Imperius: Crown of Heaven (Helmet)

Imperius: Crown of Heaven (Helmet)

This helmet in my mind is one of the most challenging pieces of the outfit, and thats saying something! Heres what I had to deal with.

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I started by pulling the helmet shape from the in game model to get the basic shape. After ripping it apart I made a 2 piece template that would fold together into the shape of the whole helmet all at once. There was a lot of trial and error involved in this, but having a model helped immeasurably. In the end, I transferred my base pattern to 3mm PVC and cut each half out. They might be the craziest looking patterns ive ever used!

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Using a heat gun, I slowly heated up and bent the plastic to the shape of the helmet, using the pattern to meet edges and generally fightin with it for awhile. After a very long time tweaking and gluing, this is what I had.

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Complicated helmet base in a day! Obviously the tape couldnt stay forever, I glued it all together, then to make it a solid peice I mixed fiberglass resin, PVC dust (from my orbital) and bondo together to make a thick sludge, then slushed it around on the inside of the helmet. There is about a 2mm coat of the stuff holding it all together in there. After it dried, the helmet was rock solid and I could sand and fill it to kingdom come to get rid of those peaks and fold marks. This was a lot of boring sanding, but in the end I got a much cleaner helmet base that was quite strong. I had already designed the inner cheek pattern, and while it was drying cut out the basic shape of the inner cheaks and border, as I needed them for the next part of shaping this. After a lot of work, this is what I had.

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Much cleaner shape! At this point it was time to fill all the gaps and sand it down once again. I hit the gaps with bondo, and used filler primer to suss out the flaws in the surface and after this was done it was time to start on the detailing! I started by adding the inner detailing to the cheeks using 1mm PVC.

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Then I added the big arrow crest on the top of the head using more 1mm and 3mm PVC. The beveled I sanded into the PVC using a dremel and orbital sander.

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After this, I added the border to the cheeks using carefully cut 2mm PVC, I made the little raised detailing on the lower jaw by adding a sheet of 1mm and grinding down the front of the helm with a dremel until it had a sharpened edge.

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At this point, it was cleanup time. I gave the whole thing a coat or two of primer and cleaned up the seems and detailing.

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Now comes the stressful part – patterning and mounting the “crown” onto the helmet. Using the model, I came up with a pattern for both sections, and cut the innermost back horns out first. This part took.. me a long time to wrap my head around. In the end, I connected the back parts and screwed them in place. These parts were made with layered 1mm and 3mm sintra for detailing.

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After these were on, I patterned out a basic shape for the front sections and temporarily attached them in place with screws to get an overall look before i dug into the detailing. Getting the pieces that fit and looked symmetrical was a lot of trial and error, and more stress then id like to admit. It was worth it when I put it with the rest of the armor for a size test though.

 

 

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I was very happy with where it was going at this point. The cinematic Imperius has the smallest head in all existence, and I was afraid my helmet would have a sort of bobble head effect being bigger then it should be. In the end I was able to make it fit my head so tightly that the size worked, and no padding is even required.

Anyways, on to the crown detailing.

I started on the side section, cutting out the basic shape of what I could find, and drawing up a inner detailing layer in 3mm PVC. After this was drawn up, it was time to bust out the dremel.

 

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After a LOT of sanding…

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It was time to mount this and the rest of the crown to the helmet. I lined it up, glued it in place, and finished out the detail and gap filled using Apoxie Sculpt.

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More primer, sanding, and filling.

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At this point everything was set in place. the shape together! Time to MAKE IT GOLD. A final coat of filler primar and more sanding.. and then.. Hit it with the Krylon Brilliant gold!

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Hot damn thats shiny. I went in with some black acrylic and toned down some of the gold, added a bit of weathering and scratches.. then clearcoated the whole thing! After a LONG time and LOT of effort, Imperius helmet was completed!

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One crown of heaven, coming right up.

 

2 Comments

  1. Incredible work.

    Reply
  2. hola , me has inspirado para hacer un imperius, pero no encuentro el archivo en pepakura (pdo) tu me podrías hacer el favor de conseguirlo o si lo tienes

    Reply

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