Spaceballs Dark Helmet

MoeSizzlac

Active Member
Springboarding off of a Halo costume I was thinking about a great halloween costume character to create and wear at parties. Weighing the pros and cons of a bunch of costumes (including buzz lightyear and the predator) I decided to settle on an old favorite movie of mine from childhood; Spaceballs. With the help of a newly acquired 3D Printer, and the knowledge gained from creating the Halo Armor, I decided to create a Dark Helmet Costume.
Step 1 - Obtain a pepakura file of the Helmet. For that, I used Dark Helmet helmet by Darkside501st. I have to give the creators of the pdo files a lot of credit for their time and effort contributed. Thank you. After resizing and printing the helmet on 100lb stock paper, it was time to start cutting and gluing. Nothing new here, just applying what I did with Halo armor below:
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Used cardboard to reinforce supports. This decreases warping when applying fiberglass resin.
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Step 2 - Coat with Fiberglass Resin:
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Step 3 - Apply the Bondo:
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Step 4 - I decided to pull part of the mask out of the PDO and use the program Blender to help turn it into a 3d print .stl file. The below was the result:
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Daughter photobomb! Since the mask was too big for the printer, I split it into 3 parts. You can see the seams above. Each seam was sanded and painted smooth. When gluing the parts together, I used hot glue first, then a rondo layer over the seam and fiber tape across the seam as well. The fibers add a lot of strength.
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Dry fit the pieces together. Looking good so far.

Step 5 - Now for the hard part. I need this thing to sit on my head and not my shoulders. I don't have many pictures but I should be able to give you an idea of how it was done.
I took a a hard hat that has an internal head holder like the one below:
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Then cut the top of the hard hat off.
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I cut along the top so that the dark helmet faceplate has a place to go when it is in the up position.
With the hard hat ready, I mounted it to the helmet making sure to place screws on the back half only.

Step 6 - Dryfit the helmet.
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You can see the hinges above on either side.

Step 7 - Create tinted visors using plexiglass and car tint.
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Step 8 - Paint and Finish assembly
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The Clothes were a bit harder. Looking at a reference picture, I needed to figure out each piece of the costume. The easiest parts to acquire were the glovesand boots. The rest had to be sewn from scratch using 5 yards of black pleather, some backer rod, and pyramid studs for the arms, gauntlets and around the coller.
The Shorts:
To sew the shorts, I used this video on youtube to help establish a pattern. The rest came together rather easy. Thanks C Martinez.
The Belt Buckle:
This was rather involved and I needed to know how to use blender. After some time creating, I finished with the following designs:
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Pyramid studs:
I couldn't find any online the right size (3/4" x 3/4") so I made some on the 3d printer and placed a hole in the bottom to screw in an 8-32 1/4" screw. Worked nicely.
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The Chest:
Basically difficult to describe but I used an old shirt as a template on the pleather and stitched along the seams. I placed a seam going up the middle of the chest and used the tie to cover all seams. The tie is sewn to one side and attached to the other with velcro.
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The shoulder pads are attached via velcro and made from the same mats used in a gym (eva foam). It was a very basic design and I used heat gun to give it a curve.
Using an old underarmour shirt and wrapping the backer rod with pleather, the costume winds down to a close.
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The final touch I added was a sound speaker hidden under the cape that plays "The Spinners - Spaceballs" theme song from my phone clipped to my shorts. The only problem is I might be too tall to play the part, that that's not going to stop me.

Thanks for looking.

Until next time, KEEP FIRING A**HOLES!

At the request of some RPF members, I'm sharing the STL files I used to make my costume. Some modifications may need to be made. If you used any of my files, please do me a favor and send pictures of it all done. I'd love to see it. Enjoy!
 
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Hi Moe! Great work on this Dark Helmet!

I used your face mask that you shared as a template and reworked it somewhat.
I've also modelled the entire helmet in Rhino and I'm 3d printing it in pieces... (the .pdo was dead so I had to try on my own ;)

Screenshot 2017-12-06 09.04.41.pngScreenshot 2017-12-06 09.05.47.pngScreenshot 2017-12-05 22.39.00.png

One question: Would you be comfortable sharing your pattern for the cape? I'm not totally sure what's going on in the shoulder area?

