Prop Replica Build: N7 Helmet from Mass Effect Trilogy

N7 Helmet from Mass Effect games

     Back in January, I upgraded the Mega Kossel with an E3D Volcano, and I've been running it with a 0.4mm nozzle, so it was time to tryout the 0.8mm and see what all the fuss was about. I've been a fan of the Mass Effect saga for a long time, so when I found Killonious's N7 Breather Helmet (thing:2152838) model on Thingiverse, I decided use it as a test for printing large and detailed objects with the big nozzle.

N7 Helmet parts

     Now, not all of the parts were done with the 0.8, the green and red parts were done with a standard 0.4mm nozzle, but all the transparent parts are printed with the 0.8mm nozzle and 0.4mm layers. Surface quality on the transparent parts is comparable to the standard nozzles, just slightly more apparent ridging from the layer lines. It does allow for a drastic reduction in print times, one of the sections printed with a 0.4mm nozzle took 4+ hours to print on its own, a similar sized part took only an hour with the 0.8mm nozzle, so for making large prints the Volcano is clearly the best option.

Assembled helmet with Dremel tool for friction welding

    Since most of the parts for this build are large and thin, my usual method of using 5-minute epoxy to join the parts would clearly make a big mess, so I pulled out my old model 275 dremel tool and chucked some scrap filament to start friction welding the parts instead. Friction welding can be done with either a 3D printing pen or a dremel with a section of filament loaded as the tool head, I'm using one of the smaller collets to get a firm grip on the 1.75mm filament. Once the filament is loaded, the basic technique is fairly similar to conventional welding in metal, creating small joints to hold the parts together first and them doing a second pass to finish the joint. Once that step was finished, it was time to paint this monster of an object.

Base coat of paint being applied

    As with any large prop, painting is the key to making it look like it's an actual object and not just a model. Since most of the shell was done in transparent PLA, the first step in painting was to base-coat the entire model to look like metal, I've used some silver acrylic mixed 3 to 1 with black to create a nice grey metal look before, so that's what got used for the base colour. After that, it was time to pull out the masking tape and start detailing things.

Masking applied to N7 logo area and waiting for paint to dry

     As you can see, this helmet has a lot of different sections that each need a contrasting colour to bring out the details, so it got masked and painted in stages starting from the top and working towards the back. Now, I'm not following the in-game colour layout properly, that would just be lots of blacks and greys, so this is more my personal idea of how the colours should look and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.

N7 Helmet nearly finished

     One thing that I decided to try differently on this prop was to apply some varnish to seal the paint against scratching or any weathering that I add later, so I coated it in some spare Varathane that I had in the shop, it actually adds a nice shine that works well for this model, so that was an unexpected bonus.

N7 Helmet with finished paint pre-varnish

N7 Helmet with varnish applied