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[Kora]

As some may have heard (most likely only if you managed to catch one of my random facebook status updates or something), I'm planing on converting my beast master kit into an early crusader era kit (though I'll still be keeping her modern plates as well just for if I feel like wearing that version). This is very much a long term goal as I would like to have most of it entirely out of leather (or, at least leather coated plates), so I'll be outsourcing some of the work on it.

My question today however is about the helmet. I really want to keep the horned look for Tiika's kit, so I'd like to attempt something inspired by this one: .
The thing is, I have no idea how to even being to approach scratch building a bucket like this. I found a ski helmet at Goodwill I'm thinking will work cut down to make the base. Thinking that loping off below the red line might work for a base?


I realized I don't have anymore shots of it (doh!), so I'll get some shortly. However, other than having no clue where to really start, one of the things I am trying to figure out is, are the checks actually recessed like modern helmets? Or is that visor area just supposed to be a little raised? Are there other recessed areas on those helmets (as in, around the bucket) or would smooth(ish) work all the way around with just the insets in the top of the helmet plus a slightly raised visor?


As far as the more general gist of the outfit (beyond my questions about starting the helmet), I am still keeping the kama and patchwork cape, and, yes, I am still going to have some style of larger horns on the helmet. I'll just be adding some smaller horn detailing as well. Weapon will be upgraded to a mythosaur axe. I'm not entirely sure about the armor itself at this moment, but I'll probably get around to figuring out how it will look once I get some headway on the helmet.

[Val Sunrider]

is it just me, or are Crusaders becoming increasingly popular?

[Kora]

*chuckle* I suppose. Tiika always leaned more this way though with the rugged leather I have on her, so it made sense to make a full version of it.

[Slade Kel]

I approve of Crusaders .

Personally, I'd say leave the lower part of the ski helmet, just enclose the front and add a T-visor. Fully-enclosed helmets are allowed for early era, and I think the ski helmet already has a quasi 'organic' feel to its shape that you can work with. Maybe sculpt the horns and more guttural ridges and whatnot with bondoglass or something?

[Kora]

Hmm. I honestly hadn't given much thought to keeping that bottom portion. But now that you mention it, I'll probably give that a try first. I've had so many people recommend epoxy putty I was thinking of using it to build up some ridges and what not (especially if it will sand easier than bondo >_<).

[Slade Kel]

Hem, never worked with epoxy putty myself, but it's worth a shot. You'll have to keep us updated on how it goes .

[Hondo Karr]

The epoxy putty doesnt sand quicker or easier than Bondo at all. However, it's stiff enough that you can actually mold and shape it once you mix it before it sets. You can actually get it shaped pretty dead on and when it dries it has kinda a bonish color.

[Kora]

Bah. Oh well. . .I'm so used to sanding bondo by now I'll deal. lol Good to hear I can sculpt it better though, was a little concerned about bondo for the organic look.

Sometime within the next week or so I'll sit down and fiddle with making some templates for the front of the bucket. Would do it sooner but have to finish up the box of cheerios so I have some thin enough cardboard. XD

[Slade Kel]

You don't have to wait, just leave the bag in the cupboard and steal the box . I used to do that for craft projects when I was a kid, drove my mother up the walls .

[Arketh]

Yeah, the shape of the helmet as is probably works to your favor.

And as A'den said, the epoxy putty doesn't sand well at all once dried. You're better off to use a file if you need to alter it once it's hardened.

Have some water handy while shaping it, and keep your fingers wet. Doesn't stick to the fingers as bad, and leaves a much smoother finish.

[Kora]

Shockingly enough I did do some fiddling around with this. It just hasn't been a priority with my limited funds at the moment and having to focus very much on getting Kora's kit back into wearable condition.




Yes, I still have a lot of fiddling to do with that front, including fixing the angle of that V and shrinking the horizontal portion. I'm thinking at this point that the helmet won't have sunken cheeks but instead just a raised visor trim area since that's what the images suggest the most to me.

Something that I'm curious about though. The line of the helmet on the bottom is a little short on me. I'm trying to decide if it'd be allowed to have a sort of "helmet skirt" of leather hanging down from the rim (as the helmet is going to be covered in patchwork leather except where I want the bone ridges and horns). If not, I'll just go ahead and work on extending it some.

(As a side note, I've been using this picture more for working on the visor area/shape itself:
)

[Slade Kel]

A little progress is still progress .

Just to let you know, the horns I built onto my bucket with the epoxy putty survived an 11 year old's birthday party, with the kids running around wearing my buy'ce for the better part of four hours. They didn't say anything about dropping it, but knowing these kids I'm sure it hit ground at least once. Either way, the horns all held up, with no visible signs of damage or evidence of loose bonds to the helmet. I've even picked it up and held it by just each horn, one at a time, though I haven't put any serious effort into testing how strong the hold it.

[Kora]

Look! I've done something! lol

Trust me, I know it looks ugly, but it's still got a long way to go. Obviously the sintra needs to be trimmed WAY up (I had a bit of a spacey moment when cutting it and cut it a lot wider than I needed but just shrugged and went with it so I'd have plenty of extra space if I screwed up). When I have the money to devote to getting several tubes of epoxy, I'll start work on smoothing out the seams where the sintra meets the helmet, as well as filling in some of those spaces on the helmet that I, well, want smooth. Sintra will probably get a thin layer of the epoxy since I know the stuff I'm getting is incredibly durable and sticks quiet nicely to the sintra. Visor thickness will also be built up, and horns will be added. Still debating how I'm going to approach making the larger horns.

I may be forgetting some steps. Well, I'm pretty sure I am anyway, but right now I'm tired and can't think very coherently.

Technically the second step is shown here; the first was backing off those holes.



I used E6000 for the visor part of the sintra. The clamps annoyed the heck out of me, so by the time I got to the back part, where getting stuff fixed in place was a lot more important to moving forward so I could shape the rest of the sintra, I switched to hot glue. The nice thing about hot glue on the high setting is it actually helps form the sintra into place. The not so nice thing is that there were a couple spots where the overlapping sintra wasn't overlapping by that much and I burned my finger. Oh well, it worked.




Also fixed, as best as I can, that wonky bit you may have noticed on the visor sintra in the first picture. The thing about the 1mm sintra is that it doesn't have much time between barely malleable and omgmelting!1!. So, it's as fixed as I can get it, and the epoxy covering will ultimately smooth it out the rest of the way, I hope. (I've still got to go and try to get a bit more of an even curve in the front, as well as fix how wonky it is around the "ear" parts of the base helmet.)



Here's hoping my ultimate plan works, and at some point in the future there will be more updates.

Oh, yes, and lest I forget, the new feather/bead things I made to hang from the horn of this helmet:

[Kora]

Got some more minor work done. Probably could have done more except I used up the last of Pere's epoxy putty. <_< >_>

Trimmed the sintra down (both the drastic amount along the bottom plus a tiny tiny bit along the visor area), drilled the pilot holes where I'll have the small horns, and started putting down epoxy putty to feather out from the sintra into the helmet. (Red dots on the second picture I added just to help better convey where the horns will be.)





Next step is to continue adding the putty, then a lot of sanding to get it all smoothed out and shaped right. After that I'm thinking I'm going to fiberglass the sintra to reinforce it (lot simpler and more light weight than epoxy all over it). Somewhere in there I'll have Pere draw out the visor area for me since he's far better at measuring and making sure it would be centered.

For the big horns, I'm thinking perhaps I'll try to make them similar to how people make the body forms then glass them. Make a very basic form out of wire, put the packing tape or whatever over that, use some cord or something to add ridges, glass it, then lightly bondo enough to smooth out.

Also thinking along the back I'll do similar to what I did with the modern helmet and have a leather drape. Still a look I'm going to test out, but if I do it, it will require a lot more work than the last one as I plan on drilling a LOT of tiny holes then stitching the leather on since I won't have an inside edge to glue it to like on the modern era one.

[Kardos Shantiel]

Lookin good!