First Attempt At Mc Helmet - Finished!

[MstrCllst240]

Hi everyone. Since I'm a noob on this forum and working with pepakura, please bear with me.
This is my first attempt at making Master Chief's Helmet (I'm not sure which model it is). Since I didn't want to waste any money trying to make the real thing, I figured I would make a practice one out of regular paper just to see how it came out:
[attachment=82281000540.JPG]
And this is what the helmet looks like on my head:
[attachment=82291000563.JPG]
[attachment=82301000564.JPG]
[attachment=82311000566.JPG]

I'm just looking for ideas about changes I could make to this helmet. I do realize it's made out of regular paper, so the quality is nothing compared to a real model. (And yes, that is my Christmas wreath in the background that I have not taken down yet...)

One important question: does anyone wear glasses. I would like to know how they got around fitting the helmet on with their glasses.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[azneraz]

hi there, first off great job dude, even if it is paper i couldn't tell the difference and it holds up pretty well =D to answer your question on the glasses issue, i have glasses myself but no MC Helmet but i also think that the current size of your helmet is a tad too small cos it seems like your top half of your face sticks out where the visor will be going. I current have a GoW helmet in the works and it fits just fine with my glasses and that's a pretty tight squeeze =D hope this helps duded and it looks great =D

 

[Anubis117]

well it appears you did the same thing i did, i made a helmet out of regular paper as a tester to make sure i got the technique right. looks pretty good on you. good fit. my only advice is get some tag board and make a real one.

good work man, and on the glasses thing, sorry can't help you. i wear contacts as well as glasses so i don't have that problem.

 

[MstrCllst240]

Thanks guys. I'm going to be making a real helmet soon when my spring break starts in two weeks.

 

[sirblood]

I wear glasses. getting the glasses to fit isn't the hard part you will have to worry about. You NEED a cooling fan circulating air past your glasses to keep them from fogging up inside the helmet... that's what you will have to worry about in the long run. To accomplish this I have 1 cooling fan mounted at the base of the chin blowing up. I opened up the 2 smaller square pieces at the bottom of the chin for air circulation. (filled them in with fiberglass screening). I also put 2 fans up by the brim. The chin fan blows up wards across my face sucking the cool air from the outside via the 2 circulation holes. I lifted the fan up with 4 bolts. I glued the head part to the helmet and got lazy and glued the fan to the bolts... didn't want to deal with it loosening up in the future...

I used flying squirrel HD helmet. Scale was .2890 width 26.4 cm. Hope that helps. But I do have a big head. You will want your helmet to fit loose to the point it will slide around a bit if you want to wear your glasses in it without having to put them on after you put on the helmet...

Here is how mine fits:
http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k423/s1...reenprimary.jpg

oh, the cooling fans can be bought at radio shack for 12-13$. Look for small (2 inch?) 12 v fans. They run just fine on a 9v battery, and I would suggest 1 on/off switch for each fan
hope that helps.

 

[randomman]

Looks pretty good!
Also a pretty good fit, but I would at least add .5 cm for padding and such.
That's just me though.
Good luck with your build!

 

[MstrCllst240]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I was thinking about putting fans in the helmet for circulation, but the idea of having fiberglass opening in the side is a great idea.
Anyone have suggestions for good padding? Or maybe one of you guys can direct me to the correct thread.

Thanks all

 

[sirblood]

well, what i did was goto walmart and pick up the cheapest Styrofoam bicycle helmet that I could find that would fit... it cost me $10. Granted just using Styrofoam like some people would of been cheaper, this was form fitting to my head and came with foam padding attached to the Styrofoam (for comfort). I had to carve it down a lot to get it to fit the way I wanted to.

The bicycle helmet did give me an idea though... how about putting a small Velcro (chin) strap in the helmet to keep it from slipping around... haven't done that yet but thinking about trying it.

You want to leave as much space for air circulation as you can. I used a couple drops of hot glue to hold it in place while the liquid nails dried.

Goto your local department store or home improvement store and goto their windows and doors section. They should have black fiberglass screening there. I doubled it back on itself 2 times to make it tripple thickness and it works great. added air circulation can be accomplished by cutting slits in between the faces on the underside of the bill of the helmet. that's where the circulation fans in the bill of my helmet get their cool air to circulate in the helmet.

before you actually secure all the wiring for your helmet, you should wait until its essentially finished. You will want to put the helmet on and see what parts you can easily access inside of the helmet for placing the electrical control switches. For me I put the LED switch on the back part of the helmet and the 3 fans are controled on the sides (beside your ears) 2 on the right for the bill fans and 1 on the left for the chin fan.

