Hi All,

A while back I asked for some advice on sculpting a helmet. Since then I have been trying out various techniques. Here's a step-by-step report on the method I settled on.

My goal was to sculpt a 1/16 British WW2 helmet, but this method could just as well be used to make the WW1 'Brodie' helmet.

Step 1

Gathering information on dimensions. A bit tedious phase, but important for 'understanding' the shape. I learned that it is quite challenging to sculpt such regular shapes. Our brain is annoyingly well-trained to recognize tiny deviations from the 'right' shape; how often don't we know there is something wrong, without being able to point out what exactly? So getting proportions right is important. Fortunately, the British helmet is not the most complex shape either....

Below dimensions are derived from combining various sources: dimensions posted by helpful PF members and pictures found on the web. Still hope to get my hands on an actual one at some point, to verify.



Step 2

I started by cutting out from 0.5mm plastic card an appropriate oval shape. I first drew two concentric circles: one with diameter of the long axis of the oval, and an inner one of diameter of the short axis. I then drew two arcs in the area between these circles to mark the oval. Not sure if this is very clear...hope you understand... :-/

Step 3

Cut out two smaller ovals that mark the 'inner dome' part of the helmet, again from 0.5mm plastic card....and glue them together.



Step 4

Glue the 'inner ovals' to the bigger oval, like this:



The 'inner oval stack' has 1mm thickness.

Step 5

Fill the area around the 'inner oval' with MagicSculp and scrape or sand smooth.
This makes the helmet's outer rim. See top part of picture below.

Step 6

Following the dimensional drawings, cut out (0.5mm plastic sheet) the left/right and front/back cross sections of the 'inner dome' of the helmet.

Step 7

Cut out section halfway sections in the middle of these parts, to make them intersect, and glue them to the bottom part of the helmet:

Step 8

Fill the shape with MagicSculp, using the cross sections as guideline to the shape.
Try to smoothen the putty as much as possible. It will save on sanding later.





After hardening, add putty or sand it away where necessary.

Step 9

After working the shape by adding or removing putty, add details, such as the helmets outer rim.
I tried this with thin strips of masking tape, but am not entirely happy with the result. If anyone has ideas for a better method, do let me know!

Ah That looks just like a WW2 helmet.
Majic.

Mick

Step 10

Making a mould.

You'll remember I started by using a 0.5mm sheets of plastic and built the outer rim of the helmet on that. This results in a helmet edge of 0.5mm thickness, which is way out of scale. This thickness is just to give some margin in making the mould and copies, as we'll see later.

To make a mould for simple shapes as this I use a material that gets as soft as chewing gum when placed in hot water and hardens to a solid-rubber type consistency when at room temeparture. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes and only requires simple kitchen materials. The method is not as 'sharp' as using silicone rubber moulds, but so much more convenient! I love this material and use it quite frequently to copy simple parts.

In the picture below the material is warming up in a mug of freshly boiled water. The master for the helmet is on the kitchen table top. When soft, I take out the gooey moulding material using a fork and briefly roll it over a piece of kitchen towel to remove water drops, that can otherwise get caught in the mould, and then push it over the helmet. Then I'll leave it for about 10 minutes to cool down.





And here is the mould:



I first placed the helmet at the bottom of a plastic cup by the way, to constrain the mould material somewhat.



And a second version:

Step 11

Make a copy by pressing soft MagicSculp in the mould. I didn't fill the whole mould and kept the helmet as thin as possible. No picture unfortunately....forgot.

Step 12

Take out after hardening.

Sand flat bottom. This is where the original 0.5mm layer is helpful. The edge of the copied helmet may be a bit rough as a result of the rather crude way of shaping the copy...a bit like making bricks using clay. We can sand this pleasingly flat by on a big piece of sandpaper, laid flat on the table. In this way the rim can be made very thin.

Next the rim can be made even thinner by scraping away some material from the inside of the outer rim, just using a broad hobby knife.

Finally, details can be added such as the bolt on top, and the small rivets on the outer rim that hold the chin strap in place. .

And here is the result! (some sanding and detailing still to do)




Cheers,
Adrian

Now I am going to need your help....

I made three versions of the helmet by now:
- one in exact 1/16 scale
- one 5% smaller
- one 5% larger.

This to ensure the size looks right on the figure I am working on.

Annoyingly, having been so pre-occupied with WW2 British helmets for some time now that I can't see the forest for the trees anymore and have difficulty assessing which one looks the best.
Hope you can help by letting me know which one you think looks best...size 1, size 2 or size 3.

Here's a bunch of pictures...thanks a lot for your advice!

Cheers,
Adrian

Size 1 pictures:

Size 2 pictures:

Size 3 pictures:

All versions are not entirely finished yet by the way. Some sanding to smoothen things and final detailing still to be done.

For me its size .......... 2 Two
Mick

That's exactly what I would of done !

Joking aside, that is a fine job you did there Adrian. Very ingenious.

To my eye #3 looks the best.

Now on to an American steel pot and a stahlhelm !

Joe

Size 3 for me, my friend . Cheers!
Kenneth.

Sorry Mick on this figure it has to be No3 it looks perfect in proportion.
There has to be an allowance of internal space for the fitted Leather liner and that one looks spot on for me.
this will look superb with the chin straps fitted too.

I love this demonstration of a brilliant piece of original model making too by the way.

Paul.

Right,
Im off to Spec savers in the morning.
Mick

LOL .

P