Halo: Reach Helmets, San Diego Comic Con 2012, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well"

In Halo: Reach, armor parts can be swapped in and out, mix and matched, and I had some free time on my hands. I looked through the dozens of potential helmets and decided which were my favorites: Commando (the one seen in previous pictures, Mark V (A), EOD, and Haunted. With this selection, I was picking a little from different eras of Halo. Mark V (A) is based on the original Master Chief helmet, EOD has been modified and carried over from Halo 3, and Haunted debuted in Halo: Reach.



Haunted was definitely going to be the most challenging piece I would have made up to this point. The visor couldn't be easily made with a motorcycle visor, I would need to vacuu-form one to match the bubble shape of this helmet. Then there's the problem that although I have a skull, it's also covered in flesh, so I'd have to find a way to replicate the skull-in-a-helmet effect.

Did I lose my skin for the sake of a costume? Keep reading to find out! (Spoiler alert, I didn't)




First step would be to pep out the helmet. Using the action figures as a reference for scale, I printed out and glue together the helmet. As per the usual, I had to try it on.



With respirator and brushes in hand, I once again jumped into the strengthening phase. I had learned a lot after building my other helmets, I finally found the sweet spot for the amount of cloth to put into the helmet, to this day this helmet doesn't have a single scratch, tear, crack, or break in it, which cannot be said for my other two helmets.

Once the entire thing was 'glassed over two layers thick, I started laying on the bondo to smooth out the surface of some of the rounder sections. This included some of the back of the head and the entire visor section. I had a decent enough smoothness to it, or so I thought, I need to go back and smooth it out again; it ended up blurring the visor with all the imperfections in the surface.



With the bondoing done, I cut out the visor and prepped it for vacuu-forming, turning it into a forming buck by backing it with some scrap cardboard I had.



I bought some vacuu-forming plastic and expected it within a week, but in the meantime, I had to build a vacuu-former. The internet provides ample instruction on how to make one: some pegboard, duct tape, and a vacuum cleaner (in this case, my dad's Shopvac). The duct tape sealed the gaps so well, I nearly broke the whole thing by accidentally dropping the new sheet of plastic over the top of it and forming a completely airtight seal all the way around, bowing the pegboard.

I set my mom's oven to broil, just something high enough to get the plastic really hot. With the plastic stapled to the frame, I set it right up to the heating element and watched it begin to get wavy and then rapidly sag. I turned on the vacuum, pulled out the plastic, flipped it right side up, and ended up with this bad boy:



Here's video of my first pull with my new vacuu-former.

With a little hot glue, duct tape, a cheap skull Halloween mask with the lower jaw cut off, and some EVA foam for accent pieces, this helmet was done. It should have LEDs in the helmet, but that was one more thing I'd have to put n there, and it was already cramped enough as it is.