Tron Betrayal: Kevin Flynn, Part 1

While Daft Punk continues to shape up, I'm taking on a side project during the lull periods (while I wait for rubber, or while it's too cold to fiberglass, stuff like that). Prior to the release of Tron Legacy, Marvel Comics released a two-part comic prequel to the movie, highlighting the evolution of the Grid and Flynn's early days of "new management" in the system. It also serves to add to CLU's story of how he got to where he was at the beginning of the movie (though it doesn't complete the story; the video game Tron Evolution fills in more of the gaps). Throughout both issues (and the video game, and even in some of the flashback sequences of the movie), Kevin Flynn's Grid outfit consists of "Trony" pants (with raised details and glowy bits), a dark gray shirt, and a black jacket that has a single lighted band down the front as it's primary detail.

© Marvel Comics.

In one particular panel, he is wearing a helmet while riding his light cycle, and this same helmet is seen being worn by anonymous grid game combatants. Certain details in the comics, as well as the fact that Sam's helmet in the movie was the same as the other gladiators, we can assume that there are generic style helmets in the new Tron world, and that this is one of them.

© Marvel Comics.

© Marvel Comics.

I started my work by producing a quick sketch of the helmet as I perceived it from the details in the comic, and then I produced a set of blueprints in Adobe Illustrator. I'll state right now that the shape of the side profile was changed in the 3D model stage from what you see in these blueprints, so my final product will not exactly match the blueprints.

©2010-2011 David Reimer. Please do not redistribute without permission.

From there I built a 3D model in Rhino 3D. When I built the 3D model, I originally built it according to the blueprints. However, I found that something was off about the overall shape of it, so I skewed it front to back to give it more of the look that the helmet in the side view in the comic has. It didn't need to be skewed much, but just breaking the overall rectangular shape really helped out. You can't really see it from this image, though.

Continuing onward, I brought the 3D model into Pepakura and produced a foldable paper model. I didn't think about this by the time the model was ready to print, but I had to do a little math to scale the helmet because I have a molding rim modeled onto it that counts toward the overall height of the model (in Pepakura, you scale a model according to it's height). And that's where I'm at right now. I haven't printed it out yet, and what you see represents about 7 hours of work so far.

Please note: I will not be distributing this Pepakura model. As I've stated before, I consider the Pepakura model to be like a "clay model" stage, and thus is not intended to be a final product. Please do not ask for the Pepakura file, as you will not receive it.