Hey all. Admiral Ackbar has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I bought a nice fiberglass (wearable) replica here on the RPF a couple years back, and every now and then I scour Ebay for new potential.
A couple weeks ago, I hit pay dirt. I bought a foam and latex casting on ebay that I believe is from an original mold. That was what was represented on the auction, and after comparing pictures from the auction vs pix of the real thing, I took the leap. After getting the piece in the mail, I'm further convinced it's real.
I include pix of what I bought. Best part is later on in the pix. I think I figured out what Ackbar's eyes are.
I looked at the pictures of ackbar at those huge hunks of clear resin and thought: What modelmaker would waste their time casting up such big chunks of clear resin? Clear resin is a pain in the ass to cast, and I KNOW that modelmakers are as lazy as the next guy. So I looked around my office and saw it: the magnifier for my dictionary.
Like this one.
http://www.stacksandstacks.com/magnifier-dome
That's a 3" diameter one.
The one I have (and the one in the pix) is 2.5" in diameter, and as you can see from the pix, it looks pretty darned close. The yellow and black are masking tape, slapped on just for the purposes of this post. This is EXACTLY how a modelmaker would think.
I plan on having a nice fliberglass mothermold made from this casting, and I will probably offer a small run of castings. Maybe 10 at cost. Don't PM me. This kind of thing might take a couple months or a couple years. But I'll let you all know when it DOES come to fruition.
Look at the comparison photo, the last one. This is a photo of the real mask, painted up. And on the right is the back of my casting. I note that not only is the sculpt dead close, but the extents of the castings are too. All that plus my eye for my colleagues work tells me it's real.
Now I'll need to sculpt the eyes. I apologize for the crappy photos. I wanted to share, and all I have right now is my iphone (everything else is packed up for DragonCon. Leaving in 1 hour!)
That's all. If any of you have some cool behind-the-scenes Ackbar stuff, I'd love to see it. I stripped the RPF of all the Ackbar costume stuff i could find. Has anyone done a really good set of hands?
A couple weeks ago, I hit pay dirt. I bought a foam and latex casting on ebay that I believe is from an original mold. That was what was represented on the auction, and after comparing pictures from the auction vs pix of the real thing, I took the leap. After getting the piece in the mail, I'm further convinced it's real.
I include pix of what I bought. Best part is later on in the pix. I think I figured out what Ackbar's eyes are.
I looked at the pictures of ackbar at those huge hunks of clear resin and thought: What modelmaker would waste their time casting up such big chunks of clear resin? Clear resin is a pain in the ass to cast, and I KNOW that modelmakers are as lazy as the next guy. So I looked around my office and saw it: the magnifier for my dictionary.
Like this one.
http://www.stacksandstacks.com/magnifier-dome
That's a 3" diameter one.
The one I have (and the one in the pix) is 2.5" in diameter, and as you can see from the pix, it looks pretty darned close. The yellow and black are masking tape, slapped on just for the purposes of this post. This is EXACTLY how a modelmaker would think.
I plan on having a nice fliberglass mothermold made from this casting, and I will probably offer a small run of castings. Maybe 10 at cost. Don't PM me. This kind of thing might take a couple months or a couple years. But I'll let you all know when it DOES come to fruition.
Look at the comparison photo, the last one. This is a photo of the real mask, painted up. And on the right is the back of my casting. I note that not only is the sculpt dead close, but the extents of the castings are too. All that plus my eye for my colleagues work tells me it's real.
Now I'll need to sculpt the eyes. I apologize for the crappy photos. I wanted to share, and all I have right now is my iphone (everything else is packed up for DragonCon. Leaving in 1 hour!)
That's all. If any of you have some cool behind-the-scenes Ackbar stuff, I'd love to see it. I stripped the RPF of all the Ackbar costume stuff i could find. Has anyone done a really good set of hands?
