3D Printed Halo Forward unto Dawn Master Chief Helmet (Pic Heavy)

vshore100 · Mar 6, 2014

Hello 405th members. I'm back this time around to share a project that I've wanted to do for some time now. The Forward unto Dawn Master Chief helmet. The amazing model was created by a good friend of mine, Jacob Morin. He's also a fellow member of Stony Props. The print was done by another buddy and member, Walter Marlin.

This started out in pieces, as most 3D printed helmets do.

Here I super glued the two sides to the nose, then the back section to that.

Here I added an extra detail to the back of the neck.

Here it is with the brim and visor glued into place. The temple detail is just pushed in for the pic. These are will be detailed separately and added later.

Next I taped all the seams with frog tape and added two coats of Smooth cast 320 to the inside to fill the seams, lock everything together, and give it some strength. After that, I put a good coat of fiberglass resin on the outside to help fill the print lines and make life a little easier when it came time to start filling and smoothing it out. I then sprayed it with a coat of primer and got to work on the filling. Here you can see a comparison shot from the left cheek, untouched, to the right cheek after about 5 hours of filling and sanding, filling and sanding.

I also added the three detail lines to the cheek area using small detailing files. You can see them marked off above, and added in below. This area still needs a little more work but it's smoothing out nicely I think.

Here's a front view to kinda give you an idea on the progress so far.

That's all for now. I'll be working on this more throughout the day, so I should have another update tomorrow. Thanks for looking and following along on this new journey with me.

S323 · Mar 6, 2014

Very nice, I really liked the Forward Unto Dawn armor. Just curious, but how long is the print time for all the pieces to make a helmet, and what kind of printer are you using? Keep up the good work.

RYNO 666 · Mar 6, 2014

Very cool!

Flynney · Mar 6, 2014

Ah these 3d printed parts just make me want one of my own! Looks great so far!

vshore100 · Mar 6, 2014

S323 said:
Very nice, I really liked the Forward Unto Dawn armor. Just curious, but how long is the print time for all the pieces to make a helmet, and what kind of printer are you using? Keep up the good work.

Thanks! I believe it took some where in the neighborhood of 70 hours to print. It was printed on a Replicator 2 if I'm not mistaken.

RYNO_666 said:
Very cool!

Thanks Ryno!

Flynney said:
Ah these 3d printed parts just make me want one of my own! Looks great so far!

Thanks Flynney! Even though it's 3D printed, there's still a ton of work to be done. It's not as easy and print and go.

JUSTINIAN 117 · Mar 6, 2014

I'm loving it. Super awesome job!

Kadus27 · Mar 6, 2014

Wow! A very detailed print that I'm sure is going to turn out beautifully with the impressive skill you possess. It seems like from your replies that you didn't 3d print this yourself, but even if you did, about how much did it cost you in total for all the parts? I was curious as to whether it was more cost efficient than traditional methods.

NayrDeath · Mar 6, 2014

This looks really great. Do you plan on doing the rest of the suit?

-Ryan M-082

CLOTHAR · Mar 6, 2014

Great build so far. I would love to work with 3d printing at some point. It is nice to see your process.

vshore100 · Mar 6, 2014

JUSTINIAN 117 said:
I'm loving it. Super awesome job!

Thanks buddy. You've been a huge inspiration. That comment means a lot!

Kadus27 said:
Wow! A very detailed print that I'm sure is going to turn out beautifully with the impressive skill you possess. It seems like from your replies that you didn't 3d print this yourself, but even if you did, about how much did it cost you in total for all the parts? I was curious as to whether it was more cost efficient than traditional methods.

Thanks for the comments Kadus. I won't say how much I'm paying for this, but it takes about one spool of PLA to do a helmet, and from what I'm told it about $40 per roll. Thanks again.

NayrDeathExperience said:
This looks really great. Do you plan on doing the rest of the suit?

-Ryan M-082

I really appreciate that. I would like to do the whole suit one day but I have other things I need to finish/would like to build first.

CLOTHAR said:
Great build so far. I would love to work with 3d printing at some point. It is nice to see your process.

Thanks CLOTHAR. It is an experience for sure. It's nice to have a solid base to work with pretty much right out of the gate.

I managed to get more done today on the helmet than I thought I would. I gave everything I worked another coat of filler primer before taking the pics below. I did more detail sanding on the right cheek.

I then continued up the right side and did some filling. I also cleaned up the detail line on the side. Still more to be done here but it's progressing. You can see how far it's come compared to the other side.

Next I went on to the center section of the nose. This is pretty close to finished, just a bit more.

