Nazgul Helmet Template

[Muredac Ford]

Istarted by pulling the helmet shape from the in game model to get the basic shape. After ripping it apart I made a 2 piece template that would fold together into the shape of the whole helmet all at once. There was a lot of trial and error involved in this, but having a model helped immeasurably. In the end, I transferred my base pattern to 3mm PVC and cut each half out. They might be the craziest looking patterns ive ever used!

Using a heat gun, I slowly heated up and bent the plastic to the shape of the helmet, using the pattern to meet edges and generally fightin with it for awhile. After a very long time tweaking and gluing, this is what I had.

Complicated helmet base in a day! Obviously the tape couldnt stay forever, I glued it all together, then to make it a solid peice I mixed fiberglass resin, PVC dust (from my orbital) and bondo together to make a thick sludge, then slushed it around on the inside of the helmet. There is about a 2mm coat of the stuff holding it all together in there. After it dried, the helmet was rock solid and I could sand and fill it to kingdom come to get rid of those peaks and fold marks. This was a lot of boring sanding, but in the end I got a much cleaner helmet base that was quite strong. I had already designed the inner cheek pattern, and while it was drying cut out the basic shape of the inner cheaks and border, as I needed them for the next part of shaping this. After a lot of work, this is what I had.

Much cleaner shape! At this point it was time to fill all the gaps and sand it down once again. I hit the gaps with bondo, and used filler primer to suss out the flaws in the surface and after this was done it was time to start on the detailing! I started by adding the inner detailing to the cheeks using 1mm PVC.

After this, I added the border to the cheeks using carefully cut 2mm PVC, I made the little raised detailing on the lower jaw by adding a sheet of 1mm and grinding down the front of the helm with a dremel until it had a sharpened edge.

After these were on, I patterned out a basic shape for the front sections and temporarily attached them in place with screws to get an overall look before i dug into the detailing. Getting the pieces that fit and looked symmetrical was a lot of trial and error, and more stress then id like to admit. It was worth it when I put it with the rest of the armor for a size test though.

I was very happy with where it was going at this point. The cinematic Imperius has the smallest head in all existence, and I was afraid my helmet would have a sort of bobble head effect being bigger then it should be. In the end I was able to make it fit my head so tightly that the size worked, and no padding is even required.

Hot damn thats shiny. I went in with some black acrylic and toned down some of the gold, added a bit of weathering and scratches.. then clearcoated the whole thing! After a LONG time and LOT of effort, Imperius helmet was completed!

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