activation email

[Anansi]

Su'cuy all my beautiful and brazen vod! Today, I've taken my first steps into building a helmet myself. Well, not FOR myself. It's for my adiik, Catra. We've already cut out most of her plates, repainted her blaster and grabbed the material for her vest but until now, she was still missing that certain something. Well no more. Thanks to Clone Wars and Rebels, she's always fancied the Night Owl so I searched our handy pep archives and came across a few worthy candidates. Since this was my first go, I wanted to find a pep model that wasn't too complicated. The SW-BOKATAN file fit the bill. I decided to shrink it only by 10% as I wasn't sure of the original dimensions.

So begins the cutting and gluing. I decided on Loctite industrial strength super glue and remember vod: wear gloves and/or have some acetone on hand.



What a pretty face.


Almost there


Complete! It took me two days to get this far and my little boss was very pleased.




Now before I start the resin process, I've got to add some internal bracing to set it to the correct width and prevent any collapse. Also, I've heard that one silicone brush will outlast a dozen chip brushes. Anyone have any experience with that? All right, that's all for now. Tune in next time.

[ShadowNeko]

Looking Good so far.  As far as the silicon brush I wouldn't know.  I've always used the 1" chip brushes.  They're cheap enough for me, and I don't have to worry about clean--up.  Looks like you got your hands on a pretty good pep file.  Shouldn't be too difficult when you get to the bondo stage. 

Good luck and continue posting!

[Sep Ho'ban]

Good work with the pep. You may need to scale it down a bit.  It  looks pretty tall on you.  Maybe it's the angle of the photo? But it looks like it's resting on your chest, and extends well above the top of your head.

[Anansi]

Ha ha, vod!  That's not me, that's my verd'ika and that's her helmet! I would scale it down but she's just so attached to the darn thing. She'll grow into it.

[Sep Ho'ban]

lol, roger that! That's what I get for not re-reading the top post lol. Remembered seeing the pics  on it before so scrolled on past.

[Anansi]

Prep time! Before moving on to the resin phase, research indicated it was a good idea to add some bracing to the inside to combat sagging. So, with a bit of scrap cardboard, I added a brace between the earcaps, one between the cheeks, and a last one from the ears to the back of the head. Hopefully that will keep everything in place laterally.



Then, I thought to myself, "Self, do you really want to have to hold this in your hand as you apply the resin, gloved or not?" The answer was "No", ner vod. Absolutely not. So I used more cardboard and made a little stand.



Not pictured is the little strip of cardstock I used to make the two front ends of the mandibles face each other properly instead of flaring out. Once the weather figures itself out, I think I'll be ready to get moving!

[Anansi]

Another weekend, another opportunity to work on this Night Owl. I did my research on how to proceed and I want to give a quick shoutout to the book Make: Props and Costume Armor and to the WIP threads posted by vode'an for giving me a good course of action. I really, really didn't want to play around with fiberglass mat so I resolved to take the rondo route. So after 3 good coats of resin on the outside:



I let it sit overnight and then tackled the rondo. I left the bracing in place to prevent warping, fully understanding that it's not going to be fun cutting them out later. On my first go, I tried using the same amount of resin it took to coat the outside with an equal amount of bondo. Surprise, surprise, that's not enough. A golf ball-sized amount of bondo and 3oz of resin, both activated before mixing gave me a nice coat.  I rotated and rolled so it wouldn't pool in any one place, using a chip brush to guide the rondo to places where it missed.



Then I repeated until it was solid. Not wanting to waste anything, I gave the outside a few thin coats of rondo as well.





That's not a bare patch, that's shiny rondo. Once it's all cured up, it'll be time for the bondo phase.

[Anansi]

It's the Bondo phase!
I started with the dome, worried that it would be the hardest part. Turns out it was the easiest.


After a few thin layers and lots and lots of sanding, I got it to this point:


More bondo, more sanding:


Once I got it to this point, cleaning up the brow and smoothing it as much as I could manage, I decided it was time for the priming phase. I chose a filler primer to get some of the imperfections.



Now I'm wet sanding and spot puttying. The fun continues!

Boom! Through the magic of wet sanding and spot putty and a 320 grit sanding sponge, I made it to this point.



Then another coat of the filler primer and here's where I'm leaving off for the week: Shiny and (mostly) smooth. I don't know whether I should jump back up to 150 grit, putty, prime again or leave well enough alone.



