Vash's Iron Man helmet from sculpt to cast (Big pics!)

[VashDstampede]

Again, I wanted to catch up and post stuff that I've worked on for the past year.
So here's what I worked on back in late November of 08, for those who don't frequent the RPF.

I've been wanting an Iron Man helmet since I saw the movie and have been in awe with all of the awesome builds by many talented members .

I really wanted to buy one of Fettster's helmets, but my wife thought this project would be a good way for me to practice my sculpting and also save a bit of money (since she knew I wanted more than one helmet to do variants).

After sculpting it too large at first and wanting to quit, I chopped down the styrofoam armature I made and started over again.

I did this sculpt oldschool only using front, side and back reference photos, Roma plastilina clay, sculpting tools and waxpaper to copy one side to the other.

So after a few weeks, here's what it looked like:

I know it's not perfect, but I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I still have some tweaking to do, maybe making the eyes larger and sharpening the circle around the earpieces, but it's pretty much done.

Here's the pic of the new profile and top of the helmet:

Thanks for looking!

 

[VashDstampede]

Here's some close-up pics:

And a size comparison with the Hasbro Clonetrooper Voice Changer:

Here's the revised and final look of the back of the helmet:

 

[VashDstampede]

I also sculpted a neck piece to go with another member's sculpt of the IM helmet, but it will do for now until I sculpt one specifically for my own helmet.

 

[VashDstampede]

And here is the initial painting of the helmet cast:

I did some weathering with some grey washes on the helmet and I'm happy how it turned out:

I wanted the eyes to stay fairly white, so I used a mirror tinted acrylic and mounted perforated white vinyl on it.
It makes for a nice effect and great visibility and folks can't see your eyes behind it even with flash.
Forgive the cheek greeblie, it's being held on by blue masking tape. Once I attach these permanently, this version is pretty much finished.
I'll tackle the MK II next so stay tuned. . .

By the way, I was able to take a couple of outdoor pics of this on my Power Ranger statue which is under 6 foot, maybe between 5'8" - 5'10" with the helmet on.

The mannequin with the Royal Guard helmet in the background is a standard 6'4" mannequin and behind it is a standard IKEA Detolf display case.

By the way, I painted a pull of the neck piece without doing a lot of sanding just to see what it would look like. It looked so nice even with the uneven surface, that it's been on display since then.

Sorry for the tons of photos, but I tried to cram a few months of posts in here.

 

[KaanE]

Well done Vash, it's the cleanest job I have ever seen on a sculpt

 

[ChaosHelljumper]

Very cool. Well done!!!!:cheers