Tron Legacy Helmet

This year I decided to brainstorm early to figure out what I wanted to be for Halloween, instead of figuring it out two days beforehand. With the new Tron Legacy movie coming out soon and my love of the first Tron movie, I decided that It would be awesome to build a costume based on the new movie. I chose to build the helmet for the character CLU simply because I found it to be the coolest looking, in my own opinion of course.

      This project Is fairly cheap until you decide to buy the EL wire and since I purchased 30' (I plan on making a suit as well) of the stuff, it cost a pretty penny. As for the actual building materials, I think I came in around a good $60. The rest, as with any project, is just a whole lot of time and elbow grease. 

Step 1: Gathering Supplies

     The supplies list is fairly straight forward and comes from my own gathering searching through instructables and seeing the many different ways people have gone about the process of making different styles of helmets.

Helmet Materials:

          Thin Cardboard (I used the tops of pizza boxes, anything works as long as its thin)
          Fiberglass kit
          Bondo body filler
          Thin plastic for a visor (mine came from a pair of headphones packaging)
          El wire (around a foot a the least)
          Car window tint (Black)

Spray on:

          Primer
          Paint (I used auto body paint from Autozone)
          Clear coat

Tools:

          Box cutter
          Masking tape
          Lots and Lots of Sandpaper:
                    Ranging from 320 grit through 2000 grit
          Sanding block
          Iron (you'll understand later)
          Ruler
          Pen/Pencil/Marker
          Scissors
          Latex gloves or alternative
          Mask of some kind
          Plastic spreader
          Epoxy (two part)
          Super glue gel

Comments

[jadowyn]

Always wanted to make one. Kept thinking it'd be too difficult. Thanks for proving me wrong.

[Treasure Tabby]

Very much like a welding helmet or if you're a fan of "V", a template for a shock trooper helmet. The original V and not that modern bastardized version. We can forget about that one. ;)

Love it. :)

[Pyrotect]

Hey arphoto. Great job on the helmet. Thank for the shout out on the EL stuff. To make the controller smaller you could by the example kit that has a pulse and full on functions. Nice thing is that the batteris(3 pill batteries) and inverter is the size of a tic tac case and "could" fin in the helmet. Again nice job.

[arphoto]

That would make it a lot nicer if you could integrate the battery back into the back of the helmet. I can say the one draw back was that every time I took the helmet off it had to stay near my head since it was on the wires.

[dansan101]

Was the 5% difficult to see through? Im plannign on wearing this at night at a bar and would like ot be able to see

[arphoto]

Not bad at all honestly, I wore it to a halloween party the night I finished it and it can essentially be equated to simply wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.

[dansan101]

Awesome! Thanks for your help, Im currently building a helmet inspired by yours and a shirt to go with it, for a tron themed party my student society is putting together.

[tazma]

hi is possible to know
I want to disguise measures
tron for carnival
this helmet is very well
thanks

[arphoto]

As stated there really weren't very many measurements when it came to the actual prototyping of the size of all the pieces, it was simply making something that fit around my head and then making finer details as the project went on.

[acohen8]

you should chrom it instead

[ikoneckox3]

awesome, your steps on fiberglass/bondo/primer really helped. really, nice job

[arphoto]

Thank you very much!

[pastprimitive]

When I was going to school for industrial design and did lots of model building with bondo the warning that was given to us was to make sure to allow plenty of time between each coat of spray paint, and to use the same brand for each coat. They said if you didn't allow enough time for the paint to gas off, even though it was dry to the touch it could cause issues such as cracking and or bubbling. If you used a different brand the solvents that are used by different manufacturers in spray paint can react poorly with each other. Especially in cheaper spray paints.

Also they said another problem can arise if you apply the paint to quickly after the bondo application especially if the bondo was mixed with not much catalyst, as this could cause the bondo to slowly cure over time, contract, and than cause cracks in your paint job. I realize this may or may not be the reason for your problems, but thought I would share anyway. Good job on your helmet, it looks great.

[rocketboy13]

Any chance you could add basic templates of the cardboard pieces, I want to try building this helmet and the templates would help alot!

