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:
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:
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)
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).
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).
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.
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:
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.
---------------------------------------------------
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):
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:
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:
The result is this:
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):
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
The next step is to glue the cheeks from page 28 and 29 then cut out all pieces:
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):
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):
Then we carefully glue the lower cheeks in the upper cheeks semi-circular shape by aligning the lower margins:
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:
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:
We also cut two 1mm thick, 90mm long and 10mm wide strips that will go inside the rear keyhole along the vertical cut lines:
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:
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:
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):
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):
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:
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:
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:
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:
The dent contour is cut through the whole cardboard, while the front arrows are cut halfway into the cardboard:
Use this image as a guide for the dent:
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):
And the finished right upper and lower ears:
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:
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):
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:
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:
The way you attach the casing on the stalk is again your choice, so you can glue it or mount it with screws:
(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:
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:
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!
-------------------------
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:
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:
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)
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).
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).
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.
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:
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.
---------------------------------------------------
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):
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:
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:
The result is this:
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):
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
The next step is to glue the cheeks from page 28 and 29 then cut out all pieces:
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):
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):
Then we carefully glue the lower cheeks in the upper cheeks semi-circular shape by aligning the lower margins:
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:
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:
We also cut two 1mm thick, 90mm long and 10mm wide strips that will go inside the rear keyhole along the vertical cut lines:
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:
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:
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):
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):
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:
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:
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:
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:
The dent contour is cut through the whole cardboard, while the front arrows are cut halfway into the cardboard:
Use this image as a guide for the dent:
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):
And the finished right upper and lower ears:
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:
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):
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:
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:
The way you attach the casing on the stalk is again your choice, so you can glue it or mount it with screws:
(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:
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:
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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