Pyramid Head Helmet Tutorial

Here's my tutorial on how to make your very own Pyramid Head Helmet.

First off I'd like to say a big thanks to Dax79 for his YouTube tutorial, that's where I got the dimensions from (check out his vids, after reading my stuff obviously lol).

What are you going to need?

Cardboard (I used the box from an office chair, but the neater condition the better)

Protractor

Pen/pencil

Ruler/tape measure

Stanley knife

Glue gun (An absolute must! My little £4.50 gun from eBay has made my life soooo much easier!)

Masking Tape

Polyfilla (Not vital if you've got good condition card, but I needed it)

Kitchen non-slip matting (You can use any mesh type material you like, but this stuff looks really good)

PVA Glue (Not vital, but handy to keep the mesh in place)

Thin plastic piping (A good couple of meters, not sure on exact dimensions at the mo)

Random bits of pipes and tubing (For the bolts and attachments)

Black spray paint (You can save a bit of money and use standard paint, but it will take longer to do)

Red/Brown paint

Sponges

If you've got everything gathered, it's time to rock!

The first pieces you're going to be making will be the front face of the helmet.

The picture below is not to scale, but will give you all the sizes and angles you need:

Next are the sides/back, which again you need 2 of. Again the picture is not to scale, but you get where I'm going with it. The dashed line is a fold line, the reasons for which will soon become obvious.

As you can see, the rear edge of the front piece is smaller than the front edge of the rear piece, this is to allow for the cut out for your shoulders. Just cut out a nice curve from where the front and back meet, round and down to the fold line.

  

This next bit is all dependant on how you want the helmet to sit on you, and also how broad you are across the shoulders.

You may wish to fit a hat inside the helmet (a workmans hard hat seems to be popular), in which case the helmet will have to be made to go around it.

In my case I decided not to do that, and to have the helmet sit on my shoulders and rest up against the back of my head (mainly bacause by the time it was finished, it was starting to get heavy!)

So if like me you want to do without the hat inside, you may need a bit of assistance here.

Tape the four parts together, and pop it over your head. Play with the width until it's at a comfortable place for you, then measure the width at the widest point.

Once you've done that, mark out on your card the outline of the helmet, set up to the width you just measured. This is going to make up the sill of our helmet.

I didn't have a piece of card big enough to make the sill in one bit, so I did it in a couple of pieces and doubled up on the thickness for extra support.

Now it's time for the outer edge bits, I made them 5cm in width. I also made sure that the grain of the card was going in the other direction to the rest of the helmet, this helps to give it extra strength.

Once they're done you need to make yourself some eye holes. The size of these are entirely up to you, it all depends on how much you want to see (see below for an idea of the size I made mine)

And that's pretty much it for the initial making of bits :)

Glue gun time!

I found it best to make up some hinge pieces and use them to attach the two front parts together (if you look later on, you'll see a pic of them) then make up the sill part. Now put the helmet into the sill, and secure it in place.

Don't worry about going nuts with the glue, the great thing is that once it's all painted, the glue around the edges makes it look like it's been welded :)

As you can see, I added a strip down the middle to cover up the hinges and the edge of the cardboard.

Do the same with the back two pieces, and if you feel it necessary (I did), add some supporting pieces inside to keep it nice and solid.

This next part you may not need to do, it depends on the quality of the card you used, and also the quality of your craftsmanship.

In the above picture you can see a gap between the front and back sections, also there were some gaps around the back. To make sure this wasn't going to be an issue, I added more hot glue (yay!) to make the whole thing solid, and then back out to the garage to use a whole lot of Polyfilla.

I used the Polyfilla to try and smooth off some of the more wrinkled areas, and to fill in the gaps between the joins in the card. *Word of warning* Do not do what I did and get impatient waiting for the Polyfilla to dry, and use a hairdryer to speed up the process, it will melt the glue you've spent ages diligently putting in place!!

Once the Polyfilla is dry, you can sand it down nice and smooth, then you're ready for the first coat of paint.

I was a bit silly and used metallic black car paint, it's great quality but quite expensive (over £7 a can), I'm sure you'll be able to find a much cheaper alternative!

Through the eyehole on the second picture you'll see the hinge pieces I added, and yes that is Larp kit in the background :)

Now we're onto the good bit, this is where the helmet really starts to take shape.

Once the paint is dry, it's time to fix the mesh to the sides. I did this by first painting a layer of Copydex PVA glue onto the helmet, waiting for it to go tacky and then placing the mesh onto it. The PVA glue won't be good enough to hold it in place permanantly, but it's good enough to stop it moving while you glue it in place and trim it to fit (I placed the top edge in first, glue, trim the bottom, glue, trim the back and more glue)

You can see the pipes on the side, I didn't actually measure these, I just cut them where it looked good (I'll get the measurements at a later date)

The bolts on the side are elecrtical plug caps, but you can use whatever you find, bottle tops, bits of wood, whatever is at hand for you. The main bolt on the back was somewhat more tricky:

For this I used a wider piece of pipe and a plactic nut (both available in your local hardware store, B&Q for those in the UK). The hard part was attaching it to the helmet because I didn't want to cut a hole in the helmet incase I buggered it up. Instead I cut a wedge out of the nut and then glued it in place; fiddly but ultimately it worked a treat.

Onto the final furlong, we're ready for the last coat of black paint

And then the detailing. For this I got some red paint, mixed in a little brown, and using the rough side of a scouring sponge, dabbed on the paint.

I was hoping for a more rusty look, but it came out looking more like a lot of blood spatter (not a bad thing in my opinion!)

 

So there's the final piece :) All in all it took about 14 hours (longer if you count stuff drying), but well worth it I think you'll agree. The next part of the costume is the skirt part, I've almost finished it, so I'll have the tutorial on that added over the next few days.