Thread: Help With a Dark Helmut Helmet!!!!!!!

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I'm helping my friend with his costume.
I'm going 2 be Barf from Spaceballs & He's gonna be Dark Helmet.
Most of the costume for him is easy and we came up with a game plan 4 that......but the Helmet.

We have no idea how we should go about that.
Any Ideas?

I would make the outside helmet the shell part from fiberglass. Thats all i can realy think of.

Well what ever you decide to make it from paper mache, fiberglass or whatever, but heres a idea for getting the basic shape. Take a beach ball and let a little bit of air out of it see the top of helmet where its little bit flat and for the other part of helmet try chicken wire or make whole form from chicken wire. Then you can lay what ever you want on that form. Just remember to tape everything off so the helmet comes off dont wanna be walking around with chicken wire and beach ball under there.

ok....that sounds like a great idea.

any others, before we start on this?

Thats going to be a tough one... Besides joining some site and getting their templates or making your own and building it (it'll look just like the real thing then, but it'll take a good chunk of time and money) I don't have any other ideas...

I would go with something along the lines of what Toetag said. I would do paper mache over either a large beach ball or one of those blow up punching balloons..you know the kind that are really big and have the rubber band attached? Get an old box and cut up the cardboard and tape it to your ball or balloon to get the rough helmet shape. Cover the whole thing with paper mache until it has a fair thickness. If you get it thick enough it will be very durable. Once done, paint it and seal that with some polyurethane. Moisture and paper mache don't mix.

The part of the helmet that covers the face can be built up with cardboard and paper mache as well. Just remember that no matter how ugly it is while building the bones of it (cardboard, tape, puddy, whatever) that it will all be covered by the paper mache.

As for attaching the mask so it can lift up inside the helmet....I don' t know. I think I'd have to sit down with the pieces and figure that out.

Good luck!! Sounds like a pair of really fun costumes!

part black plastic cauldron cut and bent by heat,then back extension added on with the material mentioned before? if you could find the really big ones i used to see?

Go to Lowe's or Home Depot and go to the plant section. Check out the resin planters.

They probably have several that have the basid outline you want.

Something similar to this:



Turn it upside down, dome the flat area however your comfortable and cut out the front part.

As far as setting it on your head...find a used hard hat and try an utilize the suspension system out of that (that's the headband assembly).

Not sure about the faceplate, it will have to be hinged at the 'ears'. Maybe layout the basic shape in balsa and build on that.

Just a few suggestions.

Great ideas guys.....I'll discuss it with my friends and post pix of the progress.

Just a thought, and perhaps something to consider if your friend is going to be wearing this thing for more than 10 minutes at a time, but that is going to be a heavy headpiece, no matter what you make it from.
Perhaps you could set up a simple frame on a backpack, under his costume, and the helmet could be attached to that, to keep the weight off his head and neck.

I don't have evidence, but the thought occurred to me that perhaps that's how they did it for the movie as well - the faceplate is so broad, that when it is raised, it would certainly collide with any kind of framework sitting on Rick Moranis' head, and if you notice in the second pic you've posted, he has his head turned, but the helmet is still facing forward.
If you have the helmet on a frame, the faceplate can be attached to the sides, and pivot there, and no worries about working around something on your buddies head...and he can then wear this all night, and not be crippled the next day with sprained neck and shoulder muscles.