Rafal Works Helmet (RWH) v2 Helmet Templates and Build

RafalFett

Well-Known Hunter
UPDATE 24-06-2013
-------------------------
Nine months have past since I started this thread, so I can call this helmet my BABY! Thanks for all the help and support in that period... You know who you are!


Introduction
=========
I want to present you my new and improved helmet templates. The new templates incorporates lots of the original helmet(s) 'inaccuracies' and asymmetries (will discuss these a bit later) and this time I think I nailed most of the helmet dimensions. My first templates (RWH v1) had some of the measurements almost correct and was too symmetrical, but generally a bit smaller (especially the back area) than the new templates (RWH v2). I did the new templates (and a new helmet!) almost 3 months ago, but never got the inspiration to post it. I also documented the helmet build, so there are plenty of good info for those who want to try their hands on some scratch build helmets.

The first v2 helmet appears in most of the step-by-step instructions and the fact that is bigger with 3% doesn't affect the way it is constructed:
Photo0497.jpg Photo0499.jpg Photo0500.jpg Photo0502.jpg Photo0505.jpg Photo0506.jpg

Note that the ears are from the RWH v1 prototype and are hold in place with duct tape.

The second v2 helmet is the correct one and is made with the actual templates, but the only difference is that this helmet is made without the inner supports glued on the inside. This is a more professional (and accurate) approach:
Photo0755.jpg Photo0756.jpg Photo0757.jpg Photo0758.jpg Photo0759.jpg Photo0761.jpg

Note that the T-visor is a cardboard mock-up and some features are not yet installed (the perspex block with the viewfinder and the MQ-1 circuit board).


The anatomy of the Boba Fett helmet
============================
The original Boba Fett helmet(s) is full of asymmetries (along with all the OT Star Wars costumes) and the most noticeable is the difference between the right and the left side of the helmet (at the ear area) and also the cheek area and the back plate area. The right side along the ear is 149mm long (point 1 to 6), while the left side is only 142mm long, and because the height of the right side temple is 33mm (point 1 to 3) and the height of the left side temple is 35mm, it makes the cheek area on the left side smaller with 9mm (point 3 to 6). Also, the left cheek plate is positioned much lower than the right cheek plate (point 5 to 6), this way the left cheek bone (or upper cheek) is a bit bigger than the one on the right side. The helmet is 242mm wide without the ears (at point 6) while at the dome base with the red rim is 225mm wide (at point 1)

Boba-Fett-Supertrooper-Helmet-02.jpg

The back area shares the same differences, more exactly the right side is bigger (135mm) than the left side(131mm) (point 1 to 4), and the rear keyhole is slightly inclined to the left, around 0.5 degree (point 2 to 3).

Back View.jpg

From the rear keyhole to the t-visor, the helmet is 263mm long (point 3 to 4) and is 245mm tall measured from the center of the dome top to the imaginary line starting from the ear base (point 1 to 2).

Side View.jpg

The dome is also an asymmetric part of the helmet, especially at the base area. The red line indicates the dome contour (with approximation) and the half green is actually the left red half mirrored and compared to the right side. You can see the difference in form at the upper ear base, the upper visor area is a bit different and the back plate area is also different in form.

Dome Top.jpg

But all these subtle differences makes this helmet a beautiful and believable prop, the same way as everything in the nature shares lots of asymmetries (ex. the human face).


Improving the RWH templates
======================
I observed while I was drawing the stencils that my helmet templates didn't fit well with the reference images, especially the back plate and the red face area, and at that time I did lots of adjustments to resize the images to fit the templates. Here are some comparison images between the v1 (green) and v2 (red) red face, rear keyhole and the lower and upper cheek templates:

Face Template Compare.jpg Rear Keyhole Compare.jpg Cheeks Compare.jpg

The new template is a bit smaller in height, but is bigger in width, and also shares most of the helmet asymmetries (as described in the helmet anatomy).


