Too Much Garlic
Master Member
Interesting to see the differences in approach, style and execution.
Original ANH Stormtrooper helmet and Armor - Just the Facts
- Thread starter Brian Muir
- Start date
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- star wars a new hope
Qui-Gonzalez
Master Member
Was the Pemberton as bumpy as it looks in that pic? I mean, it really is rather shoddy in appearance.
Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
Timeline of Ainsworth’s changing history
Two articles that were set up as links on Ainsworth’s SDS website under
‘Frequently Asked Questions’
2005 Article featured in Model and Collectors Mart – February 2005
(Talking about his involvement in Star Wars)
I took on the work to subsidise the work on my cars which took a lot of money. I used to give friends of mine a hand to paint scenery and one of them was a friend of John Mollo (costume designer on Star Wars). John asked him if he could make something 3 dimensional which he didn’t know how to do , but he knew a man who could…. and I’m the man who could!
He brought over some images and colour plates from John Mollo and said ‘Can you make this?’. So I knocked him up something very quickly. I thought it was for his kids or something. It was a fairly early effort and I knocked out about half a dozen Stormtrooper helmets. My friend then said ‘Well actually they’re not for me. They’re for a film for John Mollo. Here’s the contact if anything comes of it just buy me a drink. He certainly got that drink.
I think what happened next was that George Lucas took them back to America. Got the film funded. Came back and said, ‘We like that. We’ll have a lot more!’ John Mollo then got in touch with us directly and realised we could produce anything in any format overnight and away we went.
Feature – Collectible Stormtrooper Helmets Rebelscum.com: Rebelscum Home Page
At the beginning of January in 1976 Mollo approached Shepperton Design Studios with a vague brief – to produce a plastic helmet – and a copy of one of McQuarrie’s final proofs. Working from scratch Ainsworth built a clay sculpt of the helmet, broke it up into castable parts and pulled sheets of heated acrrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastic using a vacuum pump. The completed helmet was rushed to John Mollo who passed it to Lucas. So pleased with the job, Lucas requested that Mollo ordered 62 helmets and the body armour suits (56 stunt Stormtroopers and 6 hero Stormtroopers to go with them.
2007 Ainsworth’s final statement for court case
52. Nick said that a customer of his had asked him to produce a helmet as a prop for an actor to wear. Nick said that his customer had given him 2 pictures to guide him and he showed me the helmet made out of clay which he said he had produced.
69. My recollection is that I had an accident with Nick’s helmet early on in which the helmet was destroyed. It was the result of the rush involved in producing the helmets.
71. I had spent a lot of time thinking about how I would make the helmet. I could have made it in lots of different ways. I did not have to do it by vacuum-forming sheets of ABS material. I could have cast it in polyurethane or resins or rotationally moulded it, or slush moulded it, but these methods would have required more expensive and time consuming techniques. I decided to knock up some tools using the method taught by the foundry in order to produce a vacuum-formed helmet.
(If he had ‘destroyed ‘ the clay helmet as he says then why was he supposedly comtemplating any sort of moulding?)
2010 Ainsworth’s new website Original Stormtrooper: genuine, authentic, quality
Nick was approached by the Star Wars 'buyer' to make various helmets and ancillary items for the film. As Nick recalls, 'the film was just another no hoper'; he was also very busy at the time on a large puppetry job for Tyne Tees television in Newcastle.
Nevertheless he took the job on, with the intention of convincing Andrew to produce the characters as Nick was impressed with the plastic moulding techniques that Andrew was developing, just a couple of doors away (see image below).
Nick's diary states that at first, he only had contact with George Lucas, as at that early stage, there really wasn't anyone else - John Mollo (ANH Costume Designer) had not been employed at that stage - and in any event Mollo`s remit did not include the Stormtrooper.
The diary entry Ainsworth mentions - no mention of Lucas - the very sketchy diary was used to try to find a timeline but this is about as detailed as it gets.