 

[MstrCllst240]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll post more pictures when I start the real helmet.

 

[MstrCllst240]

As promised, here are some starting pics of the real helmet i'm starting. Since I'm on spring break I figured this would be the best time to start.

After several hours of cutting and folding I have all the pieces ready to be put together:
[attachment=8365:real_helmet_pieces.JPG]
The cardstock I used was 110 lbs weighted (i'm pretty sure was enough and it was pretty cheap at walmart).

Instead of using the double-sided tape I used in my practice helmet, I'm gonna try to use a hot glue gun and see how that comes out. Here is a picture of the glue gun. It has a thin nozzle which should help make sure that I don't blob up areas with too much glue:
[attachment=8366:the_gluer.JPG]

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to post. I will post more pics of the progress I will make.

Thanks to all!!!

 

[MstrCllst240]

OK everyone...finally found a camera I could use...

Here are the results of the many pieces you see above.
[attachment=8426:low_def_front.JPG]

The bottom doesn't fit my head so I was probably going to trim it so it can fit. I originally thought of using this as my final helmet but I think I want to try the high def version. Because of that, I'll probably use this as a practice helmet for bondoing, fiberglassing and resining.

Comments are most welcome. Thanks everyone!!!

 

[Deathwasp]

OK everyone...finally found a camera I could use...

Here are the results of the many pieces you see above.

The bottom doesn't fit my head so I was probably going to trim it so it can fit. I originally thought of using this as my final helmet but I think I want to try the high def version. Because of that, I'll probably use this as a practice helmet for bondoing, fiberglassing and resining.

Comments are most welcome. Thanks everyone!!!

Absolutely make this a practice helm. For a first work this honestly isn't bad, but I've only seen three or four people do pep RIGHT on their first shot. If you don't want to have too much work to do, go with Robogenesis' helm. It's a lot more detail than the regular helm but only slightly more work.
Keep up the good work!

 

[ShinigamiNG]

Dude thats a pretty good pep model there. Definitely keep up the good work!

As for glasses, any time I put my helm on they seem to kinda catch on the inner lip of the helm. I haven't really found a way around it other than being careful and tilting the helmet slightly to fit my glasses in. I do have contacts so when I finish my suit I'll probably just wear those.

And using that as a practice helm is a good idea, practice is always good lol. Especially when you've never done this kind of stuff before. Its always good to test it out and experiment with it a little bit, see which methods work best for you.

 

[MstrCllst240]

I applied the first layer of resin on the helmet today and I also trimmed the bottom so it would fit (I'll get some pictures for you guys when I can).

Question: If I am going to bondo the outside, should I add another layer of resin or should I fiberglass the inside and then bondo.

Thanks for everyone's help and comments.

 

[Drakku]

Looks really good so far.

And you'll really need more stability in the helm before you apply bondo to it. The slightest give will crack it, and you don't want that. No sir.

 

[MstrCllst240]

Here are some pics of the resined helmet. I did make the helmet large enough so it can slip over my head and so I would have enough room to put the padding inside after I fiberglassed it.

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...40/onmyhead.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...40/onmyhead.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms.../resinfront.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...0/resinside.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms.../resinedtop.jpg

I think I might have missed a few spots, but I'm not sure if I should add another layer of resin or if I should stop, fiberglass the inside and then bondo the outside. Comment if you can help me or for criticism.
Thanks to all!!!

 

[MstrCllst240]

I'm probably gonna resin and fiberglass inside, then bondo outside to fix any areas.
How does everyone get the status picks of their armor? Also, how do you keep updating them? I've tried to use one site and then update it, but it seems like you have to save a new pic everytime. Someone plz help.

 

[MstrCllst240]

Hey guys,

It seems like forever since I stopped working on my helmet (school, work... you know the rest). I began the work on my helmet again last week and just finished it today. Because this is my practice helmet, I decided not to bondo or pad the inside since I wanted to keep costs down. Of course with this being said, I also did not get a visor for this.

I did however add primer (gray) and then a nice satin blue finish to the helmet to give it a more completed look. I think I might add a logo on the top when I'm done. Here are the links for the final pictures. Let me know how it looks so I can see what needs to be done when I start my hi-def armor.

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...inishedside.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...finishedtop.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt92/Ms...nishedfront.jpg

One important question I had: when padding the inside of the armor: how thick should the padding be and how do you cover it after it's been placed or do you just leave it as is?


Thanks to all for your support!!!

 

[JangoFett140]

looks good so far man. nice folds!! way better then my fisrt