DIY Spartan Hoplite Costume: How to Make a Helmet

See all the Spartan Hoplite Costume articles here!

This year I'm re-vamping my old 300 costume and making it better and shinier!  First off, a new helmet!
Any good Spartan needs a helmet, but unfortunately I am not a metal-smith.  So I made mine out of items I had around.

Materials Used:
Heavy Gold Poster Paper (JoAnn Fabrics, about $2)
Pink Foam Board
Duct Tape
Gold Paint
Glue
Fake Feathers (black) Trim (JoAnn Fabrics, $2 with coupon)
Thin Plastic Helmet (party favor from Party America, $1)
wire (I use 14 Gauge Cerro Wire; rubber coated wires, same as from my batman costume)

Step 1) Find scaffold for helmet:  I knew I needed something to build my helmet around, and didn't want to go the same route as the batman costume (where I made a duct tape mold of my head).  So I went to Party America to try to find a cheap hat of some sort that would have enough structure to be able to build on it but not cost much.  I was fortunate to find pretty much exactly what I was looking for in the form of a $1 party favor military helmet.  It is made out of super thin plastic, but fit my head (many other options were too small) and was crazy cheap.

Step 2) Make crest:  I used Pink Foam Board to carve a crest for the helmet.  I set the helmet next to the board to get an idea of the general curve of the helmet, then cut out the foam accordingly.  It took a few alterations to get the final cut right, but since I knew I was going to cover the base with duct tape it didn't matter if it wasn't too pretty.  I glued the foam board down, then added duct tape to make sure it stayed there!

Step 3) Make Face Mask:  I used the single piece of gold poster paper for this, and actually only used half of it.  The basic idea was to first wrap the helmet entirely around with the paper to get an idea of how wide it needed to be, then cut the shape. At this time I also had to trim the edges of the plastic helmet (they made a tiny brim).  The schematic drawn here is the best explanation, but I'll also try with words alone.  To get the right fit, wrap the paper around the helmet tight enough so that the helmet stays in one place but does not bend/collapse (do not connect the two yet though).  From the inside, duct tape the paper together so that it keeps its cylindrical form.  Now flatten it, so that the seam of the paper is on one end and the front/nose of the helmet is on the other end.  Cut out the rough shape of the helmet while it is flat so that each side cuts the same (do small cuts, then put the paper back around the helmet to see how it is going).  Once you have the right shape, put the helmet and mask on to figure out where the eye holes go.  TAKE THE HELMET AND MASK OFF, then cut out small eye holes.  Test to make sure they are in the right place, then expand them.  Once you have the eye holes correct, duct tape the mask to the helmet (from the inside).  Now you can cut from the bottom of the face of the mask to the eyes (along the nose) to open the mask.  This will cause the mask cheeks to flare out, so duct tape wire to the inside of the cheeks (see schematic) and bend them back into place.

Step 4) Paint the helmet and crest.  I used a gold paint from Menards that is used to paint frames/vases/etc to make them look fancy.  The small sample jar was plenty for me to paint everything I needed (about $3).  The helmet I used was shiny plastic, so it took a lot of thick paint to cover.  Once I painted the helmet I also painted some details onto the gold paper (note: do not use too much paint or it will warp the paper).

Step 5) Now to add the feathers.  Technically I should have used horsehair, but fake feathers were much easier and cheaper.  I bought them as trim so that they were already all lined up and I wouldn't have to put them in individually.  I cut a groove into the top of the foam board crest from the back to the front and then back again (the trim is too thin if it's a single layer thick).  It took a little extra digging to make it wide enough for the trim, but once it was fitted I glued it in.  You may need to then touch up the gold paint on the crest depending on how much you have to cut. 

All done! More coming soon!  For my original DIY 300 Spartan costume, click here.  For all costume related items, click here.
See all the Spartan Hoplite Costume articles here!

Horse Limb Bones

The past few days I've been trying to learn how to draw horses.  Horses are not easy to draw, so I've been spending some quality time doodling in my notebooks (an example is below).  Frequently I have annotated these doodles with notes on what is incorrect (I often don't make my horses long enough).  Horses (and other hoofed animals) have an odd bone structure that makes their legs a little less than intuitive when drawing.  Essentially they have one extra major joint, which occurs because their hooves are like the tips of their fingers, and their 'wrist' is what appears to be their front knee (also odd is that they have knees below their elbows). 

To show what's going on inside, I drew a horse with the bone structure showing through the skin (bones not quite to scale).  The horse limbs have 5 big zig-zags compared to the 4 in humans.

Screen Printing: Coveralls

My coveralls were very plain and boring, so I decided to screen print them.  I used a new screen this time; a fine wire mesh stapled to a wooden frame.  The screen was originally made for making home-made paper, but it worked really well for screen printing, so I may start making my own screens this way.  The one thing you need to be careful with is that when you wash your screen to re-use it, the glue can come off, so you need to be gentle/re-touch between use (and I would recommend doing all the prints you need in one sitting so you don't need to wash the screen between prints).  For more on the basics of screen printing click here. For all my posts on screen printing, click here.

Canine Osteology: Forelimb, Hindlimb, and Pelvic Bones

Sketches (pretty rough) of bones I made for studying.  Focused on the aspects needed for the class.  Really would love to do a nice ink drawing of these sometime, but not sure when I'll have the time. NOTE: Oops! missed the proximal sesamoid bones on phalanges II-V on the forepaws!

Knots

Some knots for school.  Surprisingly hard to illustrate/describe knots on paper.  Hard to do first few times, but once you can remember the hand motions it is much easier than actually following the steps.

Bowline

Quick Release Knot

 Tom Foolery Knot (2 or 3 step)

Don't Lose Your Swagger

Shout Out to U of M DVM class of 2015.  Permanent marker on cardstock, hopefully will make into a t-shirt sometime.  I should probably learn how to do letters one of these days...

On the right is my version after playing around with fonts for an hour...

More on permanent marker t-shirts and screen printing here!

Oil Pastels: Poison Dart Frogs

My latest attempt at oil pastels.  These were quite fun to draw; I'm really enjoying using oil pastels.  Clockwise from top left: Blue Poison Dart Frog (aka Okopipi), Bumblebee Poison Dart Frog, Strawberry Poison Dart Frog (Blue Jeans Morph), and a Green and Black Poison Dart Frog.
More oil pastels here. More Poison Dart Frogs Here.

Ruby Throated Hummingbird Ink Drawing

My latest Minnesota bird, superimposed over an old flower drawing with the fancy technology that is Microsoft Paint.  For more ink drawings, click here.  For more birds, click here.

Pet Portraits: Waldo

My latest Pet Portrait, Waldo.  Actually a second version of a portrait I did before.  It took a few tries to get this one.  My first attempt ended up too dark, the second one looked sort of like a rat, but the third one was just right.   For all the Pet Portraits, click here.

These are the pens I use:

Oil Pastels: a first attempt

I've been wanting to try out oil pastels for awhile now.  They are a new medium for me, so I thought it would be an interesting challenge, and I really like what you can do with them.  They are also a good way to make art with a lot of color without breaking out a paint set (which tends to be a lot more effort and mess).  For my first study I tried out a Monet.

 

  (note these are not the oil pastels I used, but I bought a similarly cheap set to start with)