GeekSummit's CUSTOM NECA ROBOCOP | The Helmet Project

Chapter 3: SUCCESS!!!

When we left toff last week we had our head manicured down to a pretty nice Peter Weller likeness if only in passing. Still some things needed to be done to bring it up to the bio-mechanical look that needs to reside under the helmet. So on to more sculpting and sanding and fitting. The plan was always to make a solid 1 piece sculpt of the head. So we made a mold and cast a couple versions. Here appropriately we are using the Battle Damaged Robocop. The head and neck post were replicated so with a little bit of dremmeling it pops right into place like a stock piece. Though this newly created head would not fit back in the original helmet, a scheme was cooked up to still use this head with a cast of the helmet without making any further adjustments.

Luckily while pouring my head mold, I had enough excess silicone to pour a small helmet mold. So I filled the helmet with modeling clay and stuck it to the bottom of a 2oz to go sauce containter. Then I took a fast food ketchup cup cut the bottom out and flipped it over and hot glued it to the bottom of the sauce container. this allowed me to have an water tight seal and keep everything in place. I let everything sit for a couple hours and there we go we had a mold for a head and neck as well as a helmet. I had much more complicated plans for casting the helmet but this chance made mold seemed to do the trick just fine.

I took the head and took a small section of hobby vinyl. I heated up the vinyl until it became "gooey" or very stretchy. I pulled it over the head to create a "tent" over the features that would give us a fitting but not too tight.  I let it cool and mixed up my casting resin for the head. With the head poured I took the remaining resin and poured it into my helmet mold. I took my wrapped head and lined it up with the helmet and submerged it into the resin. I held it in place until the resin turned color and then I let it sit for a few minutes. When I came back I was immediately pleased to see that the helmet had poured great so wet to cleaning the bottom edges. Now with my cast head and now second layer cast helmet I began to twist OH so Gently....

POP!!! 

 So now I have a cast head with fitted helmet. Too much you say? NEVER!!!

  

Success!!! My extremely short term dream realized!! 

The head and neck are cast as a single piece, so once trimmed and cleaned it pops right into the socket on the original figure. matching paints will be a new challenge for me. I'm more of a primary man myself but this time I'll be dabbling in blue/silver I guess. I may have a few tricks up my sleeves to handle the finish of the paint. I may work in layers of clearcoat and silver to give it a little inner shine.

The helmet was an amazing feat. This first version is a little brittle because the hobby vinyl folded over itself creating pockets of resin with "pleats" inbetween  so it is a sensitive piece but it definitely shows the ability to cast the helmet "live" on the figure to create a perfect fit. I'm excited.

Things have worked out pretty nicely. I am really nervous about which part of this process is going to go wrong honestly. It has been such a simple and near flawless trip so far that I just can't imaging what will go wrong. We've suffered no proportion loss, the helmet fits perfectly, the little bit of mouth that shows from the bottom is just enough and not far from the original (nearly more realistic). And of course the overall paintjob on these figures have been imporved. With the number of variants of the Robocop figure produced only this year, this is a GREAT step in the right direction.

It's actually a nice piece to solve all kinds of issues:

• Corrects the "nosey" original version of RoboCop where his nose pokes out.
• Brings new life to the Battle Damaged 25th Anniversary figure
• Adds Even MORE BadAssness to the Spring Loaded Holster Version
• Is simply the only remaining version to be seen... (unless you count RoboCable*)

*Which I wouldn't be opposed to, and if you know who that is... God bless you and if you don't know who that is, its a character from a series of SciFi Channel Produced Robocop films shot on a porno film budget.

 

Unmasked Robocop makes for the perfect battle damaged version from RoboCop I

 Thanks For Looking!!!