/Foamex WIP Completed

I've finally found some spare time to get going with my new Thomas bucket, I'll be updating more as the day goes on, starting this thread to give myself a kick up the arse! Big thank you to Volpin for providing the blueprints for sale, 4 euros is nothing for such great reference to work with.

I'm using the top down view to create a visor frame, which will connect all the other sections. Looking at other reference photos the bottom portion is slightly different so I'll allow for this



It took me a very long time to find a suitable base-helmet. Scanning through dozens of skate/Baseball/Horse riding helmets online to find something the right size/shape to work with was tough work. What I ended up with was this Mongoose kids skate helmet. It's got that Thomas style oval shape, curved back, plus as it's a kids size (about 19cm side to side, 24cm front to back) I hopefully won't look like a bobble head wearing it. I simply ripped out the insert to leave myself with the external hard shell, filled the vent holes with plastic sheeting/filler ( this is still in progress, lots of sanding left to go!).

I've dry fitted the top visor housing, there's tabs added to the visor & slots cut into both sides of the helmet, this will add strength to the whole assembly when it's put together.

I've also started playing with the mask portion, here's a small test I did experimenting with heat-forming the foamex, figuring out the angle for the chin detail etc.


Anyway, back to the workshop, more updates to come later

edit: Apologies, not sure why the photos rotated sideways when I uploaded them

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

Good start!

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

Next up the lower section of the visor connected to the upper. I made some pillars from foamex with pegs to slot into both sections, this will give it strength & also allows me to dry fit everything while figuring out the other parts of the helmet.



Next up it's on to the mask section, this should give me a good idea of the sizing & how everything is going to look. It'll also be the last time I have to cut 5mm foamex with a stanley blade, that is not fun. More updates to follow

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

got some mask work done, plenty of mental gymnastics & protractor work later (took more time than I thought extrapolating the angles from the blueprints) I've got the thing drawn & cut out. Scored a channel on the inside to help with getting a smooth angle when I bend the side sections around. From what I can see the mask is the same width as the helmet, so it'll take some mental gymnastics to figure out the angles there. I'm in the midst of sanding/priming/sanding/priming the filler sections, soon as I have that done I can start finally putting everything together! More to come

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

Got the mask heat formed so now comes the fun part of figuring out where everything is going to interact at the ears. I thought about how to ensure I got the right angle for the mask & came up with the least elegant solution of all time, it worked though, I did have to do the same on a table leg when I realised I wouldn't be able to use this guid on the other side! There's still more detail to come on the mask including the chin cutout & some thin pieces of foamex to give it a closed in finished look.


I've run into a bit of a headache as I've found the visor in the profile view of Volpin's blueprints isn't the same size as the one in the plan view. As in I scaled them both to the same overall size, but effectively they're two different helmets. The end result is my visor top & bottom templates (luchofunk files) look like they'll be too small, if anyone has any ideas how to draw some larger ones freehand (don't have access to a printer as I'm away from the office all week) please let me know!

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

Well I didn't get to keep updating this as much as I would've liked, things got a bit hectic in completing this AND a Guy Manuel helmet in time for halloween, so I'll just finish up with a deluge of photos from the build/finished pics!

First up the guy Manuel progress. I started with a sheet of 5mm foamex & laid out the pattern, after painstakingly cutting this out (cutting curves in 5mm foamex with a stanley blade is not fun) the piece was heated & bent into the final shape, after much tweaking & messing about;

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

I found that my limited skills (very limited, as shown) with forming plastics left me with a problem for the Guy visor, in the end I went for a less elegant solution that worked out ok, not really delighted with it but it looked alright. using a piece of 3mm tinted perspex I got from ebay I'd build the visor in 6 sections, one large rectangular section & 5 "wing" sections that are straight on one side & curved on the other, so that they sit together and form a crude curve which would get me where I wanted to be. Below is the card mock-up of this. Also shown is my Thomas without the temple sections/ears. I didn't photograph this part as it was mainly just working out the angles for where everything needed to sit, some pretty involved work to get everything looking right!

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

I hit the frame with some primer & test fit the first visor section. One thing I found was that 3mm perspex is an absolute nightmare to bend using a heat gun. Eventually I figured out that about 5 minutes of heating allowed me to bend it where it needed to be, the smaller sections required multiple tries to get them to sit together correctly, plus annoyingly having to add an extra little piece to cover a gap. I had help on some sections, My Guy manuel hand painted all the wires & glued them to the back of the base helmet. later I added the side details including the ears, again cut from two layers of 5mm foamex & hot glued together. For painting I used gloss black auto paint & Rustoleum metallic gold, not quite chrome but it gives a nice reflective finish.

Re: Daft Punk Thomas Scratch build/Foamex WIP

All in all it was a race to the finish. The gloves were some cheap suede ones which held the 3mm foamex hand/finger plates well, these were sanded & bent to fit, then painted the same as the helmets. My girlfriend added some lights when it became apparent that my over-engineered light boxes wouldn't fit, also I found out too late that my led rig wouldn't fit (this build from last year was much too big, which is partly why I went back to the daft punk well, but the led did work here, planning is important! http://www.therpf.com/f24/first-build-daft-punk-thomas-bangalter-helmet-198611/). I'd never attempted a couples costume, I certainly underestimated the level of work involved in two simultaneous builds but the final result was a lot of fun, great reactions from people (we spent most of the night posing for photos which was a lot of fun) and a lot of satisfaction from putting this all together. Hope you like the results! Also I realise this wasn't a very good build thread, but if anyone has any questions on things I've left out I'd be happy to answer, thanks for reading!

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