Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
By Daniel Hogh of Roses and Boltshells
- Hello everyone and thanks for checking out this tutorial. Here I’ll go into detail on how to make your very own Deathstroke helmet, as seen in ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ The techniques I’ll go over can be applied to any foam project and everything is described in a step-by-step manner. I hope this proves useful to you and that you’ll share whatever craziness you create on our page. Have fun! - Daniel
What will I need for this project? First off you’ll need a workshop area. This tutorial includes a lot of sanding so you’ll need to clean regularly, keep the area well ventilated and wear both safety goggles, gloves and a respirator with appropriate dust particle filters. You’ll need Pepakura Designer or Viewer plus a printer in order to view, modify and print the templates needed for your build We got our Deathstroke file off JFcustom’s massive thread on theRPF.com. (http://www.therpf.com/f24/jfcustoms-foam-files-148889/) Jfcustom has done an amazing job putting up so many different files from so many franchises, be sure to check it out. Now for a list of materials: + Crafting knife with fresh blades or exacto knife. + Hotglue gun with plenty of gluesticks. + Painters tape / masking tape + 5-6 sheets of 6mm thick Craft foam preferably black. My Sheets are usually A4 sized. + Heat gun + Scissors + PVA glue / Wood glue (Get a regular 500ml bottle cheap at any DIY store) + Acrylic Wallfiller + Kitchen sponges (Buy a pack of 10 small ones for cheap at any supermarket) + Black acryllic / waterbased colour. GW paint works just perfect. + Black and gold spray (Anything metallic with an orange tint works – not copper though) + Car window shade filter sheet. (This is used as a decal to apply a ‘fake’ carbon fibre look) + Grit paper – both heavy grit and fine detail. (Buy a mixed package with samples for cheap) + Mouse sander / hand sander (optional) + Black elastic fabric band 1½ - 2inches wide + Round bowl or shape with a curve that roughly resembles the back of your head. + Clean Water in pot & paper towels for brush dry-up, colour wiping or spills. + Primer spray – red and grey (the grey one is optional) + Clear glossy spray varnish
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
After downloading the file you need, you should measure the model to see if it’ll fit you in real life. The measurements are stated in the lower right area of Pepakura viewer/designer. If you can see that it won’t fit, you’ll have to do some math and re-scale the whole thing in Pepakura Designer. After you’ve successfully scaled your model, you should set the print settings to your paper format. Be sure to arrange each piece so that you don’t waste paper. You might have to split some pieces apart in the program and tape them together after printing. Have your pc display the model so that you can see which part goes where. After printing and cutting out your templates with a scissor or craft knife, you’re now ready to put them on your foam and cut the first pieces out. I personally started with the ‘blind’ side but it’s up to you. Be sure to have fresh blades and cut your pieces with a slight angle so that the pieces curve a bit once connected.
In the above picture you can see the helmet slowly starting to take shape. A tip for working with Craft foam is to lightly heat it up before working with it. It will now be much easier to curve and manipulate into different directions – it’ll also be much smoother on the surface for the later stages of this tutorial. In the beginning it can be hard to see any progress with a build, but don’t let that dissuade you. Keep the 3D model in plain sight and try to dry-fit* the pieces as much as possible before gluing them. Craft foam reacts very poorly to superglue so use Hot glue and affix the pieces untill they’re fully bonded. Be adviced, this particular model can be trickey around the eye socket as you’ll need to heat shape it extensively to have the actual 3d model look. *Dry-fitting means fashioning the pieces in the best possible position to find the perfect shape. Either with your hands, painters tape or bluetac for more rigid materials)
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
Once I had the entire front of the mask fitted together, I put ‘the jaw-bone’ sides on, glued on the inner side of the helmet, instead of in continuation as shown below.
Now is the time for the first sanding. I hit it with a heavy grit paper on a mouse sander first, to get the pesky overlapping pieces sanded down and get the overall helmet to look more round than angular. Try to hit it with heavy first, then fine grit. This will take time, but the end result is worth it. Don’t be afraid to use a bit of force while sanding. I fine sanded by hand to have more control of the whole process but mind you, it can be harsh if you’ve got ‘soft’ hands. Your aim is to get the whole thing look like a one piece helmet – instead of a patchwork mess. After the first rough sanding, hit it with a heatgun, this will smoothen the sanded area a bit – though only heat it lightly as you don’t want to loosen up the glue. Now apply the first layer of Acrylic wall filler with a soft kitchen sponge. I highly recommend to have a bowl of water nearby for wetting the sponge before applying the filler. Apply the filler in such a manner that you fill all unwanted seams. Once the seams are taken care of, use the wet sponge to apply a thinner layer to the rest of the model. This will appear almost chaulk like.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
When the first layer of filler has dried, you might not be able to see each and every flaw - seams, sunken filler, edges etc. just yet. Give your helmet a light sanding with some fine grit paper and then prime your helmet with a grey primer. This allows you to see what you need to sand again or where you need to apply more filler.
Left demonstrates the helmet with the first coat of primer. Right demonstrates how it’ll look after some sanding – don’t be afraid to get a bit rough with the sanding. This entire process can be bothersome and it will take some time – but it will help you get that perfectly smooth helmet in the end. Repeat this stage untill you feel that the surface is ‘smooth enough’
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
It’s now time to hit your helmet with a different coloured primer, I personally used a dark red primer. This will help you differentiate between the work done in earlier stages vs. the newer sanding and PVA coating.
