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You Can Leave Your Helmet On |
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The original ideas for the helmets was to make them in two pieces out of open-cell foam, cover them in layers of a 50/50 mixture of latex caulk and antifreeze, then paint them. |
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We could tell fairly quickly, though, that given our time constraints, and getting the right shape like the movie and making it sit on our shoulders was going to be too time consuming. |
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So we made another compromise. Bruce Hinterleitner found these plastic flower pots at Walmart that were a usable shape. Gluing some plastic picnic plates made them at least not look quite so obvious. Knowing that these costumes weren't going to turn out like exact replicas of the movie let us cut some big corners. First, we cut out half-round shapes on either side of the helmets until they rested approximately well on the shoulders of our individual chest units. Then, we used round, foam weatherstrip for windows to gasket those edges. |
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Once we knew where our eyes were going to look out, approximately, we cut the holes for where we would look out, then backed it with buckram so we could see out but people couldn't see in. We also cut ventilation holes in the tops of the helmets - at the height of the stage, no one would see them. |
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Last, because there would be a gap in the front and back where the helmets rested, we cut out some small pieces of closed-cell foam to make that off. It also made the helmets seat better. |
