Defender: Designing the Crest

I decided before I remade the crown and neck guard of the helm I would work out the crest, as it plays a prominent role in the helmet's appearance, and could affect how I should redesign the other parts.



This sketch shows my original concept. The helmet—once it was made in leather—really had a samurai feel to it, and no longer looked straight out of Star Wars. I feel that the crest simply adds to the Asian flair.

I used the green paper to work out the pattern of the interlocking leather pieces, then cut and riveted them in leather as seen here on the prototype helmet, in approximately the final position.

Pattern Drafting 101

The Spaceman Helmet
Above are several views of the collar that I wanted for the spaceman helmet. For the helmet itself I had the toy helmet to tape and pull a pattern from, but how do I come up with a pattern for the collar?

The illustrations above show the theory of attaching two flat pieces of leather together to form a three dimensional object. The silver objects are tubes which represent the helmet (or the crown of a hat). The gold objects represent the collar (or brim of a hat).
If we cut the collar in a donut shape with the inside hole having the same diameter as the tube, when attached the collar will be horizontal. If we cut the collar in a rectangle, when attached the collar will be vertical, ie. continue the lines of the tube.
Since the shape we want is somewhere in between these two extremes, we need to cut the collar in a large curve, as illustrated in the bottom drawing.

However, we don't want a collar that is uniformly angled down. Looking back at the first set of drawings we see that over the shoulders the angle needs to be closer to horizontal than vertical, whereas over the chest and back the angle needs to be closer to vertical than horizontal.
This final drawing shows the compromise made. Since the seams fall at the front and the back of the helmet wearer, the center of the pattern will be over the shoulders. And so, the middle is quite rounded (to make it more horizontal), while the two pattern ends are almost straight (to make them more vertical).

Designing a New Leather Mask

Spring is almost upon us, and leather mask sales should pick up as buyers think about what they're going to wear at music festivals. Above is my first sketch of an idea for a new mask, consisting of a whole bunch of cut out hearts. I drew this right before turning out the lights for bed. The star means I think it's a good design.

This is the next sketch the following day, seeing how it would work to have the eye openings be larger hearts, with other hearts around it. In designing a mask, the eye openings are critical.

Here I have fleshed out the idea, and after penciling in all the hearts on one half of the face, I have inked them in. Next I scanned this image and brought it into Corel Draw, where I fine-tuned it and mirrored it for the other half of the face.

And here is the finished mask, after cutting out the pattern in leather, shaping it to my face form, and painting it red. Lastly, I've listed it the Cut Out Hearts mask on Etsy, where I hope it will quickly sell!