After the first coat of red primer, hit the helmet with a final course of sanding. Use only a light sanding with fine grit.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
Time for the first PVA coating! After the previous stages, your helmet should be nice and smooth but the PVA layers will make the helmet hard and rigid – if you have resins available you can use these instead. Many use Smoothcast 65D or Epsilon foam resin. However if you, like us, don’t have such things at your disposal, multiple layers of PVA glue can act as a substitute for surface strenghtening. Before the first coat I went over the helmet with a heatgun slightly to make sure any left-over open foam was sealed. Otherwise you might experience the PVA glue bubbling – and that requires some extra sanding and re-skinning. I applied the first coat of PVA with a kitchen sponge and made sure to give it a thin layer as to not generate drops. After curing, coat the helmet once more. I usually give my models and props 2-3 layers of PVA glue but you can multiply this if you’d like the helmet to be even more rigid. Be sure to wait and allow the glue to cure properly. There might be glue stuck in crevices that have thickened up – this can take several hours to dry.
If you’re unfortunate you might encounter streaks or ‘patterns’ in the dried glue. This can happen due to a multitude of reasons but don’t worry as this can be sanded with fine grit. Be mindful though, as PVA will flake if you go too far with the sanding.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
When all the sanding is done and you can’t possibly find any flaws now is the time to hit the helmet with the last coat of primer. You’ll now have a smooth and beautiful prop ready for actual paint and weathering.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells After admiring your work, it’s now time to get your golden/orange metallic spray out for some fun. Apply this to the whole helmet and be sure to don’t leave any red areas behind. After the paint has dried (depending on what brand of spray you’re using and the temperature, this stage can take up to 24 hours or more) Now grab your metallic coloured helmet and find the center with either a measuring tape or any other means at your disposal. (I personally found the very tip of the chin and put a measuring tape from it, all the way to the back of the helmet center. I then made tiny marks with a pencil) After this I put masking tape on top of the golden ‘eye’ side – using a flimsy plastic sheet to cover the remaining part. (you can use masking tape for this or just a plain plastic bag)
Now is the time to find a black spray and cover the ‘blind’ side. I recommend that you give it 2 or more layers so that any bumps or scratches won’t instantly reveal the gold metallic beneath. Another option is to give it gunmetal silver first, but I personally found that to be a bit wasteful.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
Washes, black paint, metallics and overall weathering.
As you can see on the right, with a bit of black paint on a kitchen sponge you can get pretty far. Unless you want your helmet to be 100% spotless I suggest you go over all crevices with watered down black. I drybrushed a beaten metallic silver on some of the black with a sponge – to give it a weathered, used feel. The black side still needs some work though. It still looks very flat. This is where you get to shine through with your creative spark. Don’t be afraid to get messy, use your fingers to smudge out stains etc. Make the helmet look like you’ve worn it in a fight, had it in years through combat, street fights, brick smashing and so on and so forth. Who knows how many batarangs or arrows have glanced your helmet? ;) My usual advice is to look up actual machinery and industrial machines to emulate real life weathering. This is the stage where you get to try and make it as ‘real’ as possible.
Remember to look up actual pictures of Deathstroke to see what you want. Either make it your own or go full accurate from the game.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
If you’re lucky enough to have actual carbon Fibre transfers then you can use that to great effect here. We sadly didn’t, so we had to go a cheaper route. This will teach you a very simple way to get something that could fool the eye and act as a substitute. First you’ll need a sheet of window mesh meant for shading the insides of a car. We gently heated it up with a heat gun and made sure not to melt it. The moment it started bending, I stretched it across the black side of my helmet and secured it with masking tape whilst keeping it stretched. You won’t be able to get it perfectly shaped as the sheet will curve or ripple a few places. Some places might also let go of the surface and thus not yield any pattern. I took a glossy varnish spray and applied a single cloat – I quickly removed the stretched sheet to avoid any drips of varnish – and to my surprise it looked beautiful – apart for a few places where the sheet had not touched the surface. I went over these places with some metallic weathering – a great and neat trick to hide up mistakes – though if you’re in need of absolute perfection this might not work for you. Here are some shots of the finished effect.
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
This piece can be hard to nail as it’s not in the files. You’ll have to scratchbuild this with an additional piece of foam heat shaped or angle-cut. My best advice is to make a paper dummy first and see what fits your head best. After you’ve found your best fitting size, cut it out and put it on a piece of foam. Use a pen to draw up the details and apply the very same steps as used in this tutorial’s earlier stages. You can either use buckles or permanently attach black elastic fabric band from the helmet to the back plate. I personally put one strap in the top and two on each side. I made sure to make them long enough to that they would allow me to put the helmet on – without fear of ripping the pieces apart at the glued spot – but still keep it tight enough so that it is snug fit. This is what I came up with. The best technique is to take the craft foam and heat it until it bends very easily. Now force it around a bowl or shape that somewhat resembles the back of your own skull. This way it should sit somewhat snug fit without being all too broad or sticking out to the sides. Remember, the piece is not flat but round. I’m personally going to wear a balaclava beneath the whole thing so I’m not all too worried about the rest of the back plate. Go ahead and experiment though!
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Deathstroke Foam helmet tutorial by Roses and Boltshells
You now have one less thing to worry about whilst fighting the Arrow or that Bat-dude. Be sure to appreciate your work and don’t be too harsh on yourself if it didn’t come out perfect the first time. We all have to start somewhere and hopefully this tutorial gave you a cutting edge against all that malevolent foam. - Daniel Hogh / Boltshells
Thank you for reading and be sure to share your work with us on our page. www.facebook.com/rosesandboltshells
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