Great work!

thanks,
Micke
 
Hi Moe! Great work on this Dark Helmet!

I used your face mask that you shared as a template and reworked it somewhat.
I've also modelled the entire helmet in Rhino and I'm 3d printing it in pieces... (the .pdo was dead so I had to try on my own ;)

View attachment 789119View attachment 789120View attachment 789118

One question: Would you be comfortable sharing your pattern for the cape? I'm not totally sure what's going on in the shoulder area?

Great work!

thanks,
Micke

Hey Askernas,
I love that 3d Model you made in Rhino. Is there any chance you could post those .stl files? I'd love to add them to my library. As for the shoulders, I winged it from the start, no pattern.
1) I basically sacrificed a T shirt and cut the lower half off.
2) I cut along where I wanted my seams to be so I could get a basic flat shape pattern.
3) I then traced out my pattern and gave it an extra inch along the entire shape so that I had extra material for sewing the seems.
4) I'm pretty sure the cape was added in afterwards and sewn across the shoulder line. Again, it was free handed.
5) The shoulder look is obtained by folding 3 folds in the sleeve (kind of like how you fold a paper fan) and sewing the frond of the sleeve allowing the middle part to "fan" out so to speak.

Let me know if you want closeup shots.
Best,
Moe
 
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Oh, I have no issues posting those, that was my plan anyhow.

I just thought I'd wait until I have a working model so I know if I need to tweak them. There are a few areas where I am not 100% sure.

At present, the part where the helmet angles out is the same on the sides as it is in the back, and I am not 100% sure it should be like that. Some pictures suggest it fans out less on teh sides than in the back, and until I have something working in my hands, It is difficult to see =)

As soon as I'm happy with how the helmet comes out in print (still printing it in parts... as you know, it is HUGE..) I'll post them. =)

Thanks for the info, that helps a lot.

For the cape, is it basically a rectangle or did you make the upper short edge slightly chamfered?
 
Hey Askernas,
Hopefully, These pictures will give you a better idea of what you are looking for. The cape measures 53.5" across. I would recommend saving the bottom hem for when you have it attached. That way, you can have someone pin the bottom so that it looks even and just trim the excess later. Let me know how it turns out or if you have more questions.
Best,
Moe

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For the cape, is it basically a rectangle or did you make the upper short edge slightly chamfered?
 
Hey Askernas!

Do you by any chance have the files for Dark Helmet that you mentioned wanting to upload? I am working on a custom 3D printable 1/10th scale bust of Dark Helmet and would love to utilize your helmet model!

Best,
David
 
First off, your Dark Helmet is fantastic. I'm currently building one and I am stuck on how to mount the hard hat to the helmet part. It would be amazing and greatly appreciated if you could possible post some pics on how you mounted your hard hat to the helmet. Pics maybe showing where you have the screws holding the hard hat.

Thanks in advance.
 
First off, your Dark Helmet is fantastic. I'm currently building one and I am stuck on how to mount the hard hat to the helmet part. It would be amazing and greatly appreciated if you could possible post some pics on how you mounted your hard hat to the helmet. Pics maybe showing where you have the screws holding the hard hat.

Thanks in advance.

Hard hat is basically held in place by 4 screws along the back rim because the front helmet needs to slide up where screws would normally be. See attached pics for better explanation. Let me know if you have any more questions.

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Thanks for posting those pictures. It's exactly what I needed. I now have a plan on how to mount my head gear inside my helmet. For reference, when you cut the hard hat, did you cut it to the same height as to how high your head sits in the harness or just above or just below.

Thanks again, really appreciate you taking the time to upload the pics and to answer questions.....
 
Thanks for posting those pictures. It's exactly what I needed. I now have a plan on how to mount my head gear inside my helmet. For reference, when you cut the hard hat, did you cut it to the same height as to how high your head sits in the harness or just above or just below.

Thanks again, really appreciate you taking the time to upload the pics and to answer questions.....

Mine is definitely cut below where the head sits. Maybe 2 to 3 inches width max.
 

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