Saturday, January 28, 2012

New Helmets

This model is larger than a ping-pong ball, smaller than a tennis ball.
Anthony Jones is building our helmets for us. They're a fairly ingenious design. First of all, the visor is vacu-formed which makes it cheaper and lighter than buying a Lexan sphere.
He's also come up with a unique answer to the whole connect-the-helmet-to-the-body issue by using the top of a 5-gallon bucket as a "collar".
Q. Is it going to be hot inside the helmet?
A. Hell yeah.
Q. How about breathing?
A. There will be downward-facing vents in the back of the helmet.
Q. Wearing those helmets will be a pain. Would you ever ask an actor to do something you wouldn't do?
A. I'm wearing one right now.
Q. Oh God. That's true. You are wearing one right now aren't you?
A. I like pretending I'm on a computer... in space.
Q. No girl will ever date you.
A. But I'm in space.

2 comments:

Joe Falcon said...

Isn't their inherent distortion when you vacform clear plastics and issue of thickness at perpendicular surfaces that may increase distortion along the perpendicular surface's plane?

Since you have sectional looking helmet why not use acrylic plates and skip the bending altogether? (See TNG First Contact Suits)

Also you may want to build a cardboard mock up and see how to keep the head slap down especially for a general fit. My best suggestion is velcro for removable cloth covered closed cell padding at the crown sides and back for a snug fit for each actor who gets to don a suit.

Andrew Bellware said...

Excellent points. Actually, I've tried on a mockup helmet and it works great. The vacuformed hemispheres work great.
I think that the way it's going to work is that the collar will tend to be shaped such that the helmet will just sort of sit right.
At least that's how it seemed on the mockup I tried. ;-)
I expect that the back of the helmet will sit against the actor's head and that we won't need them to wear hoodies or do anything for a customization fit for each actor.
That's what I expect at least.