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 A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP

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General Anubis


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A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« on: Jul 02, 2015, 11:32 PM »
Hey everyone. I've been posting updates to my master planning thread but figured I should probably go ahead and kick off the Helmet WIP thread since I am working on it currently...

Here's the jigsaw puzzle it started as...


Half of it epoxy'd together:


"Test fit" once there was enough of it together to figure out if it would actually fit around my head, lol


Here's the current state:


Now I'm presented with a serious problem... the helmet's neck hole isn't large enough to fit my head through, and I'd REALLY rather not make a bigger bucket, so I've been tossing around ideas in my mind for how to invisibly cut the thing into two parts such that it'd still be easy to put on / take off but would also show no seams and pass muster for the app. My current idea is to make the faceplate removable, add standard-style earcaps that would hide the side seams, with the top seam being the top of the visor. I'll also be adding keyhole vents, but that isn't super relevant to the two-piece problem.
If anyone has some awesomely grand ideas on how to accomplish this with it still being passable for the app, I'm all ears.

Thanks,
A'nu Biss

Briks


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #1 on: Jul 03, 2015, 10:36 AM »
You could also just cut it in half and use some strips of sintra or something like that to extend the width? aI believe bowfanny did something like that with one of his buckets, you could ask him.

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General Anubis


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #2 on: Jul 03, 2015, 01:22 PM »
You could also just cut it in half and use some strips of sintra or something like that to extend the width? aI believe bowfanny did something like that with one of his buckets, you could ask him.
Somehow that incredibly simple solution never occurred to me. D'oh.

That sounds pretty reasonable, I'd just have to watch out for the width of the vertical part of the visor I suppose.

Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #3 on: Jul 03, 2015, 03:32 PM »
Hey! Another 3D printed helmet. Yours looks like it's going a lot better then mine. Did you design it or did you get the stl files someplace? Following this thread. :)

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Bowfanny


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #4 on: Jul 04, 2015, 02:20 AM »
You could also just cut it in half and use some strips of sintra or something like that to extend the width? aI believe bowfanny did something like that with one of his buckets, you could ask him.
I'm currently doing that with a demaun helmet.. Funnily enough Vorpan said it was based off of the Demagol helmet.  The spacer idea works as well as the ear caps idea. In addition you could do the ear cap idea and use elastic strap to hold the parts together.

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General Anubis


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #5 on: Jul 04, 2015, 04:34 AM »
Hey! Another 3D printed helmet. Yours looks like it's going a lot better then mine. Did you design it or did you get the stl files someplace? Following this thread. :)
I took the freely available Demagol Helmet Pepakura file (just googled it) and exported the pep file as an .OBJ file.
Then I opened it in Blender, made some slight modifications (removed Demagol ear caps) and added a thickness of 2mm using the "Solidify" material property.
THEN I used netfabb to slice it up into pieces that would easily print without a metric ton of scaffolding. Netfabb is also where I rotated and arranged the pieces, set them on the printing base, and exported each of them as STLs
FINALLY I used Meshlab to combine pieces into single STLs so I could print more than one of the pieces at once.

Once all that song and dance was done, I took it up to a local library that has a public 3D printer. It cost $55 once it was all said and done, at a rate of $0.10 per gram.

Hope that helps!

General Anubis


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #6 on: Aug 08, 2015, 08:59 PM »
Welp, got an update for you guys (at long last... the Necropost warning at the top shames me).

Now that life is calmed down a bit, I've gotten back to working on my armor :D

Ended up buying a corded Dremel, as the little battery pack one I had wasn't quite powerful enough to use reliably. Finishing cutting out the remainder of my armor pieces now (all of the lower body pieces).

