Custom Stormtrooper Helmet

Welcome to my tutorial on how to make a custom Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet! One of my best friends approached me about making a gift for his mother who is a Breast Cancer Survivor and I knew I had to make something truly special. The entire family are huge Star Wars fans and so he found a " DIY " vinyl toy helmet and ask me to come up with something.

I thought about it for a while and played around with color schemes but nothing panned out, I did not like the ideas I was coming up with so I let the Helmet sit for a while. After some time had past and many commissions later, it hit me!

I asked my friend, what if we did something with the Cancer Ribbon? Basically this is your mom's helmet that is damaged from fighting Cancer and she survived so in turn the exposed "ribbon" is proof of her strength during the fight. The damage to the helmet will serve as the "scares" Cancer leaves behind, and with that I was inspired to create this helmet!

Material List

1. DIY Helmet
2. Original Sculpy
3. Sculpting Tools
4. Spray Paint ( Pink and Grey Primer )
5. Testers Gold Paint
6. Acrylic Paint
7. Rust-Oleum Matte Clear Coat

I used Original Sculpy for this project. I also used various sculpting tools to work out the detail of the cracks and deformation of the helmet. I then placed the helmet in the oven for 15 minutes at 270 degrees. I had to keep an eye on it because the plastic is ABS plastic and the helmet began to deform a bit.

Once it had cooled down I used my heat gun and a bowl of iced water to correct the deformation of the helmet. I was cracking up because it looked like a Stormtrooper balloon!

At this point there is nothing too crazy to cover, I sprayed the helmet with primer and allowed it to cure for 48 hours before I applied the pink spray paint.

Once the primer was cured I began painting the helmet it intended colors. I used a pink spray paint and then then applied the acrylic paint for the darker mauve detail. I made sure to add a clear coat between each layer so that the tape would not damage my work. Once complete I added the gold detail using the Testers paint, one last coat of the clear matte and I was ready to move on to weathering.

For this step I used a combination of yellow, red, brown, and black acrylic paints to make a " grime " color which was applied to the helmet in thin watered down passes and with a dry rag I rubbed the paint off. This process was repeated several times until I reached the desired look.

At this point I allowed all the paints to cure and then applied a final layer of Matte Clear Coat. Allowed that to cure and just like that I was done.

This was a real treat to work on and I loved working on the DIY helmet, since then I purchased 3 new helmets for projects of my own!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and find it easy to follow. This kind of project is perfect for everyone to attempt since it provides so much fun! Thank you so much for reading and following along, have a great day! And may the FORCE BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS!