“Alive” Daft Punk Guy Manuel Costume
Halloween 2022, 1-Day Build
Ever since I took a stab at creating a Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter helmet for Halloween in 2018, I’ve wanted to create the Guy Manuel helmet as well. In 2021, after being together for 30 years, the duo finally separated. As a tribute to how much influence this band had on me, I wanted to complete the Guy Manuel helmet for Halloween.
For a 1 day build, I didn’t have the capacity to 3d model the helmet for unrolling; I purchased a low poly template from Etsy and used chipboard for some quick laser cutting. Using a ton of hot glue, I got the helmet to a rough shape in just a few hours.
The back of the helmet was interesting as it is supposed to be exposed wires that showcase the “Brain.” I ended up taping and hot gluing a bunch of red, black, and yellow wire ties together.
As for the visor, I used acrylic sheets and created two layers. The outer layer was treated with a car headlamp tint spray, and the inner layer was treated with black Plastidip in all areas except for where the eyes were to minimize how much light gets onto the wearer’s face.
It took me a while to decide on the theme for the rest of the costume. I didn’t want to do too much with LED this year since it was a 1-day build. Ultimately, I decided on the 2007 Alive concert look.
The rest of the chipboard was sprayed with Plastidip and a layer of gloss to mimic the ALIVE look. 16' of EL wire was glued on, weaving in and out of the helmet at critical edges. At first, I was hesitant to add EL wire to the helmet as it was in pristine condition, and there were no hot glue marks on the exterior. But after 1 loop around the visor (minimizing the use of hot glue), I had the technique down. It started to give the helmet some edge details and covered up some of the rough edges of the chipboard.
The finished helmet looked great. For a 1 day build, I was extremely pleased. Viewers cannot see the wearer’s eyes, but the wearer can see out, though a bit. Amazingly, these guys wore their respective helmets to walk on stage to receive their Emmy. The EL lights highlighted the helmet's distinct look with the large visor and circular ears.
To finish up, I added another 16' of EL wire to a sweater using safety pins (which took about 3 hours) and just wore the same gloves as my Thomas helmet build.
The project came together quite well, especially since it was a 1-day build. We’ll see how it performs when I visit my friends later on. I hope to create more helmets in the future. For the time being, I’ll take pleasure in knowing that I was able to complete both Daft Punk helmets.
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