
lots and lots of cool printable 3D objects available for downloading online. This helmet was one of them.
Even though there was no need for me to design anything, getting to the finished helmet stage was harder than you might think – and it started with the printing process. While all the files were ready and easy to download I not only had to find the perfect settings for the printer but I also had to figure out how to stick the 14 finished smaller parts together. Let me tell you: It was not an easy task and took me way longer than I care to admit.
At this point the helmet looks like this:
As you can see, it is nowhere near finished. While the print came out quite well, there were lines (and sometimes even gaps) where the different parts are glued together. This is quite normal but not something I wanted to see in my finished helmet. The same goes for the 3D printed lines that you can barely see from far away and definitely not see on this picture but which are there nonetheless and take away from the illusion that this is a “real” Stormtrooper helmet. To get rid of all those issues, it’s on to the next part: Filling in the gaps and sanding.
Now, if you think this can be done by merely adding some putty and then sanding everything down once — you are sorely mistaken. It is a process that has to be repeated over and over again until, after at least 80 hours of sanding, I was finally somehow happy with the end product. While certainly not perfect it was close enough for me. Oh – I also made sure to drill some holes into it where they did not belong … which led to more sanding. *sight*
The last part was also the most fun: painting! Well … kind of. Most of it was done with a white spray can and the rest came down to homemade laser printed decals that I stuck on the helmet, since my hands did not want to oblige when it came to painting on the small details in an orderly fashion. It was the most fun part anyway – even if I cheated a bit. 😉