Making a Helmet.

[nzjedi]

I thought I'd post a thread in here about making a senate guard helmet. The way I'm doing mine, is by converting a damaged old Don Post royal guard. Essentially, I filled it with foam, then cut the majority of the helmet away, and am in the process of re-sculpting the front and sides. I started this project about a year ago, got sidetracked with a bunch of other helmet sculpts and have just picked it back up again. As far as I can tell, this is a similar method the ILM props dept used to make the real ones
(I base that statement on these image's showing the helmet being made)

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There is a significant difference however. I believe the props department used a prequel royal guard helmet to base their senate guard on, the shapes of the OT and PT royal guards are significantly different, the contours of the neck are the major change, I think it affects the over all look of the helmet. The Senate guard helmet shares the same neck contour, so one can only assume, they made the prequel guard master before TPM, even though it wouldn't be seen used until AOTC. go figure.
Anyway,
I started with this

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Chopped it to bits and did the easy part first (excuse the black, I was out of primer....)

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[nzjedi]

The hard part is sculpting the face and achieving the correct contour because I'm starting with an incorrect (ROTJ) shape, If I cant get it right, I'm going to completely remove the sides and sculpt them. Pretty much now, the only part of the original helmet that remains is the rear which supports the crest, and the "wings" the plan was to seperate the sternum, but I didnt think it would hold up

##warning, sensitive viewers may wish to look away, the following depicts a severely damaged royal guard helmet, discretion is advised##

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Excuse the mess, foam is awful stuff to work with, but its quick.


'll show more as it comes together. I really am trying my hardest to get this as close as possible, I know its hard at the moment cause its such a mess... but if you see anything that's glaringly wrong, please speak up but, bear in mind is a very early work in progress.
Thanks for looking.

[Darth Skellington]

Wow, that's a daunting task you've set yourself up for. Best of luck with your project. A number of guards have done similar work on moding or sculpting their helmets, so maybe they will have some useful advice.

hehe.....seeing the black marker on the red helmet...only one thing comes to mind. [Begins singing] "Spider-Guard.....Spider-Guard.......does whatever a ....."

[nzjedi]

Yeah I thought the exact same thing about the marker lines! because the helmet has some subtitle warps, the continuous curve lines make them easier to spot, These old don posts are wobbly things. Detail wise, this particular helmet is far less ambitious than other helmets I've worked on and it seems like a pretty straight forward mod but, you'd be surprised how hard matching such simple curves can be. If the base isn't right, then the whole thing just looks off (like it is now, it still has the fat ROTJ neck.) I just hope I can get it right, If this fails, I'll just do it in water clay, sometimes I think it would have actually been easier.

[nzjedi]

This has been sitting in a box for a few years decided to finish it last weekend.. still needs some spot filling, sanding and general tidy up but nearly ready to go under some rubber. planning on doing a small run if anyone is keen?

[LuciousTalvloinne]

Im keen

[nzjedi]

cool, well I see how I go if I can get a few names then I'll go ahead and mould it up... needs a little work first though... I've made a vac forming buck for the ep3 visor so it will come with that.. have been looking around for brushes/plumes for ep1 style.. I'm thinking truck wheel arch brushes could do the trick..

[redpaint]

I'd be inerested in one of these as well.

[nzjedi]

ok peoples, it seems there are a handful of people that are interested, I've worked out I can offer these for 350usd shipped, its a little more than a regular helmet just becasue they take about twice as much product to cast feel free to contact me at
munro#_#tim#@#hotmail#.com (remove the #'s) These will probably be a limited offer thing, I have a lot of work on only have time to do a few
they will come cast in 4PU ridged Urethane(same as Smooth-On SC-ROTO) with vac formed visor.. I'm trying to track down suitable brushes for the ep1 version.

[nzjedi]

At this stage I'm only able to offer 2, may be able to do another run in a few months, just depends where I am.







Thanks for looking