First it took me two days to create the pattern but I made it ! I used pictures from the 1995 series as reference, but since it is old animation the Eva never looks the same from one shot to another I had to get help from my 1996 action figure to figure out the right shape. My action figure died in the process of building this helmet, it fell to the floor and it lost its horn and right arm. RIP.
After a week of fierce battle against this project, it is finally done and I am quite pleased with the finished build. I did not use any power tools (other than a heat-gun) and I don't own an airbrush so this is 100% hand-painted. I found a neon green zipper that I put on the back of the helmet, so it is easy to put on !
If you want to make your own, you can find the free pattern for the Eva unit 01's helmet in the Patterns and blueprints section of the blog. I tried to make the pattern so that it can make sense to anyone other than me, but if you happen to struggle using it feel free to contact me, I'll gladly help.
Now I also realize I chose to build the most complicated Eva Unit head, so building Unit 00 or 02 should be a piece of cake after this one. Maybe I'll make both !
And now, if you're not yet tired of reading me, I'm going to explain shortly how I made the Eva Unit 01 head.
First I figured that if I built the entire thing in one go I was going to have a hard time painting it once assembled. So, I built in sections, first the side wing, then the top wing, the horn and the lower jaw.
The side wing is super easy to assemble, but I thought it was a bit sad to have this huge flat surface so I added some panel lines for it to be less boring. The reactors are basically boxes with weird shapes but pretty easy to put together. Then I just glued the reactors to the underside of the wing, and done !
I used 10 mm HD foam for the horn. I cut a "trench" in the length of the horn pieces so that I could fit a wooden dowel to reinforce the horn and give it stability. Imagine Unit 01 with a wobbly horn, no, no ! I also wanted the horn to be removable for storage so the wooden dowel was a great solution.
The lower jaw is fairly easy to put up together, it is built like a box. For the teeth I used 2 mm EVA foam (you build them like small boxes) and then I filled them up with foam clay for more stability. That way I avoided bevel cuts on very small pieces. I used the same technique on the green chin piece.
The main piece, so basically the head, is a bit more tricky.
I have a very small head so I can put this helmet on without opening the zipper. However, the zipper was useful when I was using my foam head (his name is Oscar by the way) because Oscar is bigger than me and I could not just slide the helmet onto him like I do onto myself. (And if you want to build your own foam head as well, I recommend Punished Props Academy's pattern)
So when you're building the Eva's head, you want to first glue the zipper to the two back pieces because it's going to be way harder to achieve after you've already glued the back pieces to the rest of the head.
The front of the head was a lot of fun to put together. There is a lot of bevel cuts so I hope the pattern I created is clear enough for you, but you should end up with a shape like shown below, with little antennas sticking out on the top. The little antennas are where you are going to glue the top wing later.
I recommend you assemble everything in that order : head, lower jaw, side wing, top wing and horn. It will be much easier to paint.
If you have any questions about this project, don't hesitate to contact me. I make mistakes and forget stuff, but I'm always happy to help !
