In a project more than 15 years in the making, a team led by YouTuber Installation00 (aka Martin Smith) has built a “real” Mjolnir helmet from the acclaimed Halo video game franchise.
The helmet, worn by the series’ protagonist, Master Chief, is a stunning piece of work that would be at home in Halo’s recent big-budget television adaptation. Smith, in a lengthy video that dives into its creation – and shows off the finished product – calls the helmet a “fully functional prototype … made with as close to lore-accurate materials and functionality as humanly possible”.
There’s a laser-cut, polycarbonate visor; a working HUD system in the form of a Microsoft Hololens; a Wi-Fi relay; internal cooling; a HEPA class 15 air filtration system; unidirectional microphones with spatial audio support; side-mounted external flashlights; breathing tubes, a speaker driver that allows the wearer to talk – all surrounded by a sturdy aluminum frame with interior padding for boosted comfort.
Simply put, this helmet is the real deal – and Smith’s team put in the work to create it, first prototyping with both resin and FDM 3D printers before sending the helmet’s shell to PCBWay, where it was 3D printed in titanium. The interior frame models, meanwhile, were ordered through Craftcloud by All3DP and 3D printed in “aircraft-grade” aluminum.
The 3D printed pieces of the helmet’s shell were then post-processed by two Dorset, England-based companies. First, it was welded together by Elite Fabrication, then colored by Woodville Stretton, which predominantly focuses on automotive work. This put the finishing touches on the fully realized helmet, a now-cohesive unit broadly consisting of a titanium shell, aluminum frame, electronics, and Hololens. The entire process appears painstaking and resource-intensive and serves to elevate the final product into something beyond cosplay.
All of this is not to say, however, that Mjolnir will be forever inaccessible to would-be con-goers. In the video, Smith teases the forthcoming release of STLs and an instruction manual, which will allow anyone to create a scaled-down version of Mjolnir (without the metal frame, for instance) that is much better suited to convention halls (and ostensibly much kinder to creators’ wallets).
To support his endeavors, Smith has created both a Patreon and a GoFundMe. The Patreon, in particular, may interest Halo fans, as subscriptions net them Mjolnir-inspired merch such as posters, T-shirts, and mugs. And, of course, it goes without saying that watching Smith’s Mjolnir project video is more than worth your time, if only for the goosebumps you’ll get upon the helmet’s reveal to the iconic Halo theme.
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