Death Watch Building Armor for Star Wars Celebration 2015 - Now with Night Owl

RalfSkunk · Aug 13, 2014

Thanks Ghost. The silicone is from Smooth-On. There are less expensive alternatives, but my friend Shawn is better educated as to what works best and what the differences are. I just "borrow" whatever he has for my projects in exchange for helping him with his projects. The process is actually pretty easy, but there is a considerable investment in the correct tools and materials.

As to the mold making, after the prototype piece is completed, it is coated in a print coat of silicone. The print coat silicone is thick like maple syrup and will coat the prototype, but will end up pretty thin. The next three layers of silicone were the same material but mixed with a thixotropic additive (I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but I can barely pronounce it half the time). These layers go on pretty thick, like cake frosting and add thickness to the mold. I've been told that the final mold should be about 1/2 inch thick.

The fiberglass mother mold gives form to the rubbery silicone mold so that it keeps it's shape. I used three layers of fiberglass cloth over each side, with some extra thickness where the two sides bolt together for added strength.

The good news is that I have made the first casting in the mold and it fits my head with plenty of room. The bad news is that my friend Shawn took the pictures of me wearing it with his camera and I have none to post.... Shawn... a little help please... you said you would post these...

thorssoli · Aug 23, 2014

Better late than never.

Here's a pic of Matt with the first casting out of the mold:

Here I am trying it on:

And here's Matt wearing it:

We'll be back to work on this project in no time.

tterrell · Aug 24, 2014

Wow.
This project is epic.
With weapons that Woodchuck makes, would that be close to Clone Wars animated Death Watch gear?

RalfSkunk · Aug 24, 2014

We'll be making our own guns as well. I want to make up a version of the guns that looks like it came from a movie and not straight from the Clone Wars series. They are pretty simple guns, so I'm not sure how we are going to tackle this yet.

Kimozaki · Sep 1, 2014

what a great thread! you sir are good at building stuff

!

thorssoli · Sep 14, 2014

Matt (Ralfskunk) hasn't been showing up in the workshop for a few days, but that hasn't stopped me from getting a start on prep work:

What can I say? I was on a roll in the helmet prepping department:

Hopefully he'll come by on Tuesday evening and we can get a couple of these guys in primer. Quick, goad him into getting back to the shop...

thorssoli · Sep 19, 2014

So it looks like Matt (ralfskunk) isn't going to bother updating his thread. I guess I'll have to.

The other night we made the T-visors for the helmets. This amounted to cutting pieces of smoke tinted 1/8" acrylic sheet into the right shape, then cooking them in the toaster oven until they were nice and pliable before taping them to the face of the helmet to get the right curve:

It's the sort of thing we were suddenly doing a lot of:

Once the visors were formed, it was a quick matter of gluing them into place:

Then it was a quick sand, wipe down, prime, and paint:

Which was repeated a few times:

Matt's very proud of his helmets:

I keep telling him we really need to get started on jetpacks, but he doesn't listen...

RalfSkunk · Sep 19, 2014

So I've been out for a while... That's what happens when the kids have birthdays, Shawn gets a paying project in the shop, and jury duty... Oh the joys of jury duty! The good thing is that we have made some progress out here on the helmets, and even got 4 of them into their base color. Shawn may very well have finished paining them today while I was at work, but hopefully he spent his time making some money and not just avoiding those other projects. Here are some of my "small pictures" to quench your thirst:

Shawn trimming out the neck.

Sanded and ready for primer.

In primer.

4 helmets in their base color.

Sometimes I think Shawn is more excited about these than I am...

P.S. Don't alter your abalone report cards, it's against the law and you will be found guilty!

thorssoli · Sep 22, 2014

Did some masking last night:

Then made the blue parts blue:

Matt was there, but he hasn't posted pics yet. Today I'll probably do more masking and spray the cheekbone areas.

Quick, someone tell him to make more progress on the jetpack!

NovallTalon · Sep 23, 2014

RalfSkunk said:
I looked into the 501st requirements a bit as well and it looks like they require animated style helmets. As I'm aiming for a movie style helmet of the animated character, these will not likely qualify for use with the 501st without some modification. While the turn signals will be easy to fill, I shaped the visor very much like the movie helmets and not the animated series. This will not likely be an easy modification. Of course if they include death watch guys in the upcoming Boba Fett movie, I just might be ahead of the game for once.

I can't count how many times I've seen domes built using bike helmets, and yours is probably one of the best I've seen done. All your edges are nice and crisp, and you've done an outstanding job smoothing it all out.

Mandalorian Mercs has a CRL for non-animated style TCW Death Watch kits under our "Canon" category. Minus the Infra-red detectors (those 2 little outward-pointing triangles on the forehead), these helmets would fall within our "real world" CRL for TCW Death Watch.

A helmet of standard Modern Era Fett design, without Boba's dent, may be used on "real world" armor. The right earcap must be modded to match the left. There is no RF for Season 2 Death Watch.

RalfSkunk · Sep 23, 2014

And we have helmets! Shawn and I got some more work done last night and even tonight. The helmets are black washed and weathered. The range finders are installed and its now time to start something new for this project... but enjoy the pictures for now:

These things always look like a bad action figure paint job to me before they get some dirt on them...

Not so toy-like anymore.

Weathering nearing completion.

Not too shabby if I say so myself.

Makes a pretty nice line up.

And a helmet for my dearest wife...

RalfSkunk · Sep 23, 2014

NovallTalon: Thanks! I think the bike helmet thing was pretty easy and I actually have not seen any others done this way. I also made it a point to use kids helmets to keep the size down a bit. As far as the mercs, I'm glad they share in my vision of a real world Death Watch uniform. I'm still looking at making up an alternative right ear for the helmet, but personally think any body with a rocket on their back should have a range finder... it would be chaos otherwise!

The big question now is how many guys can I get dressed up in matching uniforms...

Mandalorian2112 · Sep 24, 2014

This is all looking really good! Keep up the good work!

thorssoli · Sep 24, 2014

They look alright, but what they really need is bigger pictures (clickable for huger versions):

That's better.

eqdizzle · Sep 26, 2014

Looks good brother!

Justicethebeast · Sep 28, 2014

thorssoli said:
They look alright, but what they really need is bigger pictures (clickable for huger versions):

That's better.

"Alright" Is an understatement; more like epic.

RalfSkunk · Sep 28, 2014

We may eventually get to the epic phase, but let's first see if we can get a dozen or so guys dressed in the finished armor first... I should also mention that these are supposed to be the easy and comfortable costumes for the event, and we'll likely only wear them for one day. We need to get these finished up soon so we can work on the hard stuff...

Neuromancer · Sep 29, 2014

Very Nice!!!

RalfSkunk · Oct 3, 2014

Made some good progress on the night owl helmet tonight. Its pretty late so I'll just leave you with some pictures:

Finalized the lines for the helmet.

Doubled up the styrene to hold the curve.

Started cutting out the cheeks.

Cheeks filled in.

I hope to have it ready for molding sometime next week. As I've said before, I'm aiming for a movie version of this helmet, so I plan on deviating a bit from how it is drawn in the series.