Kylo Ren Helmet resin printed

Hi,

Beside my 3D print Avenger project, I did a Kylo Ren helmet. It was a live stream project I did on Twitch for most of it for the 3D creation. My goal was to have something which was as much as possible screen accurate. But unfortunately, finding good references was impossible (from book, movie, etc.).
Google Image provided me some costume masks which totally sucks and also a nice series of 4 images from the prototype of Anovos Helmet. In fact, I discovered three days ago that it was from this company through a Savage Adams video..

It was a lot of fun and challenging. Here are some images:

I did a quick scan of my head to have the good proportion and sizes. You can see my main reference on the side.



Then I built a quick template and 3D printed it with a FDM printer to check that the size was OK:



And it was (sorry for the crappy image)



Then I started to model the helmet. I took care first as much as possible of the proportions and refining them before going in the parts and details:





I had to do a lot of "non-visible work" as well for splitting the parts and being able to assemble them later. You can see below just the grid (chrome part of the helmet) on the right and on the left the support structure of the mask:

Then when all the splitting was done, I have been able to add some details on the helmet, to make it look used and damaged. So different from his grandfather helmet...I decided to do them on the 3D model directly as I knew that the 3D printer will be able to reproduce them. It's also a way to reduce the post process work.

At this stage, it was more random damages as it was difficult to see them in the movie (very dark images, movements and only HD resolution for the movie...)



This is a screenshot of all the main parts as an exploded model: It's a total of 19 parts.



And all the parts together:

Then the 3D printing process, which was quite challenging...

First I did at the beginning some FDM print tests, to evaluate the speed, quality, etc. The Ultimaker 2+ Extended that i have is quite good and accurate, but it is not definitly the best choice to go FDM. Look at that:




I had a very hard time to make the print going smoothly because this part (the outer ring of the chrome part of the front part of the mask) is long, thin and quite large. The starting point of the print has some issues sticking to the support.

Finally by trying different orientation I have been able to print the model:


But even if the print was a success, it allowed me to anticipate a lot of troubles for the other parts of the helmet to print as most of them are quite big but thin. At the same time, A lot of supports are required and the finishing is, well.. FDM style.. The only benefit of FDM is the cost of material.

Then I decided to switch to my SLA printer a Form2. This printer is resin based, more accurate, faster, but the printing volume size is smaller and materials are, hum, more expensive.

Here is a screenshot of the 3D printing software where you define the supports and orientation before starting the print. The blue bounding box is the model one, the gray is the printer max volume size. It has been difficult to fit some parts and I had to split others into multiple parts (the last model is the back side of the helmet, split in two).



Then came the printing part by itself. No surprise, no issues, everything has been flawless... Here is a photo on the build platform straight out the printer and into the IPA alcohol bath. The model was too big to fit entirely in!

OK, now let's leave the digital and switch to the analog way of building things

Here are some parts straight out of the printer and I did a quick dry test of the assembly. I only did a quick sanding of some support spots on the three parts around the front part of the mask. These three items are the top main part of the helmet which will be joined together. As you can notice, the print quality is good. and it was printed at the lowest quality.



I had to glue with the Super Glue some parts and using some putty (from Tamiya) to fill some gap. I only applied little sanding as I was short on time. At this stage, I was 24h away from taking a plane from France to Los Angeles. Notice on the top left corner, some Japanese sanding sponges. I can't live without them now!
I only worked on the outside part of the helmet. No need to spend the time for the inside part. I only added some extra ultra-strong double-sided tape in it to reinforce the bond between each part. Double-sided because I put some fabric in it to make it more comfortable.



Here is the front part of the helmet. It has been printed in two part and I split them on the large scratch location. Like that it's easier to hide the split in between.

Then came the time of doing the painting. It is not my best part, to be honest, I'm really lacking experience (but I'm learning a lot through the forum!)

All the parts have been printed at this stage and glued together. I only kept the helmet as two parts, hold by strong magnets because I had to take the plane with it and fitting that in my luggage... I used classic spray cans (Tamiya again) and for the chrome part (which wasn't chrome enough for me...) I applied some black dry brush painting to give a weather/used effect.It was my first time doing that... It turns good IMHO.

About the "visor" part (the grid for the eyes), it has been printed as well.



Below is the final model on my first time wearing it. I was afraid about it not fitting my head by doing some wrong measurements in the first stage of the creation. But as you can see, it's ok! The magnets did well their job by holding everything together. you can notice a small gap between the chrome part and the side part of the back of the helmet on the photo on the right, it was just a quick assembly test, when in place, it fits perfectly.

I also applied some chrome paint with a paintbrush on the black part of the helmet to give it a used look. I ended up finishing the project 6 hours before taking my plane



Here is a photo at Los Angeles at our company event, with the helmet on top of a Kylo Ren scarf I purchased on Amazon.



Me wearing it:



And the helmet on stage during a Star Wars Battle Front II presentation by EA Motive at our company event:

Just to conclude, I had a lot of fun even if the technical part was really challenging. It was my first helmet, but definitely not my last one (hey, Lord Vader!!). But I will do the Kylo Ren Light Saber first and I'm still struggling with how I will do the blade...

In terms of datas... I was something around 40 hours of work, 4 days and 11 hours of print for a total of 1.4 L of resin. The total cost is 426 EUR / 506 USD, but not including the printer cost (over the time of course), electricity and human time.
Then it's an expensive helmet... but when compared to the Anovos one, well, I think it was still worth doing it for me!

Your comments and critics are welcome! And if you have questions about the process or if you need some clarification on some parts, just let me know.

This is fantastic work! Nice to see all the effort that goes into getting the shape and proportions just right before making a pattern. Many people skip that part!

Thanks Star-art