The templates
===========
I hope this is the final version, but small changes might occur, mostly a typo or a defective measurement.

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Update 22.09.2014
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks to shdd for pointing me out a mistake on the right upper ear cap, more exactly on page 31 the length of the Base Connection and the Cover Piece had 44mm, so I corrected the length to 30mm. The 2 PDF files were updated, but because of the 24 attachment/post restriction you will find the templates at post #5.



Building the helmet
==============
It is very important to use 2mm thick cardboard (or whatever material you chose) because I made the parts to fit perfectly with minor modifications; use the info attached to most of the template assembly parts.

The first step is to print out all pages using the fit to page option. You can use paper glue to glue the printed pages to the cardboard, but it is strongly recommended to use strong glue (like super glue or hot glue) to assemble all the major parts. We will start with the dome base (which is made with 2 halves from page 1 and 2):

Photo0207.jpg

Then continue with the helmet support sections (from page 11 to 14). After the pages are glued on the cardboard, we cut the parts along the outer lines, then half-cut the center line on the helmet side and front support section like this:

Helmet Front.jpg Helmet Side.jpg

Glue the helmet side support under the dome base along the front-back line then insert the helmet front support into the center cut line and line it up and glue it on the left-right line. For the 2 transversal supports pieces we will go on another route, more exactly we will cut these pieces in half along the center line, then cut as needed from the center ends to fit the dome base margins:

Helmet Trans.jpg

The result is this:

Photo0208.jpg Photo0211.jpg

The next step is to form the helmet base using the 2 halves from page 15 and 16, and after it is cut out, you can glue it on the lower edges of the helmet support sections using the corresponding lines (front-back, left-right and transversal):

Photo0223.jpg Photo0224.jpg Photo0225.jpg

Before we deal with the inner layer, there is a small piece (it is not present on the template files) we have to add to the back of the dome base; the purpose of this piece is that the red rim's thickness on the back area of the dome is double compared to the rest of the parts. You have to cut a 330mm long and around 10mm wide strip from 2mm thick cardboard, then bevel around 50mm from both ends so that when it is glued to the dome base, the cardboard strip will flush with the rest of the parts:

Dome Base Strip.jpg Photo0213.jpg Photo0214.jpg

Now glue all the inner layer parts from page 17 to 19 on the cardboard, but depending on the cardboard size you have, you might need to cut the inner layer in at least 2 pieces. If you have a big cardboard you can do the inner layer in one piece, but you have to chose the open edges (the T-visor center line, the left or the right ear center lines). Because I didn't have a big enough cardboard, I cut the inner layer in 2 pieces with open edges on the left/right ear center lines:

Photo0215.jpg

The inner layer is glued on the helmet structure by aligning the top margin of the inner layer to the contour of the dome base and also the T-visor/rear keyhole center lines to connect with the dome base front-back line. But first you should check if the inner layer fits the dome base circumference: if it's a bit small, then you should remove a thin layer from the back strip, but if it's a bit big, then you can glue a thin layer on the back strip. Here's the result:

Photo0228.jpg Photo0229.jpg Photo0230.jpg Photo0231.jpg Photo0232.jpg

Now we need to glue the outer layer to the cardboard (from page 20 to 22), but again we have the inner layer issue: depending on the cardboard size, we will do the outer layer from 1 or 2 pieces, but this time the open edges will be on opposite sides. If you do the inner layer in 1 piece with the open edge on the T-visor area, then you should do the outer layer with open edge at the rear keyhole area. If you have the inner layer in 2 pieces with open edges at the ear center areas, then the outer layer should have open edges at the T-visor/rear keyhole areas, like this:

Photo0237.jpg

It is very important to align the outer layer's bottom line to the inner layer's bottom line (and also to the T-visor/rear keyhole lines), this way the outer layer's top edge will have an extra 5mm rim above the inner layer. Optionally you can cut out the upper T-visor and back plate areas (but you can also cut out the cheeks area too) on the outer layer to ease the build:

Photo0240.jpg Photo0241.jpg Photo0242.jpg Photo0239.jpg

We have to cut another 330mm long cardboard (2mm thick) strip, but this time the width will have the extra outer layer rim's height (around 5mm). This strip is also beveled at both ends then it is glued on the back area inside of the outer layer rim:

Photo0243.jpg

It is now time to remove all the inner support parts, as we don't need them anymore. We remove the helmet base, then gently remove the front, side and transversal support parts:

Photo0232.jpg Photo0233.jpg Photo0234.jpg

The next step is to glue the cheeks from page 28 and 29 then cut out all pieces:

Photo0248.jpg

The lower cheek is glued on top of the support plate by aligning the lower margins (and we also cut out the borden connector's hole):

Photo0254.jpg

The outer edges on the back of the upper cheeks are slightly beveled to ease the glue of these on the outer/inner layers (you can also partially cut out the small rectangular shape on the left upper cheek):

Photo0250.jpg Photo0244.jpg Photo0245.jpg Photo0246.jpg Photo0251.jpg Photo0252.jpg Photo0253.jpg

Then we carefully glue the lower cheeks in the upper cheeks semi-circular shape by aligning the lower margins:

Photo0255.jpg Photo0256.jpg Photo0259.jpg

Now we focus on the back of the helmet, more exactly on the rear keyhole area, so we cut out the keyhole on the printed line:

Photo0262.jpg

Then we glue and cut out the rear keyhole parts from page 23. The round flaps on the rear keyhole frame is slightly bend inward along the line, while the rear keyhole is bent in a circular form carefully with the vertical edges outward so this part will match the round flaps on the keyhole frame. We also bend a bit outward the keyhole frame's upper flap, and then glue the two pieces together:

Photo0260.jpg Photo0263.jpg Photo0265.jpg Photo0266.jpg

We also cut two 1mm thick, 90mm long and 10mm wide strips that will go inside the rear keyhole along the vertical cut lines:

Inside Strips.jpg

The finished keyhole is glued on top of the strips, while the top line of the frame is aligned with the back plate and the dome rim. The lower space between the keyhole and the back plate is filled with 2-3 layer of cardboard glued together, cut and beveled to shape:

Photo0272.jpg Photo0269.jpg Photo0268.jpg

The next step is to draw a 10-15mm wide (it depends on you how wide you want these to be) egg-shape inside the dome base following the outer line as a guide, then we cut out the whole inner part:

Photo0274.jpg

We glue the dome support parts from page 3 to 6 to the cardboard and again we trace on each part a 10-15mm wide semi-circle on the inside of the contour, but similar to the helmet support section parts, we also cut a 2mm wide half deep channel on the front and side parts to ease the assembly (the gray section is cut and discarded):

Dome Support Segment 1.jpg Dome Support Segment 2.jpg

Then we glue these parts on the dome front-back and left-right lines, but you must not pass the dome base outer line; there should be a 2mm wide free space between the dome support section base and the outer layer's inner side (this is where you will insert the base of the dome slices):

Photo0279.jpg Photo0280.jpg

The dome transversal support sections from page 5 and 6 are cut in half and then we cut from each top end around 2mm, then we fit the resulted 4 parts between the front-back/left-right dome sections:

Photo0283.jpg Photo0284.jpg Photo0285.jpg

If you want extra support for the dome, you can glue and cut the same way the optional transversal support parts from page 7 to 10 (don't forget that you need 2 from each part) then insert each piece on the corresponding lines with the same number.

