Avengers:Endgame Iron Man Helmet

The first trailer for the movie Avengers: Endgame dropped o December 7th, 2018; and to celebrate it, I thought i should design something from the trailer. The trailer starts with a shot of Tony Stark(my favorite Avenger) sitting seemingly alone in the Benatar(The ship belonging to the Guardians of the Galaxy before Thanos' infamous snap). Tony turns on his helmet and then starts recording a message for Pepper Potts.

The moment I saw that trailer, I knew that I wanted to design Tony's battered Mark 50 helmet(which has decided to fall apart in what has to be the most artsy way possible). Now, just want to say before we start that the original Mark 50 helmet design is not mine. The original design for the base Mark 50 Helmet is by Damask Props and can be found here:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2760786 . All that I did was take the full helmet and cut away pieces, and then add in all of the battered mechanical bit sticking out of it.

Unfortunately, the final printed version of this helmet did not quite fit my head, so if you want it to fit properly, I recommend printing this file out at 110% scale.

So, lets get started!

First, you need to download all of the files for printing, which can be found here: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-aven...

When importing them into your slicer. make sure you use the flattest side on the buildplate. I printed this out on my Prusa I3 MK3, which has a very good overhang threshold, so I didn't need to use supports for very many of the pieces.

To glue all of these pieces together, I used E600 Industrial Strength Glue, but that may not be necessary for everybody, as this can be done with super glue or Gorilla Glue. After you have glued all of the pieces together, you may notice some gaps(I had a few really big ones on mine!), or some unevenness between the surfaces, and this is where the woodfiller comes into play.

For this project, I took some Varathane red wood filler, but really any color will work, as we will be painting over this very soon. Apply a generous amount of woodfiller to any places on the helmet with cracks. I then used a putty knife to smooth out the filler, but this step isn't absolutely necessary. Wait 30-60 minutes for the woodfiller to dry before sanding.

This is definitely everybody's favorite part of the process(I hate this part with all my guts). For this part I used a 400 grit sanding block, but really any grit will do depending on how fine you want the final product to look. I can not stress enough to DO THIS WITH A MASK ON! YOU DO NOT WANT THESE PARTICLES TO GET INTO YOUR LUNGS! Also, you should do this in a well ventilated area, so that the particles can circulate out of the room as quickly as possible. Sand until the woodfiller is as flush with the surface as you can get it. Now it looks like we are ready for painting!

For the record, I am horrible at hand painting things, so I prefer to spray paint most things. We are going to spray paint this helmet from least detail to most detail, starting with red. We can basically just spray paint the entire helmet red right now, and nothing needs to be blocked off with tape.

Now we want to start painting the gold onto the helmet. We are going to use masking tape to block off a space around all of the pieces we want to paint gold. After the spaces are blocked off, we can spray paint the gold onto the helmet. Do not take the tape off of the helmet once you are finished painting on certain parts, I will tell you which pieces to take off in later steps.

Once all of the gold paint has been applied, we're ready to tackle the silver parts. Block off a space around all of the parts you want to spray paint silver, and then carefully paint it on.

Now that the paint has dried, we can do some detail painting by hand (ugh...) on the metal pieces sticking out of the helmet. I too some grey paint and the smallest paint brush that I could find in order to put on all of the small detail found on the raised pieces in the design.

For the lighting in the eyes, I just took some greenish-blue plastic bag material and cut it to fit the inside of the eye holes. I then took a set of glass panel light(which can be found on eBay for about 10 dollars US), and I took the LEDs out of the glass panels, and then taped them to the inside of the helmet right next to the eyes.

I left the tape on after painting specifically for the reveal. And after taking off all of the tape, the helmet looks amazing! The paint job turned out pretty well, and overall it almost looks like it could be straight out of the Avengers:Endgame trailer. I really hope you guys enjoyed this Instructable!