I started the project with the focus on the keyword “upcycle”: to find something that had been laying around in my apartment without being used and were highly likely to end up in the trash in the near future. I found a helmet which belonged to my roommate with defects on it (the visor was gone). Industrial design of helmet has been very important for marketing any brand of helmets, here is an example of a cool helmet: 
Icon Airflite Battlescar 2 helmet
Then the Japanese anime Disastrous Life of Saiki K. struck my mind. The main character’s device he has on his head to suppress his super power is very cool to me. So I decided to make something that’s similar to it and put on the helmet. Here’s a picture of the anime:
A poster of Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
Before starting to gather tools I need, I sketches my idea first.
Here are some pictures of the materials that I used: super glue, foam, broken helmet, color sharpies, Q-tip stems, ping pong balls, and a utility knife. I painted the ping pongs and the cutted foam with the sharpies, and glued the everything together to the helmet with super glue.
The completed work looks like this:
Function goal: it’s intended to be a decoration in the garage. However one problem that I had during this project was that the super glue reacted with foam so the bond between foam and other objects were poor. So I’d only rate it 50% functioanl.
Artistic goal: the final product didn’t quite meet my original expectation. The black color doesn’t match the device’s white and pink colors.
Future plan: I’d like to improve it by using Solidworks to model the foam part and 3D print it. Then paint the part. Maybe I can use a functional helmet and use proper fasteners too.
Link to my presentation: https://youtu.be/Sh2lKQiiinA
Work cited
https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/icon-airflite-battlescar-2-helmet?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3b6X55y_4AIVFbbACh1MgQgUEAQYAiABEgJZhvD_BwE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disastrous_Life_of_Saiki_K.
8 Comments. Leave new
This is a fun idea and I love that it was made entirely out of objects you had around the house.
How creative of you to use these materials to create this art piece. I also liked your creativity and inspiration for this project.
Neat! What a creative use of an old helmet! You could almost create a Darth Vader or Kylo Ren helmet.
I wish you expanded the aesthetic to the helmet itself too. Maybe add color, introduce new elements, or even make cutouts. I really like how you decided to decorate a helmet, that was interesting.
It looks funny and I liked that. I would add some colors to the actual helmet to match the design. Good job!
It’s interesting you took two different aesthetics and put them together to make something really unique. The ping pong balls coming off of the helmet is definitely creative and look fun. If you were to repeat this, you could think about painting the base of the ping pong balls maybe.
This is super simplistic. I am not the biggest fan of the anime aesthetic, but I thought that this was an interesting way of integrating art into the anime inspiration.
I really liked how you used the ping pong balls and the sharpie to create the aesthetic of the character.