Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Halloween

Just some pics of the costume @ Halloween

Harder Better Faster Stronger

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Devastation

After puting on a clear coat late at night, I un-carefully picked up the helmet off its stand. Perhaps it was the one beer in me, cue slow motion, it fell of my balcony’s ledge. About a 12 foot fall. I’m surprised the helmet didn’t explode honestly. Here are the battle scars:

I ended up being able to somewhat repair it. Hard night though, hah. Unfortunately, in repainting the helmet, I didn’t have enough time to get a shiny chrome effect like in the picture.

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Primed

Quick update on the helmet. I’ve pretty much finished the bondo application and rough sanding. This picture is after two coats of automotive prime. After this, I’ll be filling in some holes with spot putty, priming again, applying a gloss black, a chrome, and then a clear gloss. I’ve already cut and shaped an acrylic visor but it still needs some tinting. I’m trying to get some LEDs working for Halloween… we’ll see if I can come through.

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Bondo

I’ve applied an initial coat of bondo on the helmet. Lesson learned, you want to make sure when applying the bondo to get it as tight to the shape you want as possible. Flatten all of your surfaces with a knife and avoid dripping. My first application of the bondo was too quick and not precise enough. This resulted in a ton of sanding to correct the shape and air pockets where it wasn’t smoothed out enough.

The white you see in the photo is automotive bondo (about $10 a can). The red is the bondo brand spot and glaze putty ($6-7). There are a ton of little air holes in the bondo (look around the jaw line, see lesson learned) so I’m going over the entire thing again with the spot putty to fill them all in.

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Foundation Complete

The curved part of the helmet uses a traditional baseball helmet (no vents) that I cut and sanded to fit the paper framework. I ended up removing the entire visor portion of the baseball helmet since the position of the Daft Punk visor is actually significantly higher. I also made the helmet about 2-3 inches shorter along the bottom rim.

In addition to the thick paper that makes up the form, I used a thin foam board to better define the edges.

Then, hours of cutting and applying masking tape to connect the two together and form the right shape.

Now that the foundations is complete, I’ll be coating the entire thing in automotive Bondo. Then, lots and lots of sanding.

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, Ears

The end cap for the ear is formed by the bottom of a soda can. I found that normal cans were a little too big for the cutout so I ended up using the bottom of a large Red Bull can.

Once the paper frame work is done, I’ll be attaching it to a modified baseball helmet. Then, we bondo / epoxy the entire thing to start forming the final shape.

Make: Daft Punk Helmet, The Thomas Bangalter

Started working on my Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter helmet tonight. It will have LEDs, oh yes, it will have LEDs.

Make your own! The model files can be downloaded here:

Dank Punk Thomas Helmet Framework

If anybody wants to follow along, I’ll continue to post progress shots and insights on how to replicate.