(John Mollo and John Barry both started on the film on 15th December 1975 and Pemberton wasn’t contacted until January 6th 1976)
In 1976, Andrew Ainsworth and his friend Nick Pemberton were living in Twickenham, London. Nick, a successful scenic artist, had been given the go ahead by George Lucas to produce the Stormtrooper helmets for ANH. Now it was down to Andrew to create the helmet prototype.
"I made no sketches, no models, no engineering drawings.I sculpted the production moulds directly, using my own blends of resins, fillers and metal dusts. The production moulds were the sculptures - they were positives,negatives and reverse engineered. They incorporated undercuts and tumblehomes and produced a moulded finished article that caught the highlights and shadows of an organically formed being. It wrapped around the body as if it had grown." Andrew Ainsworth describing his approach to sculpting the Stormtrooper helmet mould in 1976.
Andrew's task was to take his friend Nick's clay model and Ralph McQuarrie's concept drawings and sculpt the moulds which would form the iconic white plastic helmets worn by the Stormtroopers in ANH. Andrew recalls "The concept drawings from Ralph McQuarrie suggested that the Stormtrooper was a futuristic being that had evolved through continuous genetic modification, and perhaps able to operate in adverse pungent climatic conditions. The helmet would therefore be able to filter noxious gases and the armour be so flexible that it could have actually grown on the character that way - much the same as an armadillo has natural armour."
It was obvious to Andrew that no joins or fabricated parts should be seen, the character should be homogeneous and so the head must flow into the body and be undercut to disguise any suggestion of an actor inside the costume. The surface of the character was to be hard and protective, but flexible with a smooth, slick finish. The drawing suggested a silver, metallic look. Producing a prototype with all these features would be a challenge, given the non-paying, speculative nature of the job.
Two articles that were set up as links on Ainsworth’s SDS website under
‘Frequently Asked Questions’
2005 Article featured in Model and Collectors Mart – February 2005
(Talking about his involvement in Star Wars)
I took on the work to subsidise the work on my cars which took a lot of money. I used to give friends of mine a hand to paint scenery and one of them was a friend of John Mollo (costume designer on Star Wars). John asked him if he could make something 3 dimensional which he didn’t know how to do , but he knew a man who could…. and I’m the man who could!
He brought over some images and colour plates from John Mollo and said ‘Can you make this?’. So I knocked him up something very quickly. I thought it was for his kids or something. It was a fairly early effort and I knocked out about half a dozen Stormtrooper helmets. My friend then said ‘Well actually they’re not for me. They’re for a film for John Mollo. Here’s the contact if anything comes of it just buy me a drink. He certainly got that drink.
I think what happened next was that George Lucas took them back to America. Got the film funded. Came back and said, ‘We like that. We’ll have a lot more!’ John Mollo then got in touch with us directly and realised we could produce anything in any format overnight and away we went.
Feature – Collectible Stormtrooper Helmets Rebelscum.com: Rebelscum Home Page
At the beginning of January in 1976 Mollo approached Shepperton Design Studios with a vague brief – to produce a plastic helmet – and a copy of one of McQuarrie’s final proofs. Working from scratch Ainsworth built a clay sculpt of the helmet, broke it up into castable parts and pulled sheets of heated acrrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastic using a vacuum pump. The completed helmet was rushed to John Mollo who passed it to Lucas. So pleased with the job, Lucas requested that Mollo ordered 62 helmets and the body armour suits (56 stunt Stormtroopers and 6 hero Stormtroopers to go with them.
2007 Ainsworth’s final statement for court case
52. Nick said that a customer of his had asked him to produce a helmet as a prop for an actor to wear. Nick said that his customer had given him 2 pictures to guide him and he showed me the helmet made out of clay which he said he had produced.
69. My recollection is that I had an accident with Nick’s helmet early on in which the helmet was destroyed. It was the result of the rush involved in producing the helmets.
71. I had spent a lot of time thinking about how I would make the helmet. I could have made it in lots of different ways. I did not have to do it by vacuum-forming sheets of ABS material. I could have cast it in polyurethane or resins or rotationally moulded it, or slush moulded it, but these methods would have required more expensive and time consuming techniques. I decided to knock up some tools using the method taught by the foundry in order to produce a vacuum-formed helmet.
(If he had ‘destroyed ‘ the clay helmet as he says then why was he supposedly comtemplating any sort of moulding?)
2010 Ainsworth’s new website Original Stormtrooper: genuine, authentic, quality
Nick was approached by the Star Wars 'buyer' to make various helmets and ancillary items for the film. As Nick recalls, 'the film was just another no hoper'; he was also very busy at the time on a large puppetry job for Tyne Tees television in Newcastle.
Nevertheless he took the job on, with the intention of convincing Andrew to produce the characters as Nick was impressed with the plastic moulding techniques that Andrew was developing, just a couple of doors away (see image below).
Nick's diary states that at first, he only had contact with George Lucas, as at that early stage, there really wasn't anyone else - John Mollo (ANH Costume Designer) had not been employed at that stage - and in any event Mollo`s remit did not include the Stormtrooper.
The diary entry Ainsworth mentions - no mention of Lucas - the very sketchy diary was used to try to find a timeline but this is about as detailed as it gets.
(John Mollo and John Barry both started on the film on 15th December 1975 and Pemberton wasn’t contacted until January 6th 1976)
In 1976, Andrew Ainsworth and his friend Nick Pemberton were living in Twickenham, London. Nick, a successful scenic artist, had been given the go ahead by George Lucas to produce the Stormtrooper helmets for ANH. Now it was down to Andrew to create the helmet prototype.
"I made no sketches, no models, no engineering drawings.I sculpted the production moulds directly, using my own blends of resins, fillers and metal dusts. The production moulds were the sculptures - they were positives,negatives and reverse engineered. They incorporated undercuts and tumblehomes and produced a moulded finished article that caught the highlights and shadows of an organically formed being. It wrapped around the body as if it had grown." Andrew Ainsworth describing his approach to sculpting the Stormtrooper helmet mould in 1976.
Andrew's task was to take his friend Nick's clay model and Ralph McQuarrie's concept drawings and sculpt the moulds which would form the iconic white plastic helmets worn by the Stormtroopers in ANH. Andrew recalls "The concept drawings from Ralph McQuarrie suggested that the Stormtrooper was a futuristic being that had evolved through continuous genetic modification, and perhaps able to operate in adverse pungent climatic conditions. The helmet would therefore be able to filter noxious gases and the armour be so flexible that it could have actually grown on the character that way - much the same as an armadillo has natural armour."
It was obvious to Andrew that no joins or fabricated parts should be seen, the character should be homogeneous and so the head must flow into the body and be undercut to disguise any suggestion of an actor inside the costume. The surface of the character was to be hard and protective, but flexible with a smooth, slick finish. The drawing suggested a silver, metallic look. Producing a prototype with all these features would be a challenge, given the non-paying, speculative nature of the job.
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defstartrooper
Sr Member
The guy's more slippery than an eel in a bucket full of KY jelly.
clayslinger
Well-Known Member
The helmet made of component parts i.e. Pemberton's - shows it is done by someone who does not understand a drawing.
Quoted for truth!
I see what they are doing and it's laughable to imagine that crap-tacular interpretation EVER seeing the light of day.
I get the whole industrial design claim but it's inexcusable to plagiarize someone else's work.
I correct myself. It's not plagiarism, it's flat out theft claiming the work that is not your own.
What's next, God told him to make a Stormtrooper helmet and it fortunately coincided with the film?
Surely Brian, tell me this has killed any other film work this guy will ever do.
Chuck...
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clayslinger
Well-Known Member
In principal I agree with you.
When you're standing in a freezing warehouse with numb,chapped hands from working in water clay all day, to have to wait for "All things to be considered" is a pain in the ass.:lol
Chuck...
When you're standing in a freezing warehouse with numb,chapped hands from working in water clay all day, to have to wait for "All things to be considered" is a pain in the ass.:lol
Chuck...
Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
For the court case Ainsworth put forward films he worked on after Star Wars :-
1.Alien - said he produced the Alien costume - lied - well documented in Giger's book that he couldn't do it - Giger makes mention of him by name and not very complimentary - the plasterers had to redo the moulds he mucked up (in the judgement)
2.Outlander - said he designed the helmet with no drawing - lied - it was designed by John Mollo who supplied him with a drawing (in the judgement)
3.Cadbury's Smash Advert - said he designed the famous Cadbury Smash aliens - lied -they were designed 2 or 3 years before the project he worked on (in the judgement)
He then went back to building canoes.
Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
I'm trying to understand this.
Is Ainsworth claiming here that after seeing McQuarrie's conceptual drawing of just the helmet he came up with the design of the organic armadillo armour all on his own, overnight, of course?
When did McQuarrie paint this?
Ralph McQuarrie did these paintings for Lucas which were then used to get the film financed by 20th Century Fox - I'm not sure when the paintings were done but think it was 1975
This is an interview with the very humble and talented Ralph McQuarrie
Painting by Design
Producer David O. Selznick first coined the term "production designer" to describe William Cameron Menzies' contributions to Gone with the Wind. In many ways, McQuarrie's role on Star Wars very much echoed what Menzies did -- he drew everything, and the production scrupulously adhered to those drawings when setting up shots. Which leads to an interesting paradox: Although he was the primary visual conceptualist on Star Wars, McQuarrie doesn't consider himself a designer. Why? "Because I didn't work at it," the artist says. "But then Star Wars included the sort of stylized design I was interested in when I was at Art Center College of Design, which I never had a chance to work on commercially prior to Star Wars. It sort of wound up being mine because I was given the privilege of designing the sets, the costumes and everything else in the paintings I did for George's presentation to Fox." He continues, "George and I didn't think the stuff that I did would necessarily be in the film, but he wanted me to show him what I thought would be an ideal solution for each scene. And it turned out he took those paintings along when he went to England to talk to the crew who designed the sets and costumes. And there they were, these paintings I'd done, up on the wall. I think they presented a pretty concise image of what the film could look like, so George could say, 'This is what I want.' They used quite a lot of what I had done in their designs."
CSMacLaren
Sr Member
As the resident kilt-wearer here, I thought you were Mexican! :lol
CSMacLaren
Sr Member
Yes, he was a dummy. :angel
Does that meant that anyone who recasts an Ainsworth helmet is, in fact, recasting the man himself? :lol
The image of him smearing plasticine on himself to look better in Court just made my day. :lol
CSMacLaren
Sr Member
Good observations. In addition, Pemberton interpreted surfaces that were meant to be recessed and sculpted them as bulging out. In other words he wasn't correctly interpreting the 3D qualities implied by the drawing. Gosh, I'm glad they went with Liz' sculpt.
Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
Double post 
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Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
Exactly the point I was getting at Mac :thumbsup Any sculptor with any ability would be able to read what was negative and what was positive. As I've shown with Liz's work she was a very proficient professional sculptor.
Ralph McQuarrie's concept painting
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Qui-Gonzalez
Master Member
Puerto Rican, Mac. I'll give you a pass, since you did not know. :angry
Seriously though, I want to see a face pulled from that ugly cement block he says is a mold.
Too Much Garlic
Master Member
Yes, that would definitely be quite telling.
You can't be serious?! That's just insulting!
So what are Ainsworth's intentions? Why is he doing this?
It's completely obvious he's lying, what is he hoping to gain from this shameful public display of deception?
Is it greed? Does he really profit that much from the sale of misappropriated helmets and armour?
Is it vindictiveness? Does he feel that he wasn't sufficiently compensated for his limited amount of work?
So, who is going to be the first to make that basketball version of the TIE pilot? He looks depressed :lol
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