ANH Stormtrooper Stunt Helmet Build (From Scratch)

[TheDragon]

Hi,

Since the beginning of this year I had a harebrained idea to build a vacuum forming machine, which lead me down the rabbit hole of star wars helmets and now to having begun sculpting moulds to produce a stunt tk helmet. I am wanting to eventually use polypropylene to form it with the intention of making an "as close to" screen accurate helmet as I can get and make a bust to display with it (chestplate etc.).

January-ish I started planning my vacuum forming machine in solidworks and was able to build it mid February and did a lot of testing to get it working right (still have a ways to go) but as uni started up again have less time to get into the garage and tinker with it as well as run around and get supplies.

I'm not entirely new to the history behind this helmet, having mostly memorised everything that's on starwarshelmets but don't really use this forum but as I was preparing to model this helmet read a bunch of old threads and thought this forum would be a better place to go than whitearmor or a 3D modelling specific forum due to some people's knowledge of the helmet down to the bumps and brush strokes on it.

So far I have modelled the faceplate and begun on the rear of it but was eager to finish the faceplate before moving onto the rest. I'm a self taught 3D modeller and use the freeware Blender to do all my work but found it's just as powerful as any other programs out there. My plan is to get all the main features of the helmet out in my model and to sculpt all the bumps and marking inside the traps afterwards.

I was looking for guidance on where my model isn't correct in comparison to one of the original faceplates (as much scrutiny as possible) and where to look out for going into the next stage of adding the minor details like the bump on the dome etc. I'm mainly interested in the faceplate at the moment, and haven't finished the back as you'll tell straight away it's missing the rear traps. I am also struggling with the depth of the eyes, front traps and indents the hovi mix pieces go into as I don't have a lineage helmet to compare it too as well as the fact that the model is like 1cm in width which i'll have to scale appropriately later on.

I also have a resin printer and will eventually make the moulds with that which will hopefully capture all the details in the model.

I think that's enough yapping on my behalf though and if you have gotten this far down the page thank you and if you wanted to know anything more just ask as I'm not sure If I covered everything in this post.

Below I have attached some images, all of them were taken with a viewport focal length of 100mm (if that helps ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) as well as one rendered image where I show off my bad rendering skills. If you needed any addition angles please ask as well, or to remove something like the brow or hovi mix's from around the model to see what's under it.
Thanks Again

 

[TheDragon]

I have made a few changes to the faceplate model since the last post, it's not perfect but unless I had a lineage helmet to compare to I don't think I can do much better. For that same reason I decided not to include the various warts on the faceplate in the print. For reference here is a few images of the faceplate prior to making the mould from it (I'll explain my mould making process further down).

The above photo has my sample tear indentation in it, which used a displacement map so that I could edit it without ruining the ability to easily manipulate the geometry of the faceplate.

And here a photo of it with my WIP ear and rest of helmet:

Once again asking for feedback (or good photo reference), but this time on the left ear, as It will be the next on the list to print due to its ease to do so. I'll post more on the ear at a later point in time.

Once I was satisfied with the model I began constructing the mould from a algorithmically altered version of the faceplate model out of resin.

As my resin printer isn't big enough to print the faceplate in one go I made it in 3 parts and designed a mdf support structure to give the mould more rigidity without increasing print time, part size and to align the parts properly.

Above is the 3 Parts of the faceplate out of the printer, notice the right most piece is missing a chunk, thats as the rest exceeded my printers build height. Some of the supports still haven't been properly removed.

Above is the Internal laser cut support I made on my DIY cnc mill turned laser cutter (It requires a lot of effort to not go blind whilst using). I attached an additional picture to this post.

Finally above is the rough assembly of the mould, Note the lower end on either side of the vocoder is all wrong, this is a mistake I'm still kicking myself over and i'll need to spend a long time sanding out.

I had problems in vacuum forming R2 parts with the seams showing in the final part which I believe is caused by different materials responding differently to the heat of the plastic (contracting at different rates), to remedy this I'll use UV resin and hand cure it with a UV torch as a means to use 1 material for the whole mould to hopefully prevent this from happening on the part. Worst case scenario, I make a mould of the resin version and cast it in a different material.

The mould Is far from finished but I just wanted to make an update as I wanted to keep a somewhat consistent record of this project. Once I get more time I'll do the most fun part of sanding the mould!

Also If anybody has been down this road before advice would be great.

 

[TheDragon]

It's been almost a month since I posted last, but wanted some real progress before adding to the thread. As of now I have a polypropylene faceplate formed and more work to do to the die needing to be done before making some helmets in the right colour. Below is the steps in which I took to finish the die to get to the finished faceplate:

Before I continue, If anyone has photos of what the ear dies looked like or images of ear moulds that produce screen accurate ears it would be greatly appreciated as I spent weeks sanding the faceplate due to inconsistencies with the model vs the die and would rather get it right straight off the printer to avoid warping a mould made of different materials in the vac forming process.

This is so far the 3D model of the helmet, note changes have been made to the real world counterpart of the faceplate that have not been adjusted on the 3D model. The ears have proven to be a real challenge to model, both topology-wise and in sourcing good images of but mostly happy with everything but the ear bars.

I initially used JB superweld to glue the printed sections together in which I thought would work great but proved not to be and intervention with baking soda took place. This left much to be desired in terms of seam lines which then needed to be sanded out.

I briefly touched on the support created below the mould in the last post, here is a better shot of it. The support both ensures that the mould doesn't bend in ways it shouldn't under vacuum and to allow air to travel through the mould without having to drill long holes through a brick of material.

Here is a shot I took of my mould next to my AM helmet (not sure which version). The markings on the mould indicate what needs to be sanded or filled and by how much. The measurements from my helmet were never sourced from the AM helmet, as even though its a fantastic kit I wanted to ensure I was using only lineage reference.

Here is a shot of the helmet after receiving a coat of body filler.

These two shots are of tamiya modelling putty used to clean up any undesired lumps or grooves in the die.

Above is a photo of the first polypropylene faceplate, behind it the second. And below, a trimmed faceplate with resin printed hovi tips which are to be further improved upon.

What I did notice from the polypropylene was that there are a lot of bumps on the faceplates that were absent from the mould which I am attributing to the plastic itself and the way it forms. If this is indeed the case, It was probably for the better that I didn't add these bumps to the mould itself as forming the polypropylene over an already bumpy mould would probably exaggerate the bumps in a way that it was never like on the screen used helmets.

As mentioned at the beginning, I am now moving onto the back cap before revisiting the faceplate in the future to fix the now obvious inaccuracies that I caught in the formed faceplates and to add the ovals in the traps which I decided should be on my mould. As well as this major alterations need to be made to the fairing on the die due to difficulty in removing the faceplate from it as well as possibly a complete overhaul of my vacuum forming machine.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

You put a lot of work into this. Stellar work.

 

[gizmo]

I missed this the first time round. You’ve done a fantastic job getting the ANH look down. Well done!! Impressive way to make a mold also.