When I first saw Adi Granov's Ironman Helmet design in the movie, I was overwhelmed by how he had designed something that looked so geometrically simple yet harbors such a high-tech sophisticated look.
Very naturally I seek to replicate that design for the sake of my own satisfaction.
I will also be taking this opportunity to share some of the key points I engage in when modeling hard surfaces as I had received a number of emails regarding how I go about modeling the Evangelion Eva heads which you can see here.
The principle is the same, the key is to "Tighten the Edges" to create that fantastic highlight catching edge fillet effect when the 3D model is subdivided. In an ideal world, the perfect 3D model is one which edges are all sharp fillets thereby allowing it to catch perfect highlights everyway it turns.
Please note that this principle should not apply when modeling LARGE scale buildings or anything huge as the fillet effect would end up giving your large scale buildings that vacuum form plastic toy model look.
The first thing one must do before any modeling begins is to obtain a decent schematic view of whatever you modeling.
However if you are as obsess with the movie version of the helmet design as me, you would have notice some small differences which I will not bother explaining, for what it's worth if you can't tell the different, you might as well use this image as this drawing originated from the designers themselves.
In my case, I prefer the way the cheek bone "structure" was designed in the final movie version.
I also would like to improve on the design consistency on the back of the helmet and to adjust the ratio of the helmet's frontal nose area curvature and a couple of other nick-knacks to fit the human facial proportion that I personally like, all in all very small changes but are things that matters to me.
P:S: Just in case you are curious, I have a short nose and I tend to draw my characters as such, in this case I had also altered the ratio of the helmet to reflect this. SORRY !
There's a lot of redrawings, refinements, blab bla bla but when all is said and done, these are the final line placements. Don't move on until your schematic is dead solid, this is very important for technical modeling, you can have more leeway for organic modeling when it comes to schematic accuracy.
Bring the schematic into your 3D modeling application; I will be using very basic tools so you can pretty much follow the workflow regardless of your application of choice. You can download this file containing my schematic drawing and the 3DS Max Schematic planes placement here.
The first thing I did was to create a place holder for the ear "tube", I did that because it was the only shape I am the most sure of, it's just a simple cylinder.
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The next thing to tackle is the cheek plate.
Edge Extrusion procedure for the Ironman Cheek Plate
This will be the first and last image to demonstrate what I am basically doing throughout the initial modeling process; I started out with a simple rectangular plane with symmetry mode on and I keep on extruding its edges and placing them in their rightful coordinates repeatedly until the entire structure is complete.
The basic frontal portions of the helmet completed using the method illustrated on the previous step along with some simple extrusions, nothing complicated, the only thing it takes is time.
Same goes for the basic back portion of the helmet.
In retrospect I guess I could have started out the back with a sphere but in this case it started life from a single rectangular plane like the rest of the helmet...oh my god the time I must have wasted tweaking those vertices to look like this when I could have just use a sphere and refine from there instead...
With the basic layout of the helmet complete, it is best to layout its UVs at this point, however I will not dwell into texturing as that is another topic unto itself.
Implement thickness to the back of the Helmet along with one extrusion.
The original Ironman Helmet concept was for this to be a two piece plate so that one can slide up inside another; I am not going to implement this as I do not see how the geometry can actually do that.
Added one more line to enhance the jaw area.
Added one more line alongside the already existing line pattern, implements overall thickness and extrude that thin area in. Cut a smaller square pattern at the corner using "insert" and then intrude and extrude the smaller polygon to create the bolt.
Implement thickness, tighten the edges, extrude the bolts completes the forehead of the helmet.
In retrospect I guess I could have started out the back with a sphere but in this case it started life from a single rectangular plane like the rest of the helmet...oh my god the time I must have wasted tweaking those vertices to look like this when I could have just use a sphere and refine from there instead...
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With the basic layout of the helmet complete, it is best to layout its UVs at this point, however I will not dwell into texturing as that is another topic unto itself.
Implement thickness to the back of the Helmet along with one extrusion.
The original Ironman Helmet concept was for this to be a two piece plate so that one can slide up inside another; I am not going to implement this as I do not see how the geometry can actually do that.
 |
Added one more line to enhance the jaw area.
 |
Added one more line alongside the already existing line pattern, implements overall thickness and extrude that thin area in. Cut a smaller square pattern at the corner using "insert" and then intrude and extrude the smaller polygon to create the bolt.
 |
Implement thickness, tighten the edges, extrude the bolts completes the forehead of the helmet.
Same goes for the jaw; thickness and edge tightening.
The cheek plate before and after edge tightening in subdivision mode. This is what I mean by Edge Tightening, simply adding one more edge alongside the existing edge.
Most often than not, the subdivision algorithm will not give you what you want, you may have to adjust the surrounding vertices a little to "appease" the algorithm.
Recreate the Ear geometry, start from a 16 section cylinder, chamfer the edge, then merge the points like so. Extrude and tighten the edges like so.
The eye is just a warped box that had its edge tighten for the edge fillet effect. [To be more exact, it's a hollow box with thickness so that when I implement the light material, it will diffuse the light correctly like a real physical lens.]
Normally, I like to keep my models perfect and clean, but for the sake of this tutorial, I shall match the dirty, battled look of the helmet as seen in the movie.
It shouldn't take you long into the tutorial to realize I've given an almost "holy grail" status to the Edge Fillet effect.
The matter of the fact is, to me, a 3D model with all its edges and intersections filleted is the pinnacle of 3D modeling perfection. This myth, however, had long been debunked by my very own observation. The truth is, by the time you add in all your dirt/rust map to your model, the fillet effect will cease to impress; their sole purpose, catching highlight, isn't really useful for dirt/rust 3D models anyway.
I have come to realize it is an obsession to me that I model like this, it puts a strain on my modeling time and can sometimes make the whole UV mapping process so much more complicated than it needs to be.
The cheek plate before and after edge tightening in subdivision mode. This is what I mean by Edge Tightening, simply adding one more edge alongside the existing edge.
Most often than not, the subdivision algorithm will not give you what you want, you may have to adjust the surrounding vertices a little to "appease" the algorithm.
 |
Recreate the Ear geometry, start from a 16 section cylinder, chamfer the edge, then merge the points like so. Extrude and tighten the edges like so.
 |  |
The eye is just a warped box that had its edge tighten for the edge fillet effect. [To be more exact, it's a hollow box with thickness so that when I implement the light material, it will diffuse the light correctly like a real physical lens.]
 |
Normally, I like to keep my models perfect and clean, but for the sake of this tutorial, I shall match the dirty, battled look of the helmet as seen in the movie.
It shouldn't take you long into the tutorial to realize I've given an almost "holy grail" status to the Edge Fillet effect.
The matter of the fact is, to me, a 3D model with all its edges and intersections filleted is the pinnacle of 3D modeling perfection. This myth, however, had long been debunked by my very own observation. The truth is, by the time you add in all your dirt/rust map to your model, the fillet effect will cease to impress; their sole purpose, catching highlight, isn't really useful for dirt/rust 3D models anyway.
I have come to realize it is an obsession to me that I model like this, it puts a strain on my modeling time and can sometimes make the whole UV mapping process so much more complicated than it needs to be.
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