Daft Punk Helmet + Gloves + Suit

For this project I aimed to create an accurate Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter helmet, gloves and suit for a fancy dress social. The rules for the fancy dress were pretty relaxed, and I also am a semi-fan of the band - so I decided to go in a Daft Punk Suit! I spent way too much time looking for a good way to make a great helmet without using tricky stuff like casting, molding and electronics, and I wish I had a guide like this to creating a helmet with (relatively) inexpensive stuff - hence why I am making this.

I didn't want to mess around with electronics or casting as I only had 4 or 5 weeks to complete it - but given a larger timeframe you might achieve better results.

Time to get lucky.

HELMET

• A skating helmet (I found one from Kmart but any that fits the profile/shape of the original will do)
• A couple Cardstock papers (Basically more thicker paper. Look for anything around 600 gsm paper)
• Two large soft drink/beer cans - they have to be at least 6 cm/2.3 inches in diameter
• Wall plaster filler or equivalent (I used multi-purpose plaster)

GLOVES

• Leather or fabric gloves (tight-ish fitting is best)
• Cardstock

SUIT

• Leather or equivalent motorcycle jacket (check with official photos for the right fitting)
• OPTIONAL: Black suit with sequins if you want to go with the later, more formal dress
• Black pants (if you really want you can go with motorcycle jackets)
• Black motorcycle boots (I found some old Army boots that kinda look like motorcycle boots)
• OPTIONAL: EL (electroluminescent) wiring

TOOLS NEEDED

• Scissors - or even better a Stanley or Exacto knife
• Masking tape to see if prototypes fit on the helmet and gloves
• Electrical Tape or comfortable padding around the cut edge of the soft drink cans
• Chrome Spray paint
• Primer for paint (IF NEEDED)
• Black plastic tinter (spray paint)
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Pencils or pens for marking out templates

The helmet shape should fit the general dome shape of the Thomas helmet. A blueprint by Volpin Props was used to match the chosen helmet with the original helmet.

(The first and second option requires a lot of plastering/bondo to make it smooth) The first prototype was a paper-mache shell that was formed around a balloon but it didn't work out. The second option is a cardboard template that was bent into a dome shape.

The third and (thankfully) last option was the skating/cycling helmet. I used a skating helmet because it was much smoother than the other options. There were obvious holes in the helmet but I found you could easily plaster the holes up (Do note that you should put something in the holes before putting the plaster on so it doesn't fall through).

For the people who will ask if I can give them the template for the helmet...I don't really have a template that I always used. I will, however, try to give you as much as I can from what I used.

1.

I based my helmet faceplate off of two templates. The first one I used was made by an internet user called Dali Lomo who made the helmet out of cardboard and paper (kinda like mine). You have to purchase the correct sizing off of him for an A4 size, but I bypassed this by opening Microsoft Word and cropping and resizing each individual part for the (mostly) correct size. (You can find the template through this: https://dali-lomo.blogspot.com/2014/09/daft-punk-thomas-helmet-diy-template.html). This was the main template I used to get the general shape. I then sketched the pieces on paper and experimented with the face until it matched the blueprint and the official photos of Daft Punk.

2.

The second template I used was by someone called LuchoFunk. You can find the template here. The link brings you to a mediafire download page. I only used this template for the mouthpiece, but I'm sure you can use it for most of the helmet anyway. Also I'm pretty sure that the PDF files have the correct sizing.

A great early thing to do is to trace the top outline of your helmet on a A3 size paper (ANSI B or whatever the equivalent is). You can then sketch the sizes of the top of the visor and the earpieces on to it to make it more accurate of the original. The picture of the sheet that I used to sketch the top is shown at the top of this step.

Cut out your measured piece of cardboard for the top of the visor (the top of where you can see). For my helmet I glued the cardboard piece onto the very front and lowest part of the helmet.

If there is a gap between the cardboard and the helmet, you don't have much to worry about as there will be a slope to the top of the visor and helmet.

If you can, use a different material than cardboard for the top of the visor as - although it has better structural stability - it also has gaps inside the board that I needed to fill in later with plaster.

Once you are done making sure that the paper test pieces look good on the helmet, just cut out the pieces onto the cardstock.

I cut out a visor back to make the helmet less fragile and to give the see-through visor something to hold to. Lucky for me, cardstock is still bendable like paper but remains fairly stiff like cardboard.

For the earpieces I chose two large energy drink cans as they fit the original helmet's earpieces fairly well. To make it even more accurate you could cut some thick foam and wrap it around the cans to make them look bigger - just like the original.

The cans were cut until around 1/4 of the can remained. I placed electrical tape around the edge of the can to prevent my ears from being cut.

