How to Draw a Gladiator Helmet

artist drawing

It takes practice to be a good illustrator, especially if you are drawing straight from your imagination. However, almost anyone can learn to draw well if they stick at it. Drawing a gladiator helmet is different from other helmets as they often contain a lot of detail. The more you draw them better you will get, so you should start out drawing an easy design and then when you get better move on to progressively more complex shapes.

Things You'll Need

• White paper
• Pencil
• Eraser

Instructions

1. Draw the outline of the shape of the helmet using a soft pencil. There is no set design for gladiator helmets, however, the most typical gladiator helmets were quite rounded with a lot of face protection compared to medieval helmets. Draw very lightly so that your pencil marks can easily be erased. Draw the rounded part of the helmet that covers the head. This extends over the entire top of the head down to the ears and to the top of the neck. You will of course only be drawing it from one angle so decide from which direction you wish to see the helmet.

2. Add the internal features of the gladiator's helmet to the rounded head protection. These features will include the eye and breathing holes. Start off by drawing the face guard. It is semi-circular in shape and extends from the eyes to the chin. The eye area would have large round holes to see through. Gladiator helmets typically have a lot of small large breathing holes so include these in the face guard. Unlike most helmet of the day, gladiator helmets nearly always covered the entire face. Keep this in mind when drawing the general outline of the helmet.

3. Add shading to the eye and breathing holes. Simply color them in with the pencil. Also begin to draw finer details like bolts that might be holding the helmet together. These would be positioned where the face guard meets the round head protection. This depends, of course, on the design. Many helmets had no bolts at all if they were forged from one piece of steel and gladiator helmets usually had no fasteners. These kind of details, however, give a drawing realism, so put in as much detail as possible.

4. Finish the helmet. Add the finest details to the helmet. If you want the helmet to have any engravings, draw them now. You will also want your helmet to look 3-D, so gently shade the helmet so that the curves look more pronounced. To achieve this, simply shade the parts of the helmet that are indented and leave the more curved areas including the tip unshaded.

References

• Storm the Castle: How to draw metal for swords, weapons, armor sheilds and more

Resources

• How to Draw it: How to Draw it