Clay Pot

 

I've been working on The Marine Rifleman lately, and began work on the Kevlar helmet in 1/4 Scale.  This was delicate work, and required a lot of shaping, squinting, smoothing, comparing, cutting, molding, etc. to get it to a workable likeness.

I made the basic "kevlar" out of modeling clay, and plan to use this mini helmet as a template, making a latex mold of it, for replicating the other helmets for the Mortar Crew sculpture I'm working on.

The helmet itself is quite a complex form, with subtle angles and curves. It's not like the "doughboy" helmet of WWI, or even the steel pot of WWII, which were basic ovals and curves. You can almost tell it was designed in a computer (I'll have to research that)!

 

Here is the helmet, as it looks before casting:

 

Building up the Uniform and "Flak"
 I also began the construction of the uniform and "flak jacket" also, with "broad brushstrokes" of wax:

 

Next I will use a heat gun and tool to smooth out the rough edges, refine the form, adding folds and wrinkles...