Wow, that looks amazing! Very Smooth, but the only problem I can see are the Lines near the ear part on the second to last picture
the need to be deeper..or something. almost looks like its spilling over (its obviously not) but thats what It looks like to me.

it looks awesome and to be honest i found smoothing large places harder than detailing

Your sculpting looks really good, I had the problem of posting and never bringing my mark iv to completion- the mistake I made there was improper sizing, and it killed the project dead in the water. I think your detailing looks great, I look forward to seeing this one completed.

looks very nice, that should have taken a long time to make

Wow... With full critisism, i can only say that this look better than what it looks in game. This is great work mate.

Thank you everyone for the kind words and comments!

Heh no, not quite smooth yet! I'm working on that this week, and hope to start molding this weekend. It's kind of... I don't know... "lumpy," I guess, especially close up. I'm really nervous about starting those flanges in the back This is another question... Just how smooth is "smooth enough" for molding? Samus' helmet is like shiny-smooth... Any experienced sculptors out there have some suggestions? Perhaps I'm putting too much work into this step? Should I cross my fingers and try to fix it in post?

As for the lines, yeah, thanks for seeing that, I'm a bit concerned about them, they don't appear as well defined from certain angles. I'm hoping it will look different with a coat of primer, but I'm trying to deepen them in the sculpt, as well. While I'm smoothing, I inserted some rubber cord into them to help keep them defined. Having used it now, I don't recommend it... it has some memory to it and stretches a bit, making it not terribly well suited for this purpose. Suggestions for what I should have used would be appreciated.




@ka5p3r: Yeah, smoothing the larger sections has been hard, but the real hard part was the symmetry!
@Rosh: I am definitely afraid of that happening... I made part of the lifecast for the rest of the suit this weekend, too... if the sizing of the helmet ends up being off... but starting over on the helmet might just end my marriage Well, I can always keep it as a trophy!
@killinghorne: It took over a year... that's perhaps too long
@SunlightData: Okay, that's just TOO nice!! But that does make me remember something I've noticed, though... The proportions of the sculpt are much different than the in-game model, and that's intentional... The problem with Samus (as well as Master Chief, or virtually any character that wears a helmet) is that the characters are proportioned in such a way that the helmet is modeled as the size of a head, rather than the size of a head with a helmet on it. If you were to take off the helmet, the head would be very, very small. Also, Samus' helmet is much wider than it is tall, so I'm trying to compensate for that a bit by making it a bit more "squashed" horizontally.

Anyway, thanks again, everyone! Last question for now... (and this is uber-n00b, I know, and I'm sorry...) my pics are too big, and I can't figure out how to insert size tags in BB code because the picture just shows up. Is there a way to do this, or do I just have to post smaller size pics?

Looks really good so far. I recommend that once you are "finished" with it going back and just resmoothing everything and redetailing it. Might take you a while but it will be worth it in the end.

Oh my god it's beautiful!

Wow, that's really nice. The only criticism I have is that the lines appear to have a little excess clay on the edges. Other than that, absolutely fantastic work

Okay, I am in desperate need of some advice here…

Yup, that's about where I am with it right now. I smoothed and detailed once, now I'm in the process of re-smoothing and re-detailing. Unless you mean after I cast? At that point I hope to be able to sand it, as I seem to be having a problem getting the unevenness out of it with the tools I'm using... Exhibit A:






This lumpiness is really driving me bonkers at this point. I've used metal scrapers, rakes, rubber kidneys, and even a wire brush to really rough it up and try to even it out from there, but nothing is working well so far. If anyone has tips (other than "keep working it," as I'll be doing that, anyway) I could REALLY use them

Yup, I anticipated that would happen... that's the intended purpose of the blue rubber cord you see in that pic. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the lines will be nice and hold their definition when I'm finally done smoothing and pull the cord out. I'm sure there will still be work to do after that, but I'm hoping that will make things easier.

Thanks very much for the compliments, you guys! Looking forward to molding and pulling my first cast this weekend!

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase can I have one?

This gives me motivation to start clay molding and casting. Good job!

Sculptor detected!! I always enjoy looking at sculpted work, impresses me no end that stuff pull from the ground can be made into such awesome things. That and also anyone who does sculpt their work always has the talent and creativity to pull off said awesome work. Keep it up!

Oh my god I love it and this looks like the best made Samus Helmet I've seen yet, I even like this over my pep helmet and that's saying something.