Power Rangers Samurai Blue Ranger Half-helmet

[collinE83]

Taking a break from my Mega Man build to do some Halloween stuffs. I'm making a quick and easy Samurai Blue Ranger helmet for a 3 year old. His mom will be doing the body, so hopefully I can post pictures of that after it's completed.



I started out with a blank base helmet that I think is for the Super Sentai Power Rangers.



http://ikkakuro.deviantart.com/art/Helmet-Base-Pepakura-243102849

It ended up looking enough like the Samurai helmet that I used it. It's such a simple model, all I had to do was uncheck "show flaps" and use the "divide/connect faces" tool to cut the back of the helmet off. And resize, of course.

Since the kid is so young, it doesn't seem like a great idea to make a full-head helmet. Again, not going for super fancy on this one. He'd be happy if you put him in a blue shirt and gave him a stick.

So anyway. A couple hours later, I had this--



Used 1/4" foam mat from Harbor Freight and my trusty Elmer's glue bottle, filled with contact cement. I went ahead and heat gunned the inside of the helmet, just so it would retain its shape when I start cutting into it. Then I sanded the seams to help get rid of that foam look.



I have to get this done in a few days, so I'll be posting more tomorrow. Next I'll be sealing the foam and probably doing some cutting of the visor and mouth section.

 

[Kitty Butler]

Amazing smoothness for a round helmet! Looks nice, I'll definitely be watching this.

 

[collinE83]

Amazing smoothness for a round helmet! Looks nice, I'll definitely be watching this.

Thanks! I've been obsessing lately over the idea of making foam not look like foam. I think making seams disappear is one of the first steps to doing that.

Sometimes the stiffness of the foam keeps it from bending and you get pointed edges where two pieces meet, even if you cut as straight as possible. The heat gun helps the foam relax and bend more naturally, then of course, cool and stiffen again. I'm going to try it out more in future builds to see if I keep having success with it.

 

[collinE83]

I used watered down paintable caulk in layers to smooth the foam, focusing in on the seam lines. Once I have it layered up enough to fill in any cracks and low parts, I sand it the caulk level and stop right as I start seeing foam through the caulk. I'm not trying to keep thick layers of caulk on there, just fill imperfections.

I tried something a little different this time. I went ahead and got my white glue to mix with water, but instead of 1 to 1 mix of white glue and water, I took a 1 to 1 ratio of white glue to clear glue. I don't know if it's as big of a deal in other parts of the world, but usually you find Elmer's clear glue right next to the white glue. This stuff acts basically the same way, but it starts out clear and actually dries flexible. It accomplishes the same thing as white glue, but none of the cracking when dry! Once I mixed equal parts and had a hybrid glue, I then mixed that 1 to 1 with water for coating the foam. I put on about 4 layers of this glue mixture and no cracking... at all. Totally flexy seal.This method ended up being so successful (and cheap ) that I think this will always be my new way of sealing. Pretty happy about it.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures during any of that.

Waiting for glue to dry is boring, though, so I went ahead and worked on the visor a bit in between sealing layers. I grabbed a reference picture of the symbol on the Blue Ranger's helmet and drew one side of it, flipped it over, traced it, cut it, and taped the two halves together. I measured first to make sure I was getting the approximate size right, but I wasn't too picky about actual scale.



Not bad.

I ran to the grocery store and bought a visor for 80 cents!



My plan was to get this, and put some window tint film on the inside of it. You know, for the blackish shiny look of the visor and still be able to see out of it. After about an hour, I realized something...



No matter how I work it, I can't get window tint to stick to the inside of a 2 liter bottle that curves along multiple axes. Frustrating. I then went on a search for sprayable window tint, but couldn't find it. I'd order it online, but I don't really have time to wait for shipping. The closest thing I could find was some tinted clear spray paint, but it was in colors of the rainbow and not black. So I'll think a little more on that.

 

[collinE83]

...also



I decided the helmet went a little too far back so I trimmed it to be more of a "face" mask. I marked off where the visor would cover so I could maximize the size of the hole for seeing out.



It's not a lot, but hopefully with a smaller head and eyes closer together, it'll be plenty.

The actual ranger helmet has a little recess where the mouth is. I'm thinking rather than just re-gluing the mouth piece in, I can maybe cover the hole with fabric. It'll let more air in for the kid to breathe, and because I'm sure it's hard enough to understand what a 3 year old is saying, it'll make hearing him easier. in theory.

 

[Kitty Butler]

When I was attempting to start Ranger helmet kits I went ahead and order welder's helmet visors. They've been sitting under my kitchen sink since I've moved into an apartment. I'd send you one but I don't know if it would make it to you in time.

 

[collinE83]

I wanted to paint yesterday, but I also know paint can be finicky when there's moisture. And in case there was still some moisture from the caulk or the glue, I didn't want bubbling. I let it dry for a day and then layered on some Plasti Dip. Luckily I had a case of blue Plasti Dip already for Mega Man, so it's a good thing the boy wanted to be the Blue Ranger.

A very thin first coat, and then two wet coats seemed to be sufficient coverage. I couldn't see the white of the caulk underneath, so I'm calling it good.

I then put on a single layer of Plasti Dip glossifier. It does what you would imagine. I've used the glossifier before, but I forgot that it stays kinda tacky even after fully dry. I didn't really want to hand this over if it's collecting lint and dirt and stuff. Also, it feels a little higher quality if it's shiny and smooth.

So I ran to the craft store and got some low odor latex based clear coat spray paint. I really just dusted the mask/helmet with the clear coat. I didn't know how this paint would react, if it would crack easy or what. So with a reeaally thin coat, I hoped it would remove some of the tack, but leave the flexible...ness.



It worked! Really flexible, no tack, no cracking, and I messed with it a bit and it's pretty durable. I need to do more testing with this clear coat method and see if I can use it on a wider range of things.

I let the paint dry for a little while. I then looked to sort out the mouth piece.first place I go when I need some cloth material is my son's bedroom. He always seems to have some worn out or too small clothing. I was in luck! He had a shirt with a pretty cool pattern, which I may want to use in the future. I used the other side, which is pretty uniform and smooth. I cut out the inside of the mouth piece and then stretched the fabric around it. And so it wouldn't collapse, I put some wooden dowels in for support.



I traced the face symbol template onto a sheet of black 2mm foam, then onto a white 2mm sheet. Then traced about 4mm around the inside edge of the white sheet's outline and cut out the inside area of the black piece

 

[collinE83]

It was a good suggestion using a welder's helmet. I may use one in the future for a more professional looking helmet, but I still went with the clear plastic from the plastic bottle this time.

I layed down the white foam sheet, then glued the plastic on top of that. Even though the window tint film didn't stick directly to the plastic, I figured out I could still get it to look pretty good if I left the tint stuck to its own backing and then just glued it around the edges so it stayed kind of free-floating. Then the black foam sheet stuck on after that, then cut around the perimeter.



White foam --> clear plastic --> window tint --> black foam

Once it was cut free, I flipped it around to finally see if it worked. It did!



I went ahead and had my son try it on for fun and he said it passed the test.

So that's basically it. If I can get some pictures of the little boy who's going to wear it, hopefully I can post them up on here of his full costume. Otherwise, thanks for following the build!

 

[kialna]

Very inventive! I like it!

 

[GrayFoxFlavio]

Wow very cool!

 

[Kitty Butler]

Looks awesome!