Quick 7-day Iron Man Mk.42 helmet build

Just figured I'd show some pictures of this Iron Man helmet I whipped up in the past week. I specifically built it to give in a White Elephant gift exchange I do with friends every year. It's far from perfect, but for only a week to finish it, as well as spending only $20 in all, I'm pretty happy.

Grabbed a foam Mk42 pep file. After printing and cutting, I modified some pieces for a better fit. Since I was on a $20 budget, I used cardboard as the base of the helmet.







Since when cardboard is bent it gets ridges, I covered the outside woth 2mm craft foam. Didn't grab any pics sadly because I was in such a rush to finish.

For paint, I first plasti-dipped the whole helmet to seal the foam, and then used Cherry red and metallic gold paint. Not the most accurate, but I already had both.
*in the pics I forgot to paint one gold part on the main helmet where it meets the mask, it has since been corrected*





And what's an Iron Man mask without light up eyes? Bought a few leds, a toggle switch, and some wire, and rigged them up to a small battery setup I had laying around. Kinda ghetto and cheap, but it works lol.



All lit up. If it's bright enough, you can actually see out of the lenses with the lights on. Otherwise switch them off and the sunglass lenses are light enough to see through decently.



Let me know what you think! It was a super fun project and a challenge to do on a week.

This looks really good It really does not look like card board at all.

Fllschrimjager said:

This looks really good It really does not look like card board at all.

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Thanks man. The 2mm foam definitely helped hide the texture of the carboard. If I make another one though, I will be using spray adhesive instead of hot glue, so the foam adhere's to the carboard much more evenly.

For such a rush job it looks pretty good.

Looking great! what gold did you use for the paint? or did i miss where you said that??

How did you figure out how to do that eye thing? How you can see out of them with the lights on.. that's crazy! Looks super cool too. Nice job.

shwarzwald said:

For such a rush job it looks pretty good.

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thanks man!

Mstruvmgc said:

Looking great! what gold did you use for the paint? or did i miss where you said that??

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It was a gold I already had at home....I think it was Krylon Metallic Gold or something similar.

PerniciousDuke said:

How did you figure out how to do that eye thing? How you can see out of them with the lights on.. that's crazy! Looks super cool too. Nice job.

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Thanks. I did some searching and found a few tutorials, and modified them to work with what I had at home. The lenses help filter out some of the light, along with the mesh I glued over them which helps spread it out. The bulbs are actually set up away from the eyes portion a bit, and I cut holes for the light to shine through and illuminate the area, while not getting a ton of direct light. and on the inside I have foam between the lens and the bulb so very little "backlight" shines on my eyes.

and granted the visibility isn't the best when they are on, but as long as there is a decent amount of light in the room, you can see. when its dark though, forget about it lol.