I'd love your feedback. Whether I give it another once over or not, the next step I think is adding a rim with apoxie sculpt and working on the ears. My verd'ika wants fin antennas and I'm going to try and make them capable of folding down and rotating back. Working on the bluerprints now and I'll post them later.

[Sep Ho'ban]

Really depends on if you're going for facory fresh or for beat up. If factory fresh, I'd go one more round of.putty in some places. If beat up, make the imperfections tell a story.

[Bowfanny]

I wouldn’t worry about shiney smooth perfection for a Verdika because they’ll just add it right back and or grow out of it.

[Anansi]

Good points all around. Thank you! Before I started on painting this bad girl, there are a few things that need to be completed.

First, I added a rim to the bottom of the helmet with my favorite, Apoxie Sculpt. I didn't take a picture but it makes sure the rim doesn't flex too much and gives the helm a nice lip to hold on to.

Next, I wanted to tackle the ears. My verd'ika wanted her helmet kit to be reminiscent of the pokemon Espeon.


So we're going with antenna ears. However, I didn't want them to constantly stick out. I'm going to make these antennae capable of folding...flatter and rotating back at an angle. Just had to figure out how to implement.

I decided on an inner and outer sleeve with rare earth magnets. After a little trial and error and sanding and cutting, I landed on 3/4 pvc pipe and sections from a pvc T-join.


I, very carefully, drilled out the pilot holes and checked the alignment. Instead of a full 90 degree turn, I figure it'll look nicer at a 30 degree (maybe less) sweep back.


Then I got the proper sized holes in and sunk in the magnets, making sure the sleeves still rotated but stopped at the magnet points.


Finally, I filled the inner sleeve with apoxie scupt and the wrapped the outer in the same. That should keep everything in place and make it easier to seat the ear against the helmet. For the folding function, I salvaged some hinges from a tiny broken netbook.




Can't wait to test this out!

UPDATE:
Getting closer! I was able to get the antenna attached to the hinge and got the ear assembly attached. The outer ring will remain stationary while the inner drum rotates. Thanks to the magnets, it stays in place pretty well and the antenna doesn't add too much weight. making the barrel rotate instead of the ring means I don't have to put a cap on it, which could be a potential shear point. It also means that I can possibly create other plug in attachments such as a traditional rangefinder, headlamp, macrobinoculars, etc. Oya modular accessories!







And the folding works great!


It's not completely assembled. (gotta let the e6000 cure)

[Bowfanny]

That’s pretty neat.

[Anansi]

Just a quick update:

After attaching the second ear, I moved forward and cut out the visor. I opted to keep the lip inside to make sure the cheeks don't flex and cause cracking. They were a little rough because I didn't bondo them very well so I used my favorite material, apoxie sculpt to level and reinforce the lip. Once it's sanded, it'll look nice and sharp. Because Espeon has a little red "gem" in it's forehead, this helm needed one too. I cut off the top of an old electronic panel light, ground out a little recess and glued it in place.



The final thing was to make sure a visor would sit properly. Using a little more of the 'sculpt, I set dowel pieces as posts.



Now we wait for everything to cure up, sand the edges and give it a final primer coat before moving on to paint!

[Bowfanny]

Right on

[Anansi]

In the home stretch!
I gave it one more primer coat and sand before hitting it with a metallic coat. Now, my verd'ika wants her kit to look new so no one will see this but with her running about, it'll get dinged up eventually.



To be honest, I'm not a fan of this particular metallic because it uses glittery flakes but it was her choice so here we are. As I laid on the actual paint, named "Gum Drop", it seemed my concerns were justified. The coat had a gritty texture. So, I wet sanded this bad girl and laid down another coat. I repeated this a few times, stepping up from 220 to 1500 and here we are:



Lovely. I gave it one more round of wet sand using the 1500 only and it gleamed. One coat of clear glaze later and this buy'ce is almost ready for prime time.



Stay tuned for the penultimate episode!

[Kerricane]

Thats super cute, i love your idea for the ears!

[Anansi]

Vor'e kamen!

Here's a few more pictures with the ears in place:



Ears down


And now with better lighting and a test visor




We're  going to install a purple mirrored visor to replicate espeon's eyes. Not sure whether or not we're going to try and emulate the ear fluff. Not sure how to pull it off. Stay tuned.

[Kall]

This looks awesome. Can't wait to see the finished product