Building the "Battle Bowler"

Some time ago, I  made a mold for the WWI "doughboy" helmets, to fit the Marines' heads in the Belleau Wood sculpture. This mold made a good impression of the outside of the helmet, but ultimately I needed a  helmet with an interior-- much more like its counterpart in the real world, with room for the head and harness, etc..

In order to do this, I had to create a plug, or core, that would allow wax to come in and form the "metal" of the helmet, while at the same time maintaining the empty space within the helmet also-- thus creating a thin wax helmet which looks like the real thing.

I used an even  layer of clay to form a stand-in for the helmet itself, and then poured wax into the empty space to create the core:

I removed the clay piece and set the core back in place--

After pouring wax down in between the cracks and letting it cool, out came the helmet form...

I had to adjust this process several times, reforming and repouring the helmet core, so that the "brim"of the helmet became more fine-tuned and didn't require a lot of carving out when taken out of the mold.

By the end of the day, I had a workable helmet form.