Maybe it's lame, but I'm proud of it. 120 man hours, starting with flat metal mostly 14g steel, except for the grill which is 11g ....
:) The "making of" photos got exposed, take 3 grandkids and a pumpkin patch.. a touchy camera and a half finished roll of film, well bad things are just bound to happen. So I bummed a cheap (and I mean cheap) digital camera and snapped off some pics.
I thought I'd share them with the people I view as friends.





More disclaimers: This has been fought in for a few weeks and is
a little dulled out (I really need to polish the brass again)
Hopefully I'll get a new set of pics up before it gets smashed in.
I got 2 commissions off it already though, getting ready to start a
new one soon. Logic says use it as a show piece and wear the old helm
(The old helm is not near as pretty, but only half the weight, this one is 11 1/2 pounds eeeek!)

There just decided to throw this in for no real reason whatsoever.
(Hooray off topic stuff!)

But what the hell are you doing that requires head gear? Your disclaimer of being fought in and dented has me worried. Im picturing some CF geek beating on his little brother who is wearing a suit of medieval platemail.

On a related note, there are two brothers where I live who make armor for hollywood sets. They did all the designs for Beuwulf/Grendal...and a bunch of other movies I have forgotten. Think they have gotten an Academy Award for designs. BIG MONEY in it. So if you get your 120 hours down, you might be RICH, cause your helmet looks pretty good.

smittenger(I know I misspelled that)? or valentines perhaps?

I'm sure my brother would have a blast at it, other than that and CF geek you are pretty close to dead on. :) A whole different kind of geek.
My other hobby is to pretend I'm a half breed Irish-dane during the whole viking era. Though the suit I had been fighting in for about a year before that was pretty much a 13th century rig though I'm moving it all back in time a piece by piece.

A little bit on the 120 hrs, I can cut it WAY down. That was my first helm so I spent alot of extra time trying to get it just like I wanted, and of course backtracking to fix mistakes etc...

I figure if I don't add the brasswork, and don't give it the bronze look, and leave alot of it with the original bit of blackening I had on it (minus the faceplate which I'd have to polish no matter what.)
I can probably get it down to under 60 hours (40 is likely, but I don't want to push it.) and I can probably sell one for about 450 bucks easy.
After building a name for myself if I add the brasswork as an option I could go as high as 750 for one like mine. Armoring as a business isn't really viable, when you consider how few people there are who want real armor AND are willing to pay for it... Unless you can do things like machine dishing blah blah blah, and have it assembly line cranked out, OR if you get a name as an 'artist' ... well other than that you pretty much have a poor paying second job, or leave it as a hobby. hehe. I LIKE doing it so I'll leave it as a hobby I'm thinking, but I keep taking commissions 'cause I get offered a nifty new project idea or well when I'm offered the right price.. hahaha.
I'm rambling again, obviously I've been up too long. I'm glad you like it though. It's my favorite current "toy".

Back to work for me. (went to edit and forgot what I was going to edit Gak!)