Today I will be showing you how I made a Hawkgirl helmet! We had to make foam helmets for a rapid prototyping with foam class which would be finished later in a painting class and this was the design I chose.
What I used:
Tools needed:
I wanted to make my own pattern from scratch rather than get one from the internet so to begin I got a friend to make a pattern of the top of my head by wrapping it in foil and covering it in masking tape. I placed this onto a foam head and using more foil and masking tape as well as brown paper I started building up a pattern.
Note: I only had to do half of the shape since I could simply mirror it later, and doing the full helmet shape would only make it much harder since I would have to try build up the same part twice.
I went over my shape again with a layer of plastic wrap and masking tape to give me a pattern surface without having to ruin my built up shape.
Once the shape was done I drew on all the details I'd need with a sharpie:
With all this drawn on I could finally cut the pattern into pieces after sliding my pattern off the built up shape (I did have to cut a slit), cutting small indents where the lines to connect the pieces are (this lets me draw in the lines easy since there's now a gap for my pen). What you can do at this point is trace the tape patterns onto some card to make neater and more durable patterns, but you don't have to (I personally did).
Next I pinned the pieces onto the foam, traced around them, and cut out the pieces. I cut each piece out twice to get the 2nd half of the helmet (this foam was the same on both sides so it didn't matter how I cut them out, but if the foam is different remember to flip your pattern rather than just rotating it).
Something I did at this point was check all my pieces fitted together, and figure out which surfaces I want to glue together (e.g. for the 'feather spikes' on the side of the helmet I glued the two layers onto each other flat, but with the seams on front I glued the ends together). You can easily do this with some masking tape since this comes off easily without damaging the foam (there are even multiple levels of stickiness for masking tape if you are worried, but the standard tape didn't damage my foam at all).
With the pieces all fitting I used a heat gun to form the pieces into the approximate shapes they'd be in once glued together. This not only made the gluing easier but also helps the helmet have the right shape (it can sometimes try warp into the wrong shapes under pressure, so pre-forming it helps).
It's best to slightly over-bend the foam when doing this since it will try return to it's original shape a bit when cooling down.
The pieces were now ready for gluing! I personally used ADOS F2 contact adhesive, and had to make sure to let the glue dry enough before fitting the pieces together to stop them being pulled apart again (since this helmet is so smooth I needed good seams).
Note: If anyone hasn't used contact adhesive before and is confused by this, you have to let this type of glue dry till it's just tacky and then press it together. This will cause the glue to stick the pieces together instantly rather than having to keep the two pieces held together while the glue dries.
Sticking the pieces together got a bit challenging as the pieces got larger, but using my knee and other surfaces really helped me press the seams together neatly. With each seam I went over them with my thumb as they were glued to help ensure the pieces stuck.
To create the lines on the top of the helmet I used a scalpel to cut grooves into the foam and then hit it with a heat gun (this makes the lines widen). It's not present in the next picture, but you'll see it in the one after.
The base was done so I moved onto fixing the seams. I used caulk filler for this, a type of filler that you can spread and smooth out using your finger and some water and also stays quite flexible when dry. It doesn't sand great (you can sand it a bit with fine sandpaper but that's it), so I made sure to smooth it out with the water.
To prep the helmet for painting I coated it in a product called Flexi Kote which creates a membrane over the object (it's basically impossible to get in New Zealand, but our tutor had a massive container from her film work). I brushed on the first layer, sanded it, and then sprayed on another 2 layers using a spray gun. This also served as a primer.
To begin the painting I got some black water-based paint, thinned it down to the consistency of melted ice cream, and used a spray gun to paint the whole helmet black. I focused the spray on the areas that needed to be black and kept doing layers till those areas were completely covered, but I didn't worry about covering the other areas.
Before doing the next step I waited a few days to let the paint fully cure.
Next up I covered the areas that needed to be black with masking tape. I used some much weaker masking tape this time to ensure the paint wouldn't be pulled up, and covered the bigger areas with plastic wrap to save on tape.
To finish off the painting I sprayed the helmet with gold paint which I mixed from gold paint pigment and gloss paint varnish. I did many thin layers to ensure the helmet was fully covered and also to prevent the paint from seeping under the tape.
Taking off the masking tape revealed the now fully painted helmet! There's a few small places to patch up with some more black paint, but that's only a minor fix-up left to do.
And that's it! The Hawkgirl helmet is complete!
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and that it helps some people with their own foam builds. =D
