Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Animatronic Stargate helmet
instructables.com: I love the movie Stargate and when I first saw it I immediately knew I wanted to make one of the super cool Horus guard helmets. I had sketched multiple designs over the years and figured out several different methods for building it but rejected them all for one reason or another- usually due to cost or complexity of construction.
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7 comments:
As a Stargate fan this is really cool. This is a great example of how much desire plays into the quality of work that people can do. This guy put this together with minimal tooling and training. The comic cons are full of things like this and it really grounds what we do. While this guy had an unlimited time frame he created a really convincing replica from scratch. Most of what we do could be done by someone else but not in our time frame.
Honestly, I thought the way that helmet was made was was fairly incredible to say the least. It is an example of what we want to achieve. The materials are simple and easy to obtain, there are clear tutorials about how to go about making something like this. From a creative standpoint, this helmet is perfect and it is probably a lot less expensive than if it were made out of other, uncommon pieces. In addition, it was crafted beautifully, there was detail and it had a personality, it wasn't simply the next gadget added to a costume. It could blend with a somewhat organic looking costume and at the same time, look showy and high tech. What was really nice was the way the electronic aspects blended into the entire mask and I think that this was just well done.
As others have mentioned, you can do almost anything with limited materials and tools if you have a large amount of time to put into it. Better materials and better tools might make something faster and easier, but they aren't what determines whether or not you can accomplish a task, only the effort you'll have to put into it. Skill also makes a big difference, if this is his first large project like this I'd be willing to bet that things didn't all work out the first time through, since he says it took several years to finish. Skill and experience at the start would shorten that as well, but only by saving the time it took to acquire the skills as the project went along.
Since I'm the person that built this I figured I'd chime in...
First- thanks for the kind words everyone! I originally had the idea of making this several years ago and while I could have gone the expensive route and been done with it I simply couldn't justify the expense. I moved onto other projects until my brain settled upon this particular method of construction. Once I figured it out the actual building of the helmet took about a month, working mostly nights. I had already developed the animatronic controller board while working on this project-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYScDwP3v8w
This is so cool! I love that he lays out the process and walks us through how exactly to do it. Too many people can be secretive or not helpful in sharing their ideas on what works and what doesnt work. In the bio I found it interesting but not surprising that he had been in industries that required the skills he put to use in this project. I hope though that he could find his way to theatre because this is the meat and potatoes of what we do. Make something really cool out of nothing and make it practical. I also appreciate that this article lead me to this website. I love that it is so informative and will be sure to use it in the future.
Why the hell didn't I see this BEFORE I submitted my Arduino project!!! WHY??!!!!!
I loved the movie Stargate and the guards' helmets were some of coolest costume pieces and effects in the film [consider, it was 1994]. As Tom pointed out, he COULD have used a 3D printer and a bunch of other nonsense to make this piece but he, instead, used some good 'ol fashioned craft-knowledge and built something that LOOKS just as cool. And, ultimately, that's what we do. Make stuff that LOOKS like it's made of a harder-than-steel, explosion-magnifying metal from another planet. Awesome.
This seems like a great thing that they got here. The guy just made it in his garage over a few weeks. I wonder why theater does not do things like this. I have never seen hand props or costumes that work like this and automated things. I know that I was the first person at Carnegie School of Drama to put a computer chip inside of the costume/prop. I know that it is complicated to do and takes a lot of time do things like that. I wish we could start to see people that are expert in this type of thing in prop and costume shops though out the US and abroad. I also would like to look more into this and may be use the technique that they used and put it in something different.
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