Red Alert 2 Desolator Helmet

If you've seen my previous instructables, you'll notice I usually do 2 things out of the same genre. While working on the Tesla coil gauntlet, I was thinking of doing something I haven't seen in a while. Cosplaying when I was I kid did not exist, we only wore costumes at home or during parties that require such attire. Red alert 2 was one of my favorite games and I still do play it sometimes. My favorite defense then, when playing on the soviet side was the Iraq Desolator. As it was cheap to create and could take out a large number of infantry when deployed, i.e. burning nukes on the ground. :)

I wanted to build the helmet of the Desolator, but there were 2 problems I needed to work around. First, I do not own a heat gun that was needed to make curves and domes for the helmet. second, there is limited images or references to work with.

These were the 2 main problems I needed to solve. Luckily the solution is a large plastic bowl and the stove top. I read in http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=139540, instructions how to make dome shapes in EVA foam, problem with this method is that I do not have an oven nor 2 cheap plastic helmets. Although it gave me an idea on how the foam behaves when heated. Problem 2 was solved by just starting the build.

what I did was to heat up the EVA foam on my stove top on low heat. EVA foam is suspended 12 inches above the stove top. this allowed me to soften up the EVA making it easier to mold unto the large plastic bowl. I was not able to take pictures as it require both hands to work on the foam. I will try to document this step in future builds.

So let's start building the Desolator helmet.

**** update *****

I added blind rivets and some flat black paint for accent and also put on plastic scraps for the eye covers. :)

Step 1: Creating the Frame Structure

With the dome and curves issue out of the way, my plan was to make a frame and assemble the helmet a section at a time. each section would need to be curved by the stove top process and molded to the bowl. First step was to the make the frame. I knew there was no way I will be able to copy the bullet head profile of the helmet, so instead I made a dome cap and built the frame to fit it.

The next step sucks as it would need a lot of patience.

Step 2: Foam Cladding

This part is a bit frustrating on my part since I did not draw anything up, i just went an cut pieces of foam and started curving them then gluing them to the frame. I will do better next time as my phone broke when I was doing this and I was too lazy to get the other camera.

Once you finished up, coat it with acrylic emulsion (3 coats). Paint it up and let it dry. I know this isn't much of an isntructable as it should be. I'll do better next time.

Step 3: Take a Pic

Attached some tubing and painted some accents then there you have it, a desolator helmet. I'll be updating this as I have not put anything on the eye holes yet. Hopefully I can find green LED's to complete the radioactive look. Thanks for viewing. :)