How to Make a Cardboard Helmet

Helmets are everywhere. In sci-fi shows, on bikers, and on every baseball batter's head.

I've always wanted to make a helmet out of cardboard, but the task has always seemed too daunting... until my older brother (a huge Star Wars fan) approached me with the want of the helmet of a certain "Darth Revan". Loving cardboard, and knowing it would make an amazing birthday/Christmas present, I decided the feat was worth my time. It absolutely was.

Materials

• Cardboard (at least two decent-sized boxes)
• Paint (up to you what colors, I suggest a white base)
• Newspaper (optional for modge-podging)
• Glue and Water mixture (optional for modge-podging)
• Plastic Sheet (optional for visor)
• Hot Glue (not optional. For something as finicky as this, having a fast-working glue is crucial)
• Clear Gloss Finish (optional)

Tools

• Craft Knife/Box Cutter
• Hot Glue Gun
• Scissors
• Paint Brushes
• Colored Pencil/Crayons (optional for details)

When it comes down to it, without decorations the helmet is just a smartly cut-up and glued box.

I found the construction of a properly-sized dome to be the most difficult-to-understand part of this project. Once you have a dome you are happy with, adding things onto it is relatively intuitive.

To construct the dome, I found a quarter-sphere template from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpY35qCcnaQ&t=655s at about three minutes in.

To summarize the template: it is a semicircle, but at regular intervals there are slim triangles of material missing. This lets you bend the resulting trapezoidal shapes (surrounding an uncut circle) in a round manner, and glue them together to form a dome.

Most of the choices beyond the construction of the dome are up to the intended design of the helmet.

My helmet was based on that of "Darth Revan", a Star Wars sith lord. Thus I added the hooked facepiece and appropriate details. The back was basically a rounded sheet of cardboard, but the earpieces and added details covered its blandness nicely.

Not many structural additions are needed when using hot glue. A few of the pieces overlapped to be attached, but otherwise hot-gluing the lined-up edges worked a treat.

I found for each part, there was a long pondering before the next was added. When constructing something like this, so much unmeasured brute force of bending, cutting, and attaching is needed to reach a result. There is no universal template for a helmet (at least that I know of), so avoid relying on measurements and play it by eye, testing often to see if it fits.

If you would like to retain your sanity, I sugest skipping this step. It does, however, smooth out the rough edges of the cardboard connections. (It simply took me 6 hours to do so)

Modge Podging something is when you take thin paper (in this case newspaper) and "paint" it onto a surface using glue and water. (3 glue:1 water).

When modge-podging the helmet, make sure to tightly wrap large pieces around the edges, securing them on the inside as well. This adds a nice, round feel and appearance to the edges, refining the result.

I suggest painting the entire outside of the helmet white to begin, so colors such as red and yellow "pop" more, as painting them straight onto a dark, brown surface desaturates them for the first couple coats.

I had some left-over white paint/cornstarch mixture as a sort of primer that I used, but I assume regular white paint would work similarly in terms of color.

Along with painting comes the details. When your colors have been added, make sure to (first, let the paint dry, and then) add desired "weathering" looks, "cracks" and highlights via colored pencil, crayons, markers, and more, before the final step: adding a clear gloss finish, after which it is difficult to add colored pencil.

I used a Gloss Clear finish from Rust-Oleum that I picked up at the local hardware store. This was my first time ever using something like it, and I regret it. Mainly because I'll never be able to make a project without it from here on out. It turned out so well with the gloss, and even changed the touch to be that much sleeker.

Along with the finish, I added a plastic sheet visor. Of course I couldn't paint it to make it dark, so I used a sharpie and uniformly added dark streaks to turn it black-ish.

With that, I was done! If you found this at all helpful, awesome! If you didn't, hey, at least you read it. Thanks!