Professor X of the X-Men and his Cerebro helmet, as seen in the current “Krakoa Era” issues of X-Men.
For some reason the look of the helmet really grabbed me and I decided to model it. It was more difficult than I expected, but on the plus side it forced me to finally start learning and using the HardOps/BoxCutter bundle I had bought but had not even installed.
Another thing I had to deal with was all sorts of retopo issues. After all my futzing around, I managed to make a decent representation of the helmet, but the topology was hideous.
To fix this I used the remesh feature built into Blender. It technically worked, it made some nice looking quads out of the Frankenstein mess I had created, but they were not ideal quads, and the topology didn’t really flow the way I wanted.
I’ve resolved to work more on retopology in the future, as it really slowed my progress on this piece.
Yet another issue when dealing with these comic book projects is that getting all the angles of a certain thing can be a hassle. You only have what the artist chooses to draw in those panels.
Even more, you have different interpretations from different artists. For example some colorists choose to make the “X” across the helmet as a set of lenses, while other colorists color the whole shebang as if it’s all metal, which is fine for Professor X because he can use his powers to “see”.
Obviously I chose to make the “X” as if it were a solid lens, just because I thought it would be more dynamic.
Additionally, you never quite know what the materials are in these superhero suits. I’m not one for exacting realism, but I’d still like to know what the material is supposed to be at least to start with. I must have tried about a zillion different metallic textures and shaders before I settled on one.
I’m going to see if I can squeak out a good looking turntable on this thing in the near future.
Here’s some other rough renders as well:
