Rocketeer Finale

I guess I never posted these photos of my finished Rocketeer helmet. I finished him in June of 2011.

Part 1

Part 2

I took the Crayola clayed helmet and started to cover him with spot-putty. I would then sand it down a bit and reapply the putty. As the helmet shaped to what was desired I smoothed it out with finer sandpaper.
After a lot of sanding and turning my hands red, I moved on to painting it.

I started with a base coat of grey primer. I think I did about 4 coats of that in total. Next I painted the outside and inside black. When everything was dry I put the first coat of metallic gold on the helmet to make it look like the gay tin-man. Seeing how lumpy and dented the helmet already looked with the glossy paint, I decided that 'battle-damaged' was the way to go. After numerous coats of the metallic, and a lot of drying, it was time for the details.

The details were pretty easy since it was mostly adding black paint to look like grease, burns or scuffs so making it look 'nice' was not necessary. Before the black paint I added the ends of brads to the outside of the eye holes to look like bolts. When paint time came I grabbed a brush but was soon switching it out for a paper towel to streak the paint. I would muck up the helmet with a lot of black acrylic paint and then wipe it off before it dried, doing small portions at a time. Since I was going with a battle-damaged helmet I started to slice some chunks of spot putty out with an exacto-knife. I would then fill in the cuts with black paint. These photos aren't perfectly lit, but you can see the black scuffs. I made the left side very damaged as if he turned his head from a blast as well as a ricocheted bullet.

I didn't record the final steps of putting in lenses or the inner lining. For the lenses I bought a black tinted motorcycle helmet visor. I cut it to the right shape so it can overlap the helmet. I then placed it in the oven and watched it slowly lose it's shape. I took it out with tongs and then placed it into the helmet and pressed it against the holes. I then adhered it with clear caulk. Unfortunately the oven rippled the tinting a little bit in one of the lenses but it is still ok to look out of. While the lenses dried I added screen material to the vents on the head.

After the lenses and screens were good and dried in place, I used pieces of paper to make a template for sewing. I lined the inside of the helmet with paper and used those stripes to lay a flat model on the ground. I then cut up an old t-shirt in those shapes and sewed them together to make a big pocket. I stuffed the pockets with more fabric and sealed it up. I then took this fabric helmet and applied velcro stripes to the inner helmet and the fabric. This helped to make it stay in place and to be adjustable.

It took over a year to complete, but even with ghetto supplies it worked out, and made a pretty kick ass halloween costume.