York Helmet

In the summer of 2023, I was on a craze consuming Viking history. Thus inspired, I had the goal of creating a short film about an Anglo-Saxon soldier going to war amid a Viking invasion. It was to be set around the 9th century C.E., and since my main character was to be an Anglo-Saxon, I figured I needed to give him a fitting helmet. I started by doing my research on time-fitting Anglo-Saxon helmets. I found a few options, including the Sutton Hoo helmet.

Sutton Hoo Helmet/Wikipedia

I quickly decided to pivot and sacrifice some historical integrity in the favor of design, when I stumbled upon the York Helmet.

York Helmet/Yorkshire Museum

The York Helmet is the best preserved of all the Anglo-Saxon helmets, and you, upon looking at it, can see the beauty it once was. I immediately began development by getting the shape of the helmet correct, modeled around a base model from a game.

I then, with the helmet shape achieved (after much refinement), moved to complete the chainmail. This gave me a perfect opportunity to work with Blender’s Geometry Nodes, and I ended up with this final graph which turned a plane into chainmail.

Finally, I moved from Blender to Substance Painter where I textured my model (complete with bakes from Marmoset Toolbag). I did my final renders in Marmoset, having achieved a level of realism I was happy with.