Star Wars: Rebel Endor Trooper Helmet

[TurboCharizard]

So it's Halloween time, I build things. People want me to build things for them. Unfortunately people don't know how long it takes to build things so here I am looking to slam together a helmet in about four days time from idea to pattern to finished piece. I don't have extremely high hopes for the quality of the build since like I said, slamming it together.



This is where the plan was at about 0830 when I was asked about putting together the last piece of a Princess Leia costume. A reference picture and a quick approximation of how all the patterned pieces will look when done up quickly.



Here we are with supplies at about 1600 local after a trip to Fabricland. Tan twill, black stretch vinyl left over from my ODST build, some more grommets in a smaller size than what I already have in my inventory and some brown vinyl that can be roughed up and darkened with some paint to look more like leather. A fair bit of materials I was planning on sourcing from bits that are already in my "cosplay building tub-o-materials" (patent pending) so I'm intending on keeping costs low while still making something pretty solid that ends up looking like the source material without having to pick up things like a WWII ANH15 Pilots Cap that were used in the originals.



After a few attempts at making a fitting pilots cap pattern out of a grocery bag I got to a point where I was happy with the fitted form and was ready to go. If there's any interest in the patterns used I'll upload a printable version here or to my shared Dropbox after I've finished everything and cleaned up the pattern in SketchUp/Inkscape/whatever I feel like working with.

The fabric was all cut out except for the brim of the cap which I'll be doing last to match the curvature of my dummy's head and the EVA ring/crown.

This is going to be another quick build thread so I'm hoping everything goes well over the week. If it ends up a flaming mess of sewing machine and regret, I'm blaming it on my first attempt at a sewing project like this. Wish me luck folks.

 

[Schankerz]

This has to be one of my favourite helmets of all time and I wish you the best of luck building it! Maybe I'll use your stellar plans to build my own someday. And if there's anyone I've seen here that can make top of the line stuff in a stupid short amount of time, my friend that would be you.

 

[TurboCharizard]

Update for tonight, I didn't get as much as I wanted done but I made some solid progress with the flight cap.

The good news is the sewing machine didn't blow up and I didn't need to offer any unborn children to any deities to get to this point.

The top pattern took a bit longer than expected but it shouldn't be too much more effort to attach the rest of the pieces.

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

 

[TurboCharizard]

Day 3 Update: The One Wherein The Building is Finished

Construction is done which just leaves my favourite part of painting! I'll be doing a fair bit of weathering on this piece because it's just looking way too shiny and clean. I may stow it away in my toolbag tomorrow at work to get it a good and diesel-y smell to it for sake of more wear and tear,

I was worried that this project would end up a flaming ball of sewing machine wreckage and regret but I've actually managed to make something wearable. This was my first time making a sewing pattern and I've learned a lot through the process. The cap may look a bit derpy but hey, it's my first attempt at something like this and it was a speed build. Apologies for boring bathroom photo, the person that I'm making this for was excited for some progress pictures.



For my sake of documenting the build I took pictures of some of the best parts of the build including my love of grommets and the sacrilege of using Mini Wheats boxes for something other than Kings of War movement trays. If anyone knows a place where you can find ballcap brims that you don't need to order in volume of hundreds let me know so that I can keep the Mini Wheats boxes for my rank and file dwarfs!



The big green donut is currently sanded and spot filled with KwikSeal and waiting for a coat of liquid latex and paint tomorrow afternoon for a hand-off on Friday. More pictures to follow as well as templates for everything probably come this weekend.

 

[TurboCharizard]

Day 4: Done and Dusted

I learned a bot more about the process of things for sewing such as do the weathering before water soluble stuff is used in the construction.


Liquid latex might have also lost some favour with me as well since I was test bending sections and surface cracking and stretching was visible. It's easier to apply and less toxic/carcinogenic than PlastiDip but on pieces that have the chance of flexing I might avoid using latex. I also found it chipping up when applying surface scratches to the edges with a toothbrush as I normally do.

My initial plan was to tea-stain the twill to add a general uneven grime but I was stupid and forgot two things in my sequencing 1. tea staining works best with hot tea and hot glue doesn't mix with hot things, especially liquids 2. cardboard really doesn't like liquid. So the take-away here is that I need to find a plastic or plastic coated brim and I need to git gud at sewing to avoid hot gluing sections. For weathering I went at it with liquid medium and a mix of black, grey and dark brown acrylics in varying amounts with a toothbrush in a drybrush fashion. I looked into some advice of using shoe polish for weathering but it's only semi-permanent and the helmet is going to be worn by a Leia with a 16 month old Ewok which means lots of grabbing and chance of polish getting everywhere.




Overall I'm happy with the build which I effectively finished in three evenings, it probably could have been finished off sooner but naptime was a priority after giving blood. Maybe I'll look into other costumes that require sewing after finding out I'm not a complete ******* with fabric.

I'll probably do a final update later on with the pattern done up in a nice fashion and a few photos from Han, Leia and the little Ewok as those roll in.