All that being said, this is the Helmet WIP thread after all, so update on the bucket:

I've been doing quite a bit of Bondo and sanding (a game most of you are familiar with, I'm sure) on the top part of the helmet. I ultimately decided to go with the "close helm" style as was suggested in another thread for making my helmet into something I could put on/take off without much trouble. I definitely still have quite a bit of Bondo/sanding work ahead of me, but it's getting closer :)

Left side:


Right side:


"Wearing" it, holding the faceplate to it,
Side:


Front:



Remaining steps:

- Finish Bondo work on top piece
- Do Bondo work on faceplate
- Create, Bondo, and attach the ear caps
- Create and attach the Shae Vizla-style Range Finders
- Acquire and attach a visor
- Cut/Shape keyhole vents in the back
- Put in an attachment method for the faceplate under the ear caps (magnets? clips? elastic?)
- Paint and Weather the whole thing
- Put some pads inside

Phew, makes it look like a heck of a lot left to go, but I think I can get it all done (and the armor) before Halloween (my secondary goal) and hopefully in time to be OM before SW:EpVII (my primary goal)

Any comments/suggestions are welcome as always!!

« Last Edit: Aug 08, 2015, 09:20 PM by General Anubis » Logged

Bowfanny


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #7 on: Aug 08, 2015, 09:22 PM »
You're well on your way to the goals you have set Vod! This is coming along very well. As for suggestions I am shamed to say that you've got me beat on suggestions based on what you've already stated! Although you might be able to attach clips on the lower edge with hooks at the top that attach behind the earrcaps.

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General Anubis


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #8 on: Dec 31, 2015, 01:38 AM »
Welp, now that I'm pretty much finished with my buy'ce (at least.. on the outside!) I suppose maybe I should update this thread, eh? Lol. As it turns out, buying a house, moving into said house, followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas tends to eat away at your free time, who knew?

Anyways, I'll go ahead and make a massive one-post update for everything I took pictures of from the last update until now ;)





So the next thing I decided to do was go ahead and make the visor. I'm not 100% satisfied with the color (I wanted gold but could only find orange acrylic paper  >:( ) so I might end up redoing it in the near future. Either way, here it is:

Materials involved:
Orange (grr) acrylic paper from Blick http://www.dickblick.com/


Gila Mirror Tint (stuff ain't cheap, so if anyone else wants to make a custom mirror visor, hit me up, I have a WHOLE ROLL of this!)


Gila tint adhesive (basically seemed like it was pretty much just water)


El-cheapo protective plastic mask from Harbor Freight
To get the sizing right I just pushed a piece of paper up inside my helmet and traced about a quarter inch larger than the T-visor slot then traced that over onto the plastic face guard


Cutting out the visor shape from the mirror tint and acrylic paper


Visibility isn't bad - it's actually a lot better than shown in this photo (there was an extra layer of plastic film on the face guard that I didn't notice and peel off until afterwards - d'oh)


Looks good ;)






After getting that out of the way, finishing the bondo/sanding and then painting was next up on the list...

Cut a thin strip out of Sintra to use as the brow ridge, since the App Team and several others advised me that it would be necessary to pass muster
It was a lot more difficult to get it straight and even all the way around than I thought it would be. Ultimately, I ended up having to cut the strip into a series of ~3-inch segments and place them around the helmet in series.


Of course, more bondo and sanding........


Once it was sufficiently smooth, I hit it with Rub'n'Buff - Love that shiny metal look!


Used toothpaste for weathering, super easy to work with. I put the toothpaste onto the Rub'n'Buff layer and then sprayed primer over the whole thing


My blue metallic paint, unfortunately, was NOT happy with being applied to this primer (protip: use paint and primer from the same brand! Might have had something to do with the glitter flecks in the paint also, but either way I ended up sanding and re-weathering/priming/painting 3 TIMES. On the 3rd try I used the same brand paint as the primer and it went on smooth, but the color isn't exactly what I wanted. Oh well)
Tragic-

After peeling off my painters tape, I was quite disappointed to find that the painter's tape left lines and tiny little specks of peeled off paint. I was pretty certain that I'd have to sand and repaint for a 4th time...


