Dredd 2012 - Helmet - Update I

At the end of May I was commissioned to make a helmet from the 2012 movie Dredd.

Dredd has a very cult following and as a result there is a lot of available information about the actual movie props and some of the people who were lucky enough to purchase the screen used piece recast them from time to time.

Pepakura and Mold Master Prep

This build will start out with the core structure of the helmet being made from a pepakura file. This isn't a typical process for me, but I was rather looking forward to it. The availability and access to a laser cutter helps significantly with scoring and cutting out the very intricate parts that make up said helmet. However the previous access I had to ASU's lasers had been taken away due to there need to rework ventilation and as a result taking the machines offline until the next semester of school started (far longer than I could wait). I asked a friend to help me as he had a tech shop membership, but long story short he was unable to get the vector files scaled correctly. Friends --- what are they good for haha.

A good portion of the available time for me to complete this project was wasted in the first month not being able to coordinate laser time and just nothing really going well. So the inevitable occurred and I started cutting the pieces out by hand. Thankfully there were only 41 parts, it took some time, but I got it assembled. I went with tape as a means to hold the parts together and although this worked there are far much better options out there so educate yourself about pepakura before embarking on an ambition project like this.

In a typical pepakura to molding fashion the process went like so (and will be mostly supplemented by pictures) establish a finished pep, fiberglass the inside and outside of the pep for stability, knock down any high spots with a rasp - super glue the newly exposed paper areas so they regain hardness, begin laying Bondo.

I bought a new gallon of Bondo for this project and I must have used at least half of it for the sculpting and detail work on the helmet. This was difficult and I spent a lot of time sanding, checking, rebonding, sanding again until it was at a point I was mostly happy with. Once the core bondoing was done we could move to paint. The paint in this case primer was used mostly as a check coat to ensure the surfaces looked good and everything was ready for molding. It's tough staring at something that green for so long you start missing the little imperfections and I find that this happens at every step along the way. A change in color is a good way to really pop unwanted characteristics if they are present in your piece.

Primer - sand - primer - sand - spot putty - sand you get the idea. When it was all ready, it was sanded to 400grit and I used Krylon Crystal Clear Gloss Acrylic to ensure that no cure inhibition would occur between the master and the platinum silicone. I thought about doing a matrix mold, but I was starting to fall behind on this project so I went the route of a Brush on with a fiberglass mother mold.

The next update will discuss the molding process of the helmet and the third the finishing and detail work.

As always if you have any questions or comments let me know and thanks for checking out my blog.

Cheers,
Kevin