British comic artist Brian Bolland is the designer of Judge Death and one my favorite illustrators. I wanted to build my helmet based on his design.

I drew out a plan on my helmet template.

I pulled my plans into Strata3D, sculpted the helmet and then imported it into Pepakura. Once it was printed on cover stock, I assembled the paper model.

I then slushed a few layers of resin inside the paper model.

I then sanded off all the edges and smoothed out the angles.

A coat of primer shows you how much work you still have to do!

More smoothing and I scribed the thickness of the helmet.

I cut the spikes of the portcullis visor out of thick styrene plastic.

But once I placed it on the curve of the helmet, the spaces between the spikes were too wide. This was a lesson in the difference between two and three dimensions...

Measuring the actual distance the visor takes, I stretched the plans to fit.

I cut new spikes from styrene.

You can see the difference in width between the old spikes and new.

With all the spikes cut, I glued them to the crossbars.

The final helmet and visor get a coat of primer.

I couldn't find any rivets the size I needed so I added epoxy putty to round-headed screws.

The excess putty sanded down.

I measured the centers of the spikes to glue on the rivets.

I molded the visor and cold cast a copy in aluminum.

I applied a black acrylic wash before buffing the surface with 000 steel wool.

The painted helmet with visor applied.

Since a Deadworld Judge wouldn't have a pristine helmet, I added scuffs, scratches and rust.

I also added a sprinkling of dust and dirt. The eventual goal of this project is to sculpt a bust for this helmet to sit on.

About a year later, I pulled my plans into 3D and sculpted the bust of JD. It was heavily based on Brian Bolland’s artwork and I took reference from mummies and desiccated corpses. I was inspired by Giger’s Xenomorph design in that it had no eyes. That’s just plain creepy.

I printed out the model, glued the parts together and test fit the helmet. It sat on the bust perfectly without need for any padding!

The base was printed separately and connects to the bust with an aluminum tube. I filled the base with plaster to give it some stability.

I bought a sample kit of Smooth-On’s XTC. It’s made to fill in the print lines of 3D prints. It took two coats to get a smooth surface.

It sands pretty easily though and only leaves a few dings that can quickly filled with spot filler putty.

The downside is that it will fill in small detail as well so I think it’s best used for organic shapes. I had to redefine the teeth, lips and gums before laying down a base coat of white with an Xacto blade

Next I painted the teeth, gums and base skin color. I used pictures of tooth and gum disease as reference …a fun afternoon of research.

Then it came time to airbrush shadows and definition to the skin. Since I painted the base color from a rattle can, I was concerned with the darker shade matching. I’m horrible at mixing color. I ended up spraying more of the base color into a jar and then adding enough black to darken it slightly.

To make his uniform, I needed to make a pattern. I started by covering the skin with plastic wrap.

Then I wrapped duct takeover the area.

I cut the duct tape off and wound up with a pattern for the collar and top of the jacket.

I cut a piece of EVA foam for the base and contact cemented it to the edges of the shoulder piece.

The foam jacket after glueing.

I then attached the collar in the same way. I heated the foam with a blow dryer and, when it softened, smushed it against his body until it cooled to simulate skin tight leathers! The foam was painted with two layers of Angelus acrylic leather paint. I punched holes in the edges after reinforcing that area by glueing black t-shirt strips to the back. This would keep the holes from tearing once the laces were added.

The final bust!