We are finally at the dome slices (we will deal with the dent and front arrows later)! So we glue these parts from page 24 to 27 on the cardboard, then we cut these parts along the intricate lines. For a better control, you can cut all parts in half, so you will have 8 pieces with 3 slices each. Bend horizontally inward each piece at the base, then each slice is bent vertically inward; from inside you can use glued paper stripes or duct tape (or whatever method you want) to unite the slices together:

Dome Slice.jpg

I suggest to let the front-left slice last because you will need the free space to work on the dent. If you don't want the dent (you are doing the Pre-Pro #1 or a custom mando helmet) you can start with any part of the dome slices. When you glue the slice on the dome support arches, you must use only half of the width, so the next slice will have the other half:

Photo0287.jpg Photo0289.jpg Photo0290.jpg Photo0292.jpg Photo0293.jpg Photo0294.jpg Photo0295.jpg Photo0296.jpg Photo0297.jpg Photo0298.jpg

The last slice (the 'dented' one) is fixed into its place but we don't glue it in yet. We search for page 23 (the one that had the rear keyhole too) and we cut a raw outline around the front arrows, the dent and the front rim; this will be our stencil to trace out these forms on the dome:

Arrows And Dent.jpg

The dent contour is cut through the whole cardboard, while the front arrows are cut halfway into the cardboard:

Photo0299.jpg

Use this image as a guide for the dent:

Dent.jpg

Photo0300.jpg Photo0301.jpg Photo0302.jpg Photo0303.jpg Photo0304.jpg Photo0305.jpg Photo0306.jpg Photo0307.jpg

With the glue of the last slice into the dome we pretty much finished the work on the helmet's base form.

The ears (from page 30 to 35) are the most complicated parts of the helmet, especially that we need to do these in multiple layers and with all kinds of support sections. It is important to use the noted thickness for each layer on the template file to achieve the best results. Where it says 2mm and 1mm layer you can use a 3mm thick cardboard (or whatever material you chose), but it is important to stick to the plans. You must also take into account if you want a functional right ear and rangefinder or not, because some of the steps require extra work. While I didn't take photos with the ear construction steps, here is an image with an almost done left ear (I did this before the ear templates were finished, this is why it looks a bit different):

Photo0711.jpg Photo0714.jpg

And the finished right upper and lower ears:

Photo0709.jpg Photo0712.jpg Photo0713.jpg

For the ear platforms we can use one 2mm thick base layer from each ear, but this is a tricky part of the construction, because you have to bevel a lot from these parts to achieve something like this:

Photo0765.jpg Photo0766.jpg Photo0768.jpg Photo0762.jpg Photo0763.jpg Photo0764.jpg

The way you will attach the ears depends on your preferences: screws, magnets or glue. Here is how it looks attached with screws (the accurate method):

Photo0718.jpg Photo0719.jpg Photo0716.jpg

The rangefinder stalk is made with 4 layers (the image shows only 3 layers, but later I added an extra one) and again it depends on your preferences (with working lights - hollow, without working lights - solid or hollow to mount a metal bar inside the stalk) how you cut the pieces out:

Photo0722.jpg Photo0723.jpg Photo0725.jpg Photo0726.jpg

The rangefinder casing is a pretty simple task. All you have to do is to glue the template from page 38 on a 2mm thick cardboard, cut out all the parts, and then glue them together:

Photo0769.jpg Photo0770.jpg Photo0771.jpg Photo0773.jpg Photo0774.jpg

The way you attach the casing on the stalk is again your choice, so you can glue it or mount it with screws:

Photo0728.jpg Photo0729.jpg Photo0730.jpg Photo0733.jpg Photo0732.jpg

(Note that the perspex block is not a scratch build but is a Terminal Fettler one, a beautiful piece of work).

You can optionally build your own perspex block and viewfinder (if you dont have a replica). The same goes with the borden connector, the MQ-1 circuit board and even a mock-up Honeywell micro switch:

Photo0741.jpg

Photo0747.jpg Photo0752.jpg Photo0753.jpg

Photo0742.jpg Photo0744.jpg Photo0754.jpg

This is the end of the step-by-step instructions of the RWH v2 build. All the info on how to apply bondo (or putty), on how to do all the sanding and how to paint the helmet, it can be found here on TDH.