Fortunately, after some awesome advice on my Master Planning Thread, a light sanding and blackwash did wonders and salvaged it


Followed much the same process for the rest of the helmet. You'll notice here that I've put earcaps on also. I basically just measured out the size that they needed to be on the helmet with measuring tape and used a ruler+freehand to draw them out on the Sintra. I cut out 2 layers of Sintra with the same shape (accursed 3mm Sintra, lol), heated them individually and molded them to the side of the helmet. I had to shave a bit off the top of the inner layer in order to get it to lay flush with the brow ridge. I used E6000 adhesive to laminate the two layers together once they were shaped, did a SLIGHT amount of reshaping once they finished curing, then sanded the bevel into the edges and carved the center trench/hole/thing into it freehand with my Dremel. I attached them to the helmet with the same E6000+some light clamps to hold them on while it cured. Hopefully that's enough explanation on those, sorry for no pics there!


After the painting, weathering, blackwash, and sealing was done, I think it turned out really nicely!
Also for everyone that I'm sure notices, I intentionally carved the key vents "upside down." I like the way it looks better than the standard. To carve them I measured it out with measuring tape, drew them on, then cut them out with the Dremel.
Back view:


Rockin it - I attached the visor to only the faceplate with hot glue. I may attach some metal brackets or something to the inside of the bucket to help hold the visor flush to the top, but it looks fine without it IMO.


I made a Shae Vizla-inspired RF to go on the side. I'm thinking I may just stick to having one instead of going for one on each side, and I'm not 100% sold on the look either. I may end up redoing it. You'll probably notice that I wore it along with the upper torso bits of my armor to the Ep7 opening. I didn't feel right not wearing something and figured that it was probably close enough to be presentable at least! Anyway, as this is the helmet thread, I've cut the pic down to just the helmet ;)







Technical details!

Ok so, if you're wondering how the faceplate attaches to the helmet and such, here's how I got it all together--

I used Hard Drive magnets attached by hot glue in 4 locations each on the faceplate and bucket. These things were easy to remove from the hard drives (with the right tools!) but a pain to remove from their metal brackets. Basically, I set something heavy on one end of it with the other end hanging over the edge of the concrete sidewalk then beat on it with a hammer until the magnet split into two pieces from the metal brace flexing behind it. Keeping the polarities facing the right directions was annoying, but otherwise not too big of a deal :)


To attach the RF, I just drilled a hole through the earcap and side of the helmet and attached it with a screw from the inside that went into the little stem of the RF. Don't really have a pic of this one, hopefully it's self explanatory enough.

I used some simple strips of foam cut from a larger square that I bought from Joann's for the padding. Works great!





PHEW, that's a huge update, if anyone has any questions for me feel free! I'll try my best to keep up with answers. Hopefully I'll be finishing up the entire kit soon enough :)

-Thanks!
-A'nu Biss

« Last Edit: Dec 31, 2015, 01:41 AM by General Anubis » Logged

Bowfanny


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #9 on: Dec 31, 2015, 03:21 AM »
Fantastic man! Been a long while coming!

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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #10 on: Dec 31, 2015, 03:37 AM »
i love it!

Raestin Ke'Varek


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #11 on: Dec 31, 2015, 09:44 AM »
That is amazing! Well done vod!

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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #12 on: Dec 31, 2015, 11:53 AM »
Looks awesome vod!!!! Great job! Can't even tell that it's a print anymore!

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General Anubis


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Re: A'nu Biss - 3D Printed Demagol Helmet WIP
« Reply #13 on: Dec 31, 2015, 01:28 PM »
Looks awesome vod!!!! Great job! Can't even tell that it's a print anymore!
Haha, vor'e :) Upon REALLY close inspection, you can still see the light reflect off of the polygons juuuuuust barely, but otherwise yeah there are no clues to the 3D printed base. I really like that ABS plastic base too since it makes it a lot sturdier than most other forms of scratch build bases.

 


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