The pieces that attach the cans to the visor were made to cover the edges of the black see-through visor. They seem a little bit thick from the original, but I guess it doesn't matter that much.

I experimented with various shapes of the slope while taping them to the helmet to see if they fit the original. I found that there are two ways to make the slope.

The first is to glue pieces of the shape you want together, then to glue them onto the helmet. Just note that glue can slightly bend or wrinkle the paper.

The other option (I used this method) is to cut the slope out of cardstock and glue it to the top. I personally believe this option is better as cardstock is more durable and doesn't have little bends when glued. I first glued the centre of the card onto the helmet. I then worked my way around one side, then the other.

It is important that you try to hot glue UNDERNEATH the card so that the hot glue doesn't show at the top. If it does though, don't worry too much as you could try to heat it up and remove it (or just cut it off with a knife).

Back to business. I plastered up gaps in between pieces on the ears, the slope and the top visor and helmet piece.

I left a gap in between the earpiece and the top visor because I wanted to run EL wiring over the ears to make it look more 'robot'. This isn't as accurate as the rest of the costume but I wanted the helmet to 'pop out' a bit. I left an image in this step if you want to follow me this way.

Next came painting. From some YouTube comparison videos on various 'chrome' spray paints, the best two chrome paints are the VHT Plate Finish, and the Dulux Duramax Bright Silver spray cans.

Personally, I have never tried the VHT paint, but here is a great video on the same Daft Punk helmet design but using the VHT paint.

I used two primers before the paint. One was a metal primer for the earpiece cans, and the other was a plastic/wood primer for everything else.

The first layer of chrome was sprayed on, and it worked great. The first layer by itself reflected a lot of the environment. I then proceeded to spray on other coats. The best thing about this paint is that it doesn't leave a lot of fingerprints and does reflect light pretty well. JUST NOTE that you've got to let it cure for about 24 hours as I made the foolish decision of touching it before it had set. This led to me trying to wipe it off - as well as sanding drip marks - and then led me down a very bad path where a small part of the helmet didn't look smooth at all.

I painted the area behind the future visor black so that the silver paint wouldn't reflect out of the tinted visor. The red colour you see on the visor area is just black permanent marker.

I started making the visor by buying a blue plastic folder from a local office store. As you can see, the blue plastic is translucent, so this would be good for the visor. I measured the space between the top and bottom visor then cut out the plastic according to the measurement.

To make the visor black but still transparent, I decided to go with VHT Nite-Shades. This spray was originally meant for tinting car lights, but I've seen many people use it for tinting plastic. The tint looked great at the first two layers. Despite this, I added a third or fourth layer just to be sure that the blue colour couldn't be seen.

I then proceeded to hot glue the visor to the frame.

The helmet was all done now.

For the gloves i used old leather working gloves. The only problem I have with the gloves is that there is too much space in the fingers - making the fingers look too thick, and that the leather can wrinkle and fold over itself. For your gloves I recommend a tighter fitting glove.

For the individual pieces I used cardstock. As said before, it can be bent and glued in place. To make sure the pieces fit the glove, i used paper and masking tape to attack the templates to both gloves. Once I was happy with the sizes, i traced them out on card and cut them out.

I bent the cards into shape and tried them on for the last time before painting. I made a weird, special holder for the bent pieces while painting so that I wouldn't worry about bending the pieces back into shape after painting.

After two or three light coats of chrome I let them sit for a day to cure, then hot glue them to the glove. Lucky for me, hot glue works on leather and faux leather too. Just apply hot glue to the bottom of the pieces and smack them onto the glove.

Great Job! You've made it to the end of the accurate part of the whole suit. The suit should now resemble the "Human After All" era of costume. The next step is only for if you want to add lighting to your costume without LEDs or arduinos.

I ended up not including the EL wire to the helmet as I had no time. I did, however, safety pin the wire into the jacket. I didn't sew in the wire as the jacket was perfectly fine on its own. I poked the pin through the jacket from the inside - so that no pins would be shown except for the tiny sliver of metal on the outside.

The actual EL suits worn by the band have a flap that goes over the zipper, but my jacket didn't have that so I just traced the zipper, collar and bottom of the jacket.

So that's it for the suit! I'm happy at how this turned out as I did hit a few roadblocks along the way...If I did this again, I would first wait for the chrome paint to set for a full day before making any changes and I would also widen the space between the ear cups and the faceplate to run EL wire through the helmet.

A 3D printer would make this project so much faster, easier and produce more durable results. So if you have one, use it.

Anyway, I hope I helped in making your helmet/gloves/suit easier for you...Enjoy your hard work, you've earned it