I decided to build the Halo armor for Halloween of 2005. The helmet, as you’ll see, was scratch built. Remember, this was years before Pepakura, foam smithing and 3D printing. I think the helmet turned out pretty good. The armor, well, not worth showing.

I started with a basic batting helmet. I found one that was a bit small on my enormous melon so that when the final helmet is complete I wouldn’t look like a bobble-head. I tore out all the padding so I could add it later once I saw how the final helmet fit.

I cut off the visor (brim?) and a bit off the side to get the basic shape.

I screwed on a strip of steel for the jaw portion of the helmet

To work out the basic shapes and how they fit on the helmet, I got a pack of poster board and worked out my templates (I only did half).

Using sheet styrene I assembled the lower jaw. I made a track just below the top for the steel strip to fit into. The visor and cap sections were built much the same way…kind of a hull structure (.080) that I would skin with thinner plastic (.040).

Unfortunately, I am not that precise with my cutting so I rely heavily on putty to cover my mistakes!

The back under construction.

I used a 2-part epoxy foam to fill all the structural parts. Now the helmet is solid and heavy! Bring on the Covenant bastards!

Here it is assembled with a thin support rail for the visor. I also inserted some rubber hose for the respirator. I plan to add cooling fans behind these.

It was pointed out to me by someone on The RPF, the brim on the helmet was too short. Adjusting it wasn’t that hard as I just built a frame around the old one.

While I rebuilt the brim, I cut some posterboard to plan out the visor.

Some styrene detail to be added under the brim.

I cut the visor out of .08 Lexan, glued it in place and put gold mirror tinting behind it. The “real” Halo faceplate has an embossed pattern on it so I cut the pattern out of styrene and (tack) glued it over the Lexan. I used a “chrome” metallic gold paint that has the same color but a differnet level of reflectiveness.

After one night at Halloween, I discovered the helmet got hot FAST. The faceplate also fogged up. I added two computer fans powered by a 9-volt battery. I finished out the interior with fun foam to cover some of the less attractive construction and cable tubing to hide the wires.

The final painted helmet.

Amazingly enough, the opaque pattern on the visor doesn’t restrict my field of vision at all!