Iron Man helmet

I've always loved the movies. Who hasn't? I've always been interested in the props and costumes of the silver screen and in the past few years I recently have begun building props and replicas for my own enjoyment. So far, I've concentrated on Star Wars props / costumes but my latest endeavor was a version of the Iron Man helmet from the films. I began in late February and I am now almost complete.

I started to print out the template on 110 lb. card stock & cut out the templates from a Pepakura file I had acquired online. After a few hours of cutting, it was now time to lightly score the edges of the ridges and valleys so that it was easier to fold. This process took a few days to prepare. Once all of the edges were ready to glue together, I proceeded to attach everything together using Elmer's Glue-All. This process took around 2 weeks just to assemble.

 After gluing, bending & folding all of the necessary edges, it was now time to adhere everything together and start forming the helmet.

After assembling together the rear of the helmet and the crown I started to become excited over how the whole thing would turn out. The best advice to give up to this point would be to make sure you take your time to cut the template pieces out perfectly as well as take your time to fold all of the edges as perfect as possible. This all will make or break whether your helmet will come out deformed or as intended. TAKE YOUR TIME.

Attaching the side pieces of the helmet to the top of the helmet and to the rear was a challenge. I spent 3 hours just gluing those side pieces onto the rest of the helmet. The results were pleasing though.

Up to this point, I could imagine how it would look with the face connected onto it. Until you get the face on, the helmet is very wide and looks "bubbly" and fat. Constructing the jaw piece was my next phase. This is where the detail of the helmet really shines I think.

 It only took 1 day to assemble the jaw / cheek areas. This turned out to be my favorite part of the build. After spending an evening attaching the jaw to the face and forming the eyes, I was now complete w/ Phase 1 of the helmet. Phase 2 would consist of "hardening" the helmet. Using resin and a liquid resin hardener I applied a very thin coat on the outside of the helmet. Allowing it to dry for 24 hours. The stuff is very toxic. Be sure to use proper ventilation and eye-wear while using it. Just closely follow the directions on the resin container. When applying...be sure to not glob large amounts onto the card stock helmet. You don't want to over-saturate the paper. Below are some pictures of the helmet after the first layer of resin was applied to the outside.

After the resin dries, the helmet appears to be a light shade of brownish-yellow. I don't have many pictures of the next step (adding resin & fiberglass into the interior of the helmet) but let me tell you. If you have some help with this step it'll go smoothly. I had a friend cut the strips and hand them to me while I applied resin to the fiberglass sheets. I made sure to cover all 100% of the inside. Filling in every nook & cranny and not forgetting to get rid of any air bubbles. If you have an air bubble, when you go to the sanding stage you could find a week spot and ruin the helmet. But it would be an annoying fix. Here's the inside of the helmet after applying fiberglass to the inside and then applying a second coat of resin to the outside once more.

Now the helmet really is taking shape. I added a think layer of Bondo body filler to all of the large areas on the outside of the helmet.

The picture above shows the face without body filler applied. It was added, I just didn't have a picture. Now came the long and tedious part. I started to sand down the entire helmet (where the Bondo was applied) with 110 grit sandpaper to buff down any "high" parts of the body filler. I then used 400 grit to get things really going and then finished it all off with a wet sand utilizing 600 grit sandpaper. For the most part, the helmet was very smooth but I could see lots of imperfections to the body filler. That's where the trick to getting it very smooth to the touch came in. Using a $4 tube of spot putty / glazing I filled in the "imperfections" and sanding those areas 2-3 more times using 110 grit and then the 400 & 600 grits once more. The final "smooth" product was well worth the 2 weeks of sanding I spent. Time and patience.

 Now that the helmet was smooth all around I now was ready to carve some helmet details into the ear pieces of the helmet as well as the details on the sides of the helmet.

After carving details w/ my Dremel I added a simple primer to the entire surface to see any imperfections I had missed. This really helped find a few small areas. After priming, I taped off the area of the helmet that would be painted gold and spray painted the rest of the helmet using Duplicolor Cherry Red Metallic automotive paint. This stuff was great. Sprays on very light but dries to be the perfect shade of red.

 I gave the helmet 3 coats and even though it only needs 5-10 minutes between coats, I gave it 3-4 hours between coats. I let the helmet rest for 24 hours before I taped off the red part of the helmet to focus on the gold face. I used Duplicolor Sunburst Gold automotive paint for the face. It's also a perfect match for the gold color of the helmet. Although, when i took of the tape after painting the red, the painters tape pulled off some of the spot putty. I had to carefully re-apply the spot putty on the top of the helmet.

The gold paint took 4 coats. It sprays on a little thinner than the red paint. But looks great when it dries. Besides touching up a few spots of color around the helmet  I'm now around 95% complete with the helmet. After touching up paint I will be adding dark colored lenses to the inside of the eyes.