G.I. Joe Hydro Viper Helmet: a Sidetrack Project

A few weeks ago I was scrolling through posts in one of my toy collectors' groups and was reminded of this guy:

This was the "Hydro-Viper" one of the last G.I. Joe action figures I bought as a kid before I'd finally lost interest in that particular toy line.  Here's what the package and the action figure looked like:


At this point, the G.I. Joe line had started veering hard toward goofy science fiction concepts and bright colors.  That was just some of what helped me outgrow those particular toys.*  This character was definitely a goofy science fiction concept in bright colors, but for some reason this guy struck a chord with me.  I was fascinated with all things military and scuba diving as a kid and this covered both.

The action figure wasn't particularly well sculpted and the colors seemed wrong, but I absolutely loved the artwork on the package.  Even their lore was cool:


It's also fascinating to me that he came with a manta ray.  While a lot of the named, one-off characters had their animal sidekicks (i.e. Snake Eyes had a wolf named "Timber" and Shipwreck had a parrot named "Polly") this was not a unique, individual character.  Instead, he was one of presumably many rank and file troops that were given a series of surgical alterations for deep diving and then issued a specially trained manta ray to assist in their duties as part of an evil terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

Neat.

But I digress.

Stricken by an overwhelming wave of nostalgia, I decided I needed to bring this very distinctive dive helmet to life.  So I dug up all of the reference images I could and put Jeff to work on the digital sculpt.  In no time at all, he delivered this thing of beauty:


With the huge ears and dorsal fin, it was going to be easy for this helmet to get comically large.  So I told Jeff to keep the rest of the helmet as close fitting as possible.  He nailed it:


So I split it into separate parts to speed up the FDM** printing process and overnight my fleet of printers grew the whole set.  Here's the initial helmet roughed together:


I didn't do the prettiest job on the seams, but a bit of sanding and Bondo made quick work of them:


And even at this stage, the helmet looked pretty spiffy:


After a couple of rounds of sanding and filling, the whole thing was given a two coats of red primer:


And I couldn't resist the urge to take dusty mirror selfies:


For the almost burgundy red color, I applied a basecoat of Dupl-Color Bordeaux Red Metallic:


This was a nice, deep red which did a great job of adding depth to the details:


And with a clearcoat, the metallic effect was downright gorgeous:


I masked off the dorsal fin and the forehead arrow and painted them with Rustoleum satin "Canyon Black" and gloss "Marigold" respectively:


The masking tape lifted a bit of the clearcoat, so apparently I didn't tack cloth the helmet enough before I sprayed the clear.  I'd have to go back and re-apply that later.

In the meantime, I used the scroll saw to cut some 1/8" smoke tinted acrylic sheet to make lenses to fit in the eye holes:


These pieces were heated in a toaster oven until they were soft and floppy*** then pressed into the eye hole from inside with a soft rag.  Then the soft acrylic was held in place, bulging out of the eye hole until it cooled and became rigid again.  This makes a perfectly bubbled, custom fit lens for the eye hole:


The lenses were glued in place with cyanoacrylate adhesive, then I made up a pair of LED throwies to make the eyes more interesting:


An LED throwie is literally just an LED taped onto a button cell battery.  It's about the simplest bit of electronics you can make and it did just what I needed to give me an idea of how the final effect would look:


Here you can just about make out the masking tape holding the LED throwie inside the eye from the test lighting:


Clearly I'd need a more elegant solution.

But the effect was just sinister enough and visibility was largely unimpaired:


Success!

The LED throwies have enough juice to stay lit for several days, but I didn't want to have to re-make them every time I wanted to light up the helmet.  Instead, I wired up a pair of LEDs to a AA battery pack:


Then I shrink-wrapped the leads with a piece of aluminum armature wire, leaving just a tiny bit of the LED's tip showing on the end:


This gave me a nice, stiff, posable stalk with the glowy bit on the end:

The battery pack was mounted up in the dorsal fin with a patch of velcro and the leads and armature wire were gaff taped into place.  The wire was bent to hold the LEDs in exactly the right spot in the center of the eye lens:


The result was an appropriately menacing final touch to the character's glare:


Unfriendly face is unfriendly:

And with a new application of clearcoat, it's done:

Here's a nifty little turnaround:

I did go ahead and add a couple lengths of wiring loom to approximate the weirdly narrow air lines feeding into the snoot:

I need an ever-so-slightly bigger size though.  They don't look quite right.

In the meantime, I just need to talk myself out of making the rest of the costume and doing an underwater cosplay photoshoot.  

It sounds like fun though, so I'll probably end up doing it anyway.  In fact, I should start training a manta ray now.

Stay tuned...

*Girls.  The other main thing was girls.

**FDM Stands for "Filament Deposition Modeling," the more common type of 3D printing for at-home users.  It tends to take a lot of time for larger parts, so I cut them into smaller parts so they can all be printed simultaneously to speed things up.

***Made you look.