Aluminum cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Blackace936 · Dec 9, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Fantastic! I remember learning about lost wax casting in my early engineering classes. All that time I could only think how cool it would be to see it applied to helmets, never thought I actually would though. Your hard work is well worth the effort and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your thread. Can't wait to see them finished!

alienbuilder · Dec 10, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

I ve sandblasted and filled the helmets today. just a few pictures of them sandblasted because the surface looks not realy like aluminum this way. you may imagine already how all the grey parts will look like in the end. the mictips, the teeth, the ears and the stripe over the black brow will stay unpainted.

Now I have to wait for the paint I ordered a few days ago. hopefully it will arrive at friday so my friend can paint it at the weekend.
I also build a small neckring that just fits above the real one and can be fixed with 2 screws. this will hold the fabric of the padding in place at the entrance of the helmets.

Sergiotron · Dec 13, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Excellent progress!

Ardin Xi · Dec 14, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

This is just AMAZING!

alienbuilder · Dec 14, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Thank you,
unfortunately the pain just arrived yesterday evening so I can primer only tomorrow and maybe the helmets will be paint in january than, because the friend is home over christmas just like me. but maybe i ll make the interior helmet meanwhile or work on the free helmet a little bit also.

Duncanator · Dec 17, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

A cast aluminum helmet!? Amazing! and well done too. This was quite an ambitious project. Great job.

alienbuilder · Dec 23, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

just a little update:

I was just a little bit lazy these days. no possibility to paint the first helmets as I said so I worked a little bit to finish the 3rd. nothing realy new there tough but I just tested to polish the aluminum on a little piece. you can't really polish aluminum though, but the result comes pretty near to the cgi helmet in the movie I think. another piece I worked on were the little grit covers for the mictips. my first solution were these normal grids made out of aluminum with round holes. I thought I could file out the material between two holes to make it more screen accurate, but now realized that this is gonna be too incorrect. so I found a company making laser cuts using dxf files. So I draw a screen accurate grid and ordered some of that cut in stainless steel. should look like that hopefully:

This will be a pretty small piece, around 2 cm in diameter and I really hope this will work well. Just waiting for the results in January now...

ARKM · Dec 23, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

alienbuilder said:
... you can't really polish aluminum though...

I'm confused by that statement. I have polished aluminum before, several times. The first time was to a "mirror" finish. Heck, just rubbing in Mother's metal polish over aluminum using a microfiber cloth will do wonders.

alienbuilder · Dec 28, 2014

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

yes, you are right. sorry

well, it depends on what alloy you r using. in my case its a special alloy for art foundries when Im informed correctly. when trying to polish it, it looks always a little bit dead. but in my opinion perfect for the helmet.

alienbuilder · Jan 1, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Hallo again, and a happy new year!

Tomorrow I ll start working on the helmets again. meanwhile I ve prepared some little graphics for the little digital frames of the interior. here are just some examples of variations I ve drawn..

I still have to make some more, but the first step is done. I can choose than the image fitting the best. for the free helmet I ll use the green ones so the colors will reflect the color scheme of the outside. for the shock trooper I think of a blue or black mood with accents of red, just as seen in the commando consoles on the death star. my thoughts were to give the clone or who ever s wearing the helmet informations about the helmet status ( meanig, is everything working correct … mictips ext.. ; is the helmet connected with the suit; whats about the connection with other helmets …), the whole suit and some other important informations like battlefield information, messages or orders, ect ect…
these monitors are very small, so I choosed a very simple style using pictograms or simple self explaining "lamps" to show the status, just a little bit like in the games. so, if I'm using these helmets as an display piece, its disconnected of the suit and there is also no connection to any other squad or whatever, meaning the antenna or the receiver is red now so the neck connection to the suit is. the helmet is not receiving any datas, so all the monitors for the battlefield are showing no signal.

well, as I said before, I m not really a hardcore star wars fan and this might be not so much authentic, but I tried to catch some star wars style here and of course, by the movies the interior is not really proof. for me, especially in the little digital frames these are working well.

pnag · Jan 5, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

I think they look pretty good, and like the logic you've applied to them! Looks super!

tubachris85x · Jan 5, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

alienbuilder said:
I still have to make some more, but the first step is done. I can choose than the image fitting the best. for the free helmet I ll use the green ones so the colors will reflect the color scheme of the outside. for the shock trooper I think of a blue or black mood with accents of red, just as seen in the commando consoles on the death star. my thoughts were to give the clone or who ever s wearing the helmet informations about the helmet status ( meanig, is everything working correct … mictips ext.. ; is the helmet connected with the suit; whats about the connection with other helmets …), the whole suit and some other important informations like battlefield information, messages or orders, ect ect…
these monitors are very small, so I choosed a very simple style using pictograms or simple self explaining "lamps" to show the status, just a little bit like in the games. so, if I'm using these helmets as an display piece, its disconnected of the suit and there is also no connection to any other squad or whatever, meaning the antenna or the receiver is red now so the neck connection to the suit is. the helmet is not receiving any datas, so all the monitors for the battlefield are showing no signal.

well, as I said before, I m not really a hardcore star wars fan and this might be not so much authentic, but I tried to catch some star wars style here and of course, by the movies the interior is not really proof. for me, especially in the little digital frames these are working well.

Perhaps trying a graphic which depicts the status of the entire clone armor rather than just the helmet? Would make sense for someone to have that kind of direct information (logically) then just the helmet's operational status alone

alienbuilder · Jan 6, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Yes, of course. thats the plan. The helmet in fact may have the most instruments in it, so for me it make sense to do some graphics just for the helmet. but there will be one for the whole suit too, of course for the arm panel and the backpack…

alienbuilder · Jan 9, 2015

Mictips

Hallo again,

well, nothing exiting since the last update… the 3rd helmet is almost finished with the metalwork now so I can start polishing it this weekend hopefully. my friend will come back on monday than so we can finally start painting than too. but one little thing: my laser cut mictip meshes arrived today and I m pretty impressed. It s not really as planned though, because all the holes are a little bit to small. I thought the laser would be 1mm in diameter, bit it was much smaller. But maybe it could be a little bit more accurate to the original. The circle is a little bit too bit because of that too, but I can sand it down to the correct size easily. Well, I ll see how it looks like, when I cleaned these up a bit and put in the bulge. but for now I m happy with these parts.

Sergiotron · Jan 9, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

Yeah, the holes look a little too small, but the precision of the cuts is impressive.

alienbuilder · Jan 10, 2015

Re: Aluminium cast Clone Trooper Helmet

So, I finished one pair of the mic tips today and I think I m pretty happy with them though the size problem with the holes. I ve cut down the diameter so the number of holes isn t correct anymore, but the hole thing looks good for me. here some low res pictures with the mobile phone:

left side sanded a little bit, right side sandblasted

I think I like the sandblasted version most, so here some other pictures with both sandblasted:

the quality of the photos is poor, but I ll make better ones tomorrow.

as you can see, the holes are still a little bit to small, well not much though. but they also would have to be a little bit closer to each other. Well, as I said for me it works good. Its absolutely unique now and I think I won't spend this much money again to produce other ones.