Don Post Classic Action Vader Modifications/Upgrades

Hey all! I recently acquired a DPCA Vader helmet a few days ago for $170 (can't afford Bookface's and CSMacLaren"s Vader yet unfortunately) off of eBay. It came repainted and with some parts replaced, but I knew that that would be the case when I bought it. The painting on the face-mask is alright, but the dome has an awful lot of orange peeling, which probably shouldn't bother me, but it does. I suppose it's slightly better than the stock matte black paint, though, as this one's kinda glossy. In terms of fixing it, I've been considering wet-sanding it, then repainting it, but I wouldn't know how to go about doing it. A lot of pieces are also sloppily hot-glued down (not really visible from the outside) and a lot of the original padding of the stock helmet was ripped out, my guess is so he could insert replacement grills. I think a good start would be by buying new tusks, grills, and lenses from Fenixprops. I would love the advice from other members on how to add to the helmet in terms of paint, though, such as how to get that sort of movie finish Vader had in ESB. Luckily mines didn't come with crazy neck flare, but rather the opposite, and reminds me slightly of ROTS for some reason. Anyways, here's some pics of the exterior (taken from 6 ft away and slightly zoomed in, thank you CSMacLaren) showing how the helmet looks with 3 lights hitting it (2 from front, 1 from right corner). I'll post some interior shots and shots of the top, sides, and back of the helmet later. Sorry guys, I'm kinda a newbie when it comes to this, I've done a lotta research on Vader helmets, but have never really owned one till now. Any advice or tips would be appreciated!

Sorry about the sideways pics, I'm not sure how to fix that on here.

Oh gosh, it's been a while! Well for those viewing this, I ended up cleaning the inside of the helmet a bit, so it's less disgusting-looking, i cleaned the hot glue glops off of the grills and interior of the mask, as well as behind the lenses. Got it off using rubbing alcohol, lots of it. Sorry I don't have any pictures to upload, but my gmail was being strange when I tried to send images to my other account. Strange, hopefully I can find a way to fix that soon. Anyways, the helmet just seems nicer in my eyes now, since the glue is gone and such. Planning on making some more modifications and fixed, but that will most likely be in a while. Anyone with Vader helmet advice is welcome to join in! (Please, I'm begging you! Help me fellow RPF members, you're my only hopes!)

The DP CA helmet really is a nice piece. I was always looking for one when I was collecting, but never found one that was cheap enough and wasn't horribly warped. You seem to have lucked out regarding getting a nicely shaped piece and not too expensive. I agree with you on the orange peel on the dome - I was going to say that the originals had orange peel too and just leave it until I saw how bad it was on your DP CA dome. Definitely worth a fix. Can't remember if the dome is made of vinyl the same as the face mask, but there are different ways to remove paint from different plastics. Definitely worth looking into that before going the sanding route.

You are definitely good at photographing the helmet as well. It is remarkably hard to take good Vader helmet pictures.

Yeah, the orange peel is all over the dome, which bugs me to bits. I'll try to find a way to remove it that's less extreme than wet-sanding. And thank you for the compliment! It is indeed, as it can look awfully strange if the camera is too close or too far away. I thank CSMacLaren for the advice on finding just the right distance and angles to take pics of a Vader helmet. The eBay auction image looked really quite funny, as the camera was way too close to his face and made him seem weird-looking. But once I saw how it would look from proper angles and distances, I knew I had to get it. Thank you for replying to my thread!

Some "uglier" shots of the Vader helmet. Has a decent paintjob given to it by the previous owner, and it has some parts replaced or modified, to the point that it's quite a bit better than the way it would have appeared originally (the standard, out of box sorta look).

Please feel free to comment how you think this could be modified to be better (as well as possibly commenting tutorials).