Helmet measurements
================
Here are some images that includes all kinds of measurements of the Boba Fett helmet to guide you on your build:

Boba Fett Helmet Front Measurements.jpg Boba Fett Helmet Rear Measurements.jpg Boba Fett Helmet Right Side Measurements.jpg Boba Fett Helmet Left Side Measurements.jpg Boba Fett Helmet Cheek Measurements.jpg Boba Fett Helmet Ear Measurements.jpg

Just corrected the helmet basic measurements image (changed the dome side view 237mm to 247mm) and the rangefinder measurements image (by mistake I inverted the names for the ROTJ and ESB perspex blocks), but because there is a 24 images/post restriction, I added the images to post #32.

Have fun!
 
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Glad to see you posting this RAF I look forward to seeing the build up and I will have an email inbound to you shortly.
 
This is seriously impressive work, Rafal! :cheers

Thanks a lot!

Just brilliant my good man! :)

Thanks, Jayvee! You are too kind!

Glad to see you posting this RAF I look forward to seeing the build up and I will have an email inbound to you shortly.

Thanks, Deadland! I already have the helmet progress images (sadly not every step - the missing steps will be replaced with drawings) and I want to do some kind of a step by step tutorial. Can't wait to get that e-mail!

---------------------------------------------------
Update 22.09.2014
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks to @shdd for pointing me out a mistake on the right upper ear cap, more exactly on page 31 the length of the Base Connection and the Cover Piece had 44mm, so I corrected the length to 30mm. The 2 PDF files were updated, but because of the 24 attachment/post restriction I will post the templates here:

View attachment RWH v2 Templates A4.pdf
View attachment RWH v2 Templates LTR.pdf
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I shall be following this with much interest. Your attention to detail is amazing and I look forward to the step by step build tutorial.
 
Just wow -- great, great stuff. Leave it to Rafalfett.

I've been considering making my own helmet as my next - this just pushes me further in that direction.
 
I shall be following this with much interest. Your attention to detail is amazing and I look forward to the step by step build tutorial.

Thanks for the kind words!

Just wow -- great, great stuff. Leave it to Rafalfett.

I've been considering making my own helmet as my next - this just pushes me further in that direction.

Thanks! Love that helmet paint job you posted on your suit build!
 
I put the templates on a hold (and the first post was edited with the correct measurements), because it seems that the templates are bigger with 3% than it should, and also some of the forms are off a bit. I will do the necessary adjustments and as soon as possible, I will repost the templates. Sorry for the delay!
 
Aha! I knew you would slip at some point. . . this is proof you're a human and not a machine!!!

:lol:

I became a bit lazy lately and this proves (human or not) that you can go wrong with one incorrect measurement. Altough the form is generally correct, the overall size was off with 3% or more. One of the major factors was you, superjedi and your helmet measurement list. Thanks again for posting it!
 
I still think you should paint one Raf, I am positive that you would do a stellar job.
 
Amazing work! I have been following your work for a few months now and it has helped in almost every way on my build. Keep it up bro!

Thanks a lot! I'm glad that my work helped you out!

I still think you should paint one Raf, I am positive that you would do a stellar job.

Thanks! I might try sometime in the future to paint one helmet, but who knows when... and how... and...

I am still working on the v2 templates which is in the final tweaking and refining stages.
 
Can I borrow your brain Raf? At least till I finish my helmet?! :p

Borrowing my brain will give you just headache! You are doing a great job with your own brain, so you don't need mine. Although the stencils are a great help, the painter is the one who do all the hard work and without him the stencils are just some weirdly colored images/papers.

yoda.jpg
 
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Finally! After 9 month of labor and sweat my new helmet was brought to life, so I will call this helmet my BABY!

I replaced in the first post the old helmet images with new ones and I also added the A4 PDF file templates. The LTR file will follow shortly (I hope not in another 9 months) and I will try to post a step-by-step instruction for the helmet build.

Have fun!
 
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