I started this thread since some question as to my opinion of the Gino ANH helmet came up recently. Rather than continue discussion in another thread, I thought I would post the basis for my opinion. Gino states this in general about all his Vader helmets...
In this image below there are a number of discrepancies. To list the differences in no specific order, the Gino mask has wider teeth gaps on the mouth triangle, the chin vent is cut too close to the lower lip, the neck is trimmed too short and it is too straight on Vader's right rear side, the paint blemish on Vader's right front cheek triangle face is in the wrong position (you'd think that if he had a cast from original that at least he'd get that right), the notches in the teeth are too shallow, the noseslots are more like ROTJ than ANH, and the eyes seem smaller than the original. In terms of the helmet, the center ridge is flatter, the Y-crease on the widow's peak is inaccurate, the left eyebrow is nearly symmetrical with the right in terms of height (like a GH btw), whereas the screen helmet has a distinctly higher right eyebrow, the front dome flaring angles downward more steeply on Vader's left than on Gino's and has sharper curvature, and the eyebrow-to-crown boundary is sharper on the original than on Gino's. Independent of the lack of fine details, Gino's dome is sitting too low, the mouth grill is not in the screen-accurate position, and the helmet doesn't seem black enough, but that could just be the lighting.
So, if you are going to make a claim about a prop replica, then that replica should hold up to the claim, and there's no way that this helmet came from an untouched original production mold (which one, the one taken from the clay sculpture that Brian Muir sculpted or the one taken from the plaster master?) or the original screen used helmet (which I suppose one of your friends has?). Given that, for a while, you didn't even have a helmet for your mask and used the Ghosthost helmet as a temporary display, I doubt from this that you suddenly came across an original ANH mold or the original ANH screen helmet. You have your own forum and website and that's great, but if someone makes claims like that without providing any background whatsoever to them, and the helmet replica itself doesn't support the claim, then there must be a reason why such a claim isn't backed up. And I'll wager that I'm not the only one who thinks this helmet is not cast from the original ANH or from the original ANH production mold.
Since ANH Vader is close to my heart, I'll focus on that. First I'll show a few comparisons of Gino's helmet against the original.
In this image below there are a number of discrepancies. To list the differences in no specific order, the Gino mask has wider teeth gaps on the mouth triangle, the chin vent is cut too close to the lower lip, the neck is trimmed too short and it is too straight on Vader's right rear side, the paint blemish on Vader's right front cheek triangle face is in the wrong position (you'd think that if he had a cast from original that at least he'd get that right), the notches in the teeth are too shallow, the noseslots are more like ROTJ than ANH, and the eyes seem smaller than the original. In terms of the helmet, the center ridge is flatter, the Y-crease on the widow's peak is inaccurate, the left eyebrow is nearly symmetrical with the right in terms of height (like a GH btw), whereas the screen helmet has a distinctly higher right eyebrow, the front dome flaring angles downward more steeply on Vader's left than on Gino's and has sharper curvature, and the eyebrow-to-crown boundary is sharper on the original than on Gino's. Independent of the lack of fine details, Gino's dome is sitting too low, the mouth grill is not in the screen-accurate position, and the helmet doesn't seem black enough, but that could just be the lighting.
So, if you are going to make a claim about a prop replica, then that replica should hold up to the claim, and there's no way that this helmet came from an untouched original production mold (which one, the one taken from the clay sculpture that Brian Muir sculpted or the one taken from the plaster master?) or the original screen used helmet (which I suppose one of your friends has?). Given that, for a while, you didn't even have a helmet for your mask and used the Ghosthost helmet as a temporary display, I doubt from this that you suddenly came across an original ANH mold or the original ANH screen helmet. You have your own forum and website and that's great, but if someone makes claims like that without providing any background whatsoever to them, and the helmet replica itself doesn't support the claim, then there must be a reason why such a claim isn't backed up. And I'll wager that I'm not the only one who thinks this helmet is not cast from the original ANH or from the original ANH production mold.
cry
