Mandalorian Helmet

It was time to level up again. I think that making a Mandalorian helmet is a rite of passage for prop makers and for good reason. They’re a ton of work in both the preparation and painting, but certainly worth it. I still have the picture of me wearing it as my avatar on the work Slack server.

There is a TON to go over what I learned on this build, but I’ll try to summarize. Printing in pieces on an FDM printer is butts. Especially the way I sliced this model up, it made assembly agonizing to get completely right. Luckily, the shape ended up holding well enough for me to get a fiberglass to help solidify the shape.

Bondo spot putty works really well, but you certainly work for it. It probably took about 4-5 separate applications to get the finish I wanted, which took me a couple weeks to finish. If I had only known about the photopolymer resin and baby powder trick…

The paint job turned out more chrome like than I had hoped, but I wasn’t about to drop $400 on a quart of Alumaluster, and Duralumen hadn’t hit the market yet at that time. Perhaps I’ll make another attempt at this in the future, but for now it’s a worthy trophy of the effort spent.

Circa November - December 2020