ODST Helmet Restoration!

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zigzwag

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With a little bit of a Lul in my other projects, I have found time and some extra resources to start something that has been on the back burner for a little while now.

Before Christmas a friend of mine stopped by after finding out that I recently completed an ODST costume. He showed me a Pepakura helmet that he bought off of someone else. And to be honest, the helmet is kinda rough around the edges. He left it at my apartment so that I could keep a good look at it should I eventually delve into the world of paper craft, (STILL haven't as of yet...)

Recently he offered for me to buy it at a rather thrifty cost, something I did of course on the spot because I always saw it as a challenge waiting to happen! I wanted to fix it up and give it the love that it so desperately needed!

I also wanted to test out something that I haven't seen much of in the Forums and on other media. Not really the traditional way of doing things, but hey. if it doesn't work out, then it's not really that big a deal!

To smooth out the design and round off the edges I went with using Paper clay instead of bondo. I find that there are some benefits of using this median over Bondo.

Longer working time
NO smell
easy to sand
as far as I can tell adheres nicely to the prop.


So here is the helmet as I got it. If there was one thing I wish more then anything about this helmet, is that I wish that the owner never painted it. because now not only do I have to sand Bondo under the paint, but I have to remove the paint as well!

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There is quite a bit of denting and crease lines in this helmet, The hard part of building it is done, all that it needs is the finishing touches! more or less...
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The Chin and the brim are VERY damaged. there are a few cracks in the chin area as well that seem to be negatively effecting the structure of this helmet.
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Once this little photo shoot was done, I got down to work. I had some extra paperclay laying around from my last few prop builds, so I got to work after very rigerous sanding to try and knock down some of these hard edges I started adding the Clay in to fill some of the voids.

I don't think that the clay adds too much weight, I think that honestly it would be very comparable to Bondo in this regard. I know that it isn't as hard or as ridged as Bondo is, But the plan I have will hopefully counteract some of this.

Once I get the helmet to a level that I like, the plan is to then coat the entire helmet in mod podge glue, paint the helmet as I like, and then coat the entire thing with Poly resin. My hope is that the resin will create a shell that will stop the Clay from cracking or flaking off down the road.

Here is the helmet as it sits right now next to my ODST helmet I bought off Etsy.

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There is still quite a bit more work to do, but I am already starting to notice an improvement! Paperclay is VERY easy to sand once it's dry. and to some degree you can use it to build up area's that need some extra depth. As this restoration progresses I will try to keep this thread updated!

What's next:
More Clay
More sanding.
Finding out how to create a new visor for this helmet...
Paint!
Maybe attachments... who knows!

Anyways, Keep building!

Zig.
 

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Clean up is looking good so farm. I had to rework an old pep ODST i made when i was younger to go with a foam build i was doing. I think one other thing you could probably to is try to focus on cleaning up the inset lines that give the ODST part of its unique look. There are some very small sanding heads for rotaries that might be able to get the job done. Any updates since this post?
 
I guess I could post up some updates, It has been a while, and there has been progress on the helmet. In continuing to use the paper clay for the filler and quite a bit of sanding I was able to smooth out quite a bit of the ridges and bumps that were present when I first got the helmet. I ended up cutting out the original detailing that was on the sides where the visor sits, remaking them out of worbla black and craft foam, the way that they turned out actually came out pretty nice.
XaJNpAR.jpg


I also finally picked up an airbrush, so, I figured that this helmet would make for a nice test bed to see how I like it, so after some more sanding I figured I'd give it a go. I used Testers water based paints through the airbrush, and to be honest I am not overly fond of the shiny finish that it gave. I will probably switch to different paints in the future to get a better finish. I found that the thin layers that the airbrush puts on almost highlights faults, bumps and ridges that are still visible in the final surface after the paint dries.

SrBy00H.jpg


I did a side by side comparison picture with this helmet, and the plastic one I picked up off of ETSY, and for the most part I am proud of the result so far. I will say that there is still a LOT more that I could do to it to improve its overall finish, but with a few other projects on my plate this one might fall to the backburner right now.

eeamBr8.jpg

(Pep helmet on left)

Anyways here is a little update as to where this helmet sits right now. I will be coming back to clean it up again, and maybe give it another coat using different paints to test them on this surface. But for now, I am actually interested in selling this helmet if a good enough offer floats my way :) so that I can fund my current Garrus build.
 
wow you are cleaning it up very nicely!. Good job.
 
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