After Solo came out I spent a lot of time thinking about trench warfare, the 224th armored division had some very cool looking gear, and I am always down to get a kit absolutely filthy with mud, so I felt very at home looking at the aesthetic of trench fighters and frontline soldiers. But it begs the question, what kind of helmet would a mandalorian design for trench warfare?
And then I remembered I'm a mandalorian.
And I can design helmets.
And make helmets.
So I started the process. I wanted something that evokes the feeling of heavily armored helmets. Protective, designed to keep shrapnel out of the thinky jello between your ears. But I would also need it to be practical for trooping, so it's got to have decent visibility, so that I don't bump into small children or R2 units as they bumble around cons. And as always, it's got to bring something new to the table. Something I haven't seen before.
Ladies, Gentlemen, Beings between and beyond the spectrum, I give you, the Trench.
A lot of hours in fusion and I've got a decent helmet, a few changes to make the app team happy and it was off to the 3d printer to check size. Once I was happy it would fit on a human head the molds were printed and the forming bucks were made.
Be glad you can simply see that happen in the span of two pictures, it was days of printing, hours of layering fiberglass and sanding out print lines, then filling voids in the fiberglass, and using bondo to fix the last minor problems in the bucks. This destroyed the printed mold but that's ok. Ideally these bucks will work for a few years before they need to be repaired or replaced. The Makers mark on the side is covered by the earcaps.
Now that we have bucks, we can make helmets! Onto the Vacuum former, I heated up some 1/8 abs, pulled it over my bucks, then sucked all the air out vacum forming the plastic around the shape.
[img width=365height=650]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/583703118966161414/890134869244514364/20210826_175410.jpg[/img]
A great pull, clean lines. Unfortunately the arrows on the front didn't come out very crisp. I didn't have high hopes, but it's still a bit disappointing. Still learning the limits of what I can accomplish with 1/8 inch plastic. I intentionally did this one pull before I fixed all the voids in the buck, since I knew they would turn out as dents in the brow ridge, which would make for cool weathering. I won't turn down easy 3D weathering. On all future helmets there will be no such defects, since every helmet would have the exact same dents and that's kinda lame. Mine gets to be special.
Next step is to cut it free from the flat sheet it was formed from. The bucks are taller than needed so we have some extra material to use to glue the two halves together.
Then it gets glued with a strip of plastic on the inside, I messed up my alignment so even if I wanted to cut out the triangles and make them nice and defined details, they would really highlight my mistake. I didn't have any binder clips at the time, but was too impatient to wait and wanted to glue my helmet together now! I should have waited. Now I get to do more bondo work.
But, I'm pretty decent with bondo.
By the time I'm done you won't be able to tell the helmet was ever crooked. The top of the visor cuttout is still a little wavy and uneven. Next update I'll get that flat and even, and get the earcaps glued on. Maybe even get a layer of primer on so I can find the spots I didn't bondo well enough.
Every time I get to hold something that previously only existed as an idea in my brain I feel like a wizard. It's pure magic. I willed this object into existing, and I am in love with the design. More updates soon.