[arphoto]

I am currently looking into teaching myself how to create a template using pepakura and I may be supplying the templates for free online once I know they are good.

[tranzlusent]

Nice dude, will definately be doing this. I'm planning on doing CLU's robe and was searching for a helmet. Thanks!

PS-I'm going to try the tape on this, ill let you know how it turns out.

[jason alvarez]

you use paper mache

[arphoto]

Where is there paper mache in this?

[jason alvarez]

wow its very awesome

[bustedit]

man, this is awesome. how many days did you wear it around the house catching glimpses of yourself in anything shiny and feelin proud??

a lesson learned too late, but if you make another, you can heat and fit the visor to the helmet prior to painting it, so there's less or no risk of marring the fine finish.

cant wait for the movie : daft punk + tron = boner

[Ramin Pahlevani]

Thanks that is woderfull.

[Culturedropout]

Nicely done! I wonder if your "spider webbing" problem with the paint was because you either were waiting too long between coats, or not long enough. Since it's the same paint on each coat (apart from the clear coat) it can't be chemical incompatibility. I've run into that when spraying one type of paint over another - you get this lovely sort of "orange peel" look. A lot of paints and clear-coats (at least for woodworking, which is primarily what I do) are pretty specific about repeated coats. They'll say something like, "Recoat within 2 hours or after 48 hours". If you recoat after two hours but before 48 hours, you can get results such as you described (I know this from painful experience). So you might want to double-check the application instructions for future reference. And last but not least, don't forget to wear a proper respirator while mixing and spraying this stuff. Some of that two-part auto paint has such strong warnings about permanent nervous system damage and the dangers of repeated exposure that I won't even touch the stuff.

[Wasagi]

Beautiful!!!

[halberdear]

You Butt head!

[paperairplanecreator]

what is tron? 

[Wesley666]

...I can't believe you have never heard of TRON!!! Its a Movie from 1983 and a videogame and now they are doing another TRON movie which looks spectacular! :D Google it, there should be tons on it.

[paperairplanecreator]

nevar mind! once i posted this comment i looked it up and i was like" whoa! thats awsome!!!!" but thanks still!

[Ward_Nox]

1982 not 83 it was the first motion mictur touse computer graphics for the purpose of special effects and not just foe computer displays

(i did a term paper in HS comparing Tron and The Matrix the then pinnacle of CG)

[Wesley666]

I was reading up about it, and it didn't come out until '83. I have the movie, so I will check it, it usually says on the box.

[Wesley666]

Nicely done, but it doesn't really resemble what they actually wear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1IpPpB3iWI

Theirs look more like a tricked out motorcycle helmet. Still very cool project!

[arphoto]

Yes, those characters do have tricked out motorcycle helmets.

However, the character this helmet is modeled after is the main villain of the story line as far as I can tell. He is the program equivalent of flynn.

Seen in this photo as the one on the left, you'll notice the helmet I made is pretty close to the actual one in the movie.

Thanks for looking and commenting!

[Ward_Nox]

Flynns* helmet looks kinda like a speed skating helmet wit a face guard

[arphoto]

Well if we have to equate it to something in my mind it looks more like a lacrosse helmet than anything else

[Wesley666]

Oh, yes, OK! I see, I never seen that pic before. I have been waiting for this movie for like 2 years now but have only ever seen the trailer. I can't wait. Great Instructable!

[instruct39]

looks awesome, you should add a picture of the real helmet though. 5*

[arphoto]

You reminded me what I was going to do next. Thanks

[instruct39]

no prob.

[michaelgohjs]

really looks professional
now.. make a nice tron suit and its gona be cool ..stand beside master chief and wonde which looks better

[Chainfire]

was this the kit you got?

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accessories/3M-1-2-pint-fiberglass-repair-kit/_/N-260o?counter=0&filterByKeyWord=fiberglass+kit&fromString=search&itemIdentifier=167004_0_0_

[arphoto]

I've added a photo of the one that I used to step two. Essentially it is that kit but the one I bought had 29 fluid ounces of resin and 8 cuft of matt. There are two different sizes of that kit at Autozone. But yes, same one.