Generic Mando helmet using plastiboard

[tazdevilal]

Began doing Star Wars Mandalorian helmet using plastiboard and the silhouette cameo cutting machine to cut out .5mm and 1mm boards.
The cameo does not go fully through the 1mm so I use black ink wash watered down to bring out the scores so I can more easily cut the shapes out with a knife.
The benefit of this I have found is that I can immediately look at sanding and smoothing and each piece is extremely sharp.

 

[tazdevilal]

Oh and this is using the WOF pdf templates which i had to convert for use in the came Studio software.
Great templates

 

[Artakha]

Nice going so far!

 

[tazdevilal]

Thanks. Just hope I get the dome right. That's always the hardest part for me when making any helmet

 

[Artakha]

Yup. Bondo is your friend there.

 

[tazdevilal]

1st attempt at the dome part has shown up a bit of distortion so ive had to cut that bit off and after looking at both the WOF and RAFAL templates availabe here i have decided to make use of the rafal template as it provides more structure to build round.
More pics to follow tonight hopefully.

Also i finally pulled the trigger on getting a flightsuit from Arkady so im totally commited to getting a Boba or Mandalorian outfit for next April.
Excited but also stressed if i will do it in time :wacko

 

[tazdevilal]

Dome skeleton assembled and also started filling in the back panel. I also had to add an extra 1mm panel to the cheekbone area as the plastic weld had wrinkled the .5mm plastiboard and also distorted it

 

[Artakha]

Wow you are very thorough with your dome. Keep up the excellent work!

 

[TheLoneHunter]

damn man this is really impressive!

 

[tazdevilal]

Thanks for all the encouragement and positive posts.

The dome is now covered but i detached it from the main helmet as it was very very very tricky to fix it all in place as i had to take the cardbord template then transfer it onto 0.5mm plastic and i think it was slightly out. As always hoping sanding and then using Jesmonite (which is my alternative to bondo and is no toxic fume) will help smooth the dome out.

The helmet its self is relatively smooth everywhere so i think i may just need a few spot putty fixes and then i am going to spray the whole thing with a thicker sanding spray paint i found that should help finish the smoothing out.
As always im stuck in work at moment passing the time so pics of the dome etc will follow at some point in the next couple of days.
So far this is the best scratchg built helmet i have ever done. The plastic card makes it so much easier to work with than traditional card board so i hope this streak holds out for the bext stages.

 

[tazdevilal]

Photo updates
this is the dome being completed with .5mm plastic then covered in Jesmonite the a butt load of sanding. Annoyingly I can't get the top of the dome totally nice and even so more work is needed.
Then I have the first ear. I have made it possible to install a micro switch with lever to activate the eventual lighting system of the range finder

 

[tazdevilal]

 

[Artakha]

Wow very nice!

 

[tazdevilal]

Getting closer and closer. Just have to fill in the join points between the main helmet and the dome then it's on to the spraying stage with the sand able paint which should hopefully fix any imperfections in the dome and fill in the small joins in the main helmet base

 

[tazdevilal]

Helmet joins sealed. I actually used blu tack and then covered it in superglue to harden it. It's a technique I have used numerous times in the past for minature modeling. The helmet after all is only a master that is to be molded and using the sand able spray paint will just add more solidity to the helmet

 

[tazdevilal]

Pic updates. Can't figure out why the pics keep loading up on their side so sorry bout that

 

[tazdevilal]

Ok it's been a while for updating this.
In the last few weeks i have built a small rotocaster along with finishing the helmet and molding it etc. So pics below
.

 

[tazdevilal]

Forgot to mention in last post that the images show my first attempt at slush casting the main helmet. The detail bits are solid resin castings as well which I have bolted on. The right ear (looking straight on) actually fits snugly into a grove I have made in the main helmet as a guide. This is different to most ways people make the helmets but I like the way it works out for mine

 

[alexrep]

excellent work! always impressed by scratch builds

 

[bojaGun]

good work!