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I know this might be a bit of a tedious thing to do, but has anyone ever tried making a removable helmet for a Space Marine? It couldn’t be that hard all that would anyone would have to do is assemble a space marine with a bare head, hollow out a hole in a helmet and leave the hole just big enough to slip over the marines head. Has anyone thought up this before?

The question arises immediately...

Why?

I've seen it done with the large FW space marine, but I don't think there is much point on the regular scale ones.

BloodDrop101X wrote:I know this might be a bit of a tedious thing to do, but has anyone ever tried making a removable helmet for a Space Marine? It couldn’t be that hard all that would anyone would have to do is assemble a space marine with a bare head, hollow out a hole in a helmet and leave the hole just big enough to slip over the marines head. Has anyone thought up this before?

I made a custom Star Wars miniature for a guy once. He wanted a Mandalorian Female with a removable helmet. I had to make her hair in a poney tail, but it worked out. I hollowed out the helmet very carefully with a dremel.

Why not? I think I might try it, to me it just seemed like something no one thought up before, and I wondered if anybody had or would be willing to try it. I know it would be hard, and I'm sure the helmet would be pretty fragile after having been hollowed out a bit, and it could be lost easily but I think it might be worth a shot to try it. Besides I have plenty of spare Space Marine helmets in my bits bag as it is.

I cant imagine painting an entire model, then having a plastic piece rubbing against part of it every time I took it off. It would wear the paint and the plastic down.

I did not even think of that, Im sure a good coat of clear coat would fix that. This was just a thought and I wouldnt be putting the helemt on and taking it off all the time anyway. I though this up because I have a commander marine and I couldn't decide wether or not to have him bare-headed or not, and figured this could be an alternative to that problem but oh well thanks for the C&C guys.

Magnetize the neck and paint two heads.

I've done a version of it on two different models. Neither is actually to be put on or off the marine, but are part of the basing and intended to be seen as open on the inside to receive the head.

They both worked out fine, but I don't think I'd want to be taking the helmet on and off a figure for the reasons already stated.

Anyone remember the Ultramarine Champion model based on Maximus from Gladiator. It had interchangable heads .. and looked 1 million awesomes.

http://miniature-art.tripod.com/maximus/id2.html
http://www.coolminiornot.com/82

This could work if the helmet is actually larger than the bare head (but I'd confirm that) I did hollow out a Cadian head for the helmet (I didn't know there was an empty helmet bit at the time) and put it on a kroot shaper. Same thing here, slow and cautious work with a dremel

I have.
With a SM beaky helmet and a guard sgt head.

SM bare shouty heads don't fit inside their helmets. The ego expands when they remove them and they have to have some holes poked into them to let them put the helmets back on.

Drilled out the helmet (including milling out the front of the hole into a more wedge shape - it also stops the helmet rotating too much).

Way too time consuming to be worthwhile for a whole army, but it can be done. With the right tools and skills.

Why not paint two heads and magnetize them?

What is it with magnetising everything? Things such as heads really don't warrent it - just pin them.

I tried it a while ago for a reason I have now forgotten. What I do remember was that helmet becomes far too thin once it actually fits over the head, and snaps quite easily.

SilverMK2 wrote:What is it with magnetising everything? Things such as heads really don't warrent it - just pin them.

Indeed - magnets are 'spensive and you are all silly-wiggins.

It would fall off and you'd spend half the game looking for it

Yeah I hate magnetizing stuff and I quit doing that my termies always are losing their arms! Pinning works, I think I'll try that out with the two different heads idea, and I only planned the removabe helmet for one mini in particular, my Champion Marine/Sergeant, but Ill try disassembly on him, and see if I can get a pin in where his head was and do some re-painting to finnish him back up.

SilverMK2 wrote:What is it with magnetising everything? Things such as heads really don't warrent it - just pin them.

But... but.... I have all these magnets!

One nice thing about tiny magnetized parts over pinned. If they fall on the ground they're easy to find, it also gives you the option of storing the spare in a different way.