How to Make a Spartan Helmet out of Cardboard and Paper Mache

This spartan helmet is a nice little piece of medieval armor and it is made out of cereal boxes and paper mache. This project is a little bit challenging and it does take a few days because you really should apply at least three coats of paper mache allowing time to dry between coats. I allowed it to sit overnight and dry before I applied the next coat. This helmet is an interesting little piece of Medieval armor and it does look pretty good. I painted mine with spray paint in both gold and black. The video tutorial of this project is located near the bottom of this page.

This medieval helmet is composed of three templates that I have for you to download. They are in this Microsoft Word document: The Spartan Helmet You download this package (4 pages) print it up then you can use the templates to cut out the cereal box cardboard.

Note: If you are having trouble opening the Microsoft word document I have the three parts of this helmet as pictures that you can download and print out. Save these three documents to your computer, open them up with some kind of paint or photo program and print them up.

The Completed Helmet

This picture shows the completed helmet. I used Gold and black spray paint.

Do you like 30 Stuff? I have built a big diorama of the battle of Thermopylae - the hot gates, complete with spartans and persians. You can see the tutorial and a video here: The 300 Diorama

This is a pretty basic project but it does take some time to make. The materials you will need:

2 Cups of flour
2 cups of water
1 Tablespoon of Salt
Newspapers
Scissors
Masking Tape
2 Cereal Boxes
The Downloadable templates Located here
1 large balloon, blows up to the size of your head
Paints, I recommend gold and black spray paint
Note: If you are having trouble with the download I have the template as three pictures on a web page that you can copy and print out here Three picture template of spartan helmet

Download and print up the templates. Cut out the three shapes and then transfer the shapes to the cereal box cardboard. Then tape them all together as shown in the picture below and try it on your head to make sure it fits well, adjust the cardboard as needed. Make it roomy enough to fit your head inside with a little to spare because of the added dimension of the paper mache.

Next put a balloon in the middle. Your head is not a perfect sphere so put the balloon with the blow up nozzle toward the back of the helmet and wrap some tape around the whole thing so it squashes the helmet a bit and makes it a little narrower from side to side.

To Make Paper Mache:

Cut up plenty of newspaper into 1 inch and 2 inch strips. Now, in a bowl add 2 cups flour, 2 cups water, and 1 tablespoon of salt and mix it up until it is like very liquidy pancake batter. you dip the strips in this, clean off the excess from the strips and apply them to the helmet. Make sure your strips overlap each other a lot! You are creating a hard shell.

The paper mache is done

This picture shows the helmet after three coats of paper mache. I applied one thick coat and let it dry overnight, I applied a second coat and once again let it dry overnight. I finally applied a third coat and let it dry. I recommend you do four coats if you want it to be durable.

You will notice, particularly with the first coat of paper mache that the shape of the helmet will distort a bit. You can use this to your advantage and get the shape of the helmet to look really good. The long curving sections at the bottom of the helmet are a good example of this.

The painted helmet The only thing left, once it dries, is to paint it. I used cans of spary paint black and gold. I painted the whole thing in gold then spattered black for highlighting.

Interested in Medieval Armor and Helmets?

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