Last for today, I moved around to the left cheek and did some sanding. It needs some filler work but it's coming along.

My thumb has about had it for the day, so that's it on the FUD. I'll pick it up again tomorrow. Thanks for all the great comments and see you again soon!

Mstruvmgc · Mar 10, 2014

Excuse me sir, i believe you have another set of armor that needs to be finished first.... lol j/k, This is looking fantastic V!
Im super excited to see you doing more stuff.

Keep up the great work.

Verdan · Mar 10, 2014

Cost to build should be much lower than normal, but the cost for the printer will be massive. From what i calculated when i thought about doing 3d printing, the regular size machines would mean building the helmet out of about 20-40 pieces. Looking at vhsore100's photos, the helmet will be less than 10 parts and the quality of them is great, a very nice build indeed.

vshore: I assume you're just building this, and not planning to cast? If so, I know you said about sealing it with the smoothcast, but do yo think they will hold together, especially the parts prone to a bit more knocking about and damage?

vshore100 · Mar 11, 2014

Mstruvmgc said:
Excuse me sir, i believe you have another set of armor that needs to be finished first.... lol j/k, This is looking fantastic V!
Im super excited to see you doing more stuff.
Keep up the great work.

Uhhh yeah...go check my other thread M! I've been workin'! Haha, thanks buddy!

Verdan said:
Cost to build should be much lower than normal, but the cost for the printer will be massive. From what i calculated when i thought about doing 3d printing, the regular size machines would mean building the helmet out of about 20-40 pieces. Looking at vhsore100's photos, the helmet will be less than 10 parts and the quality of them is great, a very nice build indeed.

vshore: I assume you're just building this, and not planning to cast? If so, I know you said about sealing it with the smoothcast, but do yo think they will hold together, especially the parts prone to a bit more knocking about and damage?

My helmet was printed in seven parts. The PLA is super strong plastic. I'd have no worries wearing this thing around all day. However, I am going to molding and casting this so I'll probably be wearing one of those instead. Thanks for the comments!

Mr Wilson · Mar 12, 2014

WOW! I am really excited about this! I haven't seen much 3-D printed armor. I am really interested in how it turns out! Forgive my ignorance on it but is the paint finish going to be different on something like this than what it would be on foam or pep? How is the weight compared to pep?

Rancid Musk · Mar 12, 2014

This looks amazing. Do you work in .stl files or something different? What material are you Using abs or something else?

The reason I ask is there is a method to weld the layers together using vapor acetone smoothing. Basically heating nail polish remover and let the vapor "melt" the layers together. There a a bunch of vids on youtube if you are interested.

Serin · Mar 12, 2014

Rancid_Musk said:
This looks amazing. Do you work in .stl files or something different? What material are you Using abs or something else?

The reason I ask is there is a method to weld the layers together using vapor acetone smoothing. Basically heating nail polish remover and let the vapor "melt" the layers together. There a a bunch of vids on youtube if you are interested.

Vshore's using PLA not ABS so acetone smoothing isn't an option.

vshore100 · Mar 13, 2014

Mr. Wilson said:
WOW! I am really excited about this! I haven't seen much 3-D printed armor. I am really interested in how it turns out! Forgive my ignorance on it but is the paint finish going to be different on something like this than what it would be on foam or pep? How is the weight compared to pep?

You would paint this the same way you paint a finished pep, and the weight is similar to that of a rondoed helmet.

Rancid_Musk said:
This looks amazing. Do you work in .stl files or something different? What material are you Using abs or something else?
The reason I ask is there is a method to weld the layers together using vapor acetone smoothing. Basically heating nail polish remover and let the vapor "melt" the layers together. There a a bunch of vids on youtube if you are interested.

The material used to print it was PLA.To be honest I'm not sure what file type was used for the printer. This was modeled by one of our Master modelers, Jacob Morin, then sent straight to Walt, our 3D printing guru, so I didn't get to see which file type it was.

Serin said:
Vshore's using PLA not ABS so acetone smoothing isn't an option.

Thanks for looking out Serin.

I've been working on the brim area of the helmet some. Still more to be done there.

I also did more work on the back and neck areas.

Moving right along. I hope to have this finished in the next couple of weeks, then we'll move onto molding!

Serin · Mar 13, 2014

Ohhh Shiny!

Rosh · Mar 14, 2014

that is awesome! i love the FUD helmet, and this 3D print is spot on. keep the updates coming man, it looks great.

Mstruvmgc · Mar 18, 2014

progress is coming along nicely

3D Printed Halo Forward unto Dawn Master Chief Helmet (Pic Heavy)

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