How was Vader's helmet modified from ANH to ESB to ROTJ

[cking]

In the interest of sharing info with the community, I present to you these colour scans that were given to me by Rob Tharp who was an employee at Don Post Studios at the same time as Kermit Eller and was there on the day that the screen used costume was delivered to the studios! Rob is the guy wearing the Karate outfit and the one wearing the standard Don Post Vader helmet next to Kermit Eller who is wearing the screen used one. So cool. Rob is a great guy and after lots of enjoyable correspondence with him, he got enthusiastic about the memories which motivated him to scan his polaroids that were taken on that day. I've sat on these photos since March 3rd 2004, so I now choose to share the scans he sent to me in all their glory for those of you that have not seen them before.

 

[juajn7fernandez]

In the interest of sharing info with the community, I present to you these colour scans that were given to me by Rob Tharp who was an employee at Don Post Studios at the same time as Kermit Eller and was there on the day that the screen used costume was delivered to the studios! Rob is the guy wearing the Karate outfit and the one wearing the standard Don Post Vader helmet next to Kermit Eller who is wearing the screen used one. So cool. Rob is a great guy and after lots of enjoyable correspondence with him, he got enthusiastic about the memories which motivated him to scan his polaroids that were taken on that day. I share the scans he sent to me in all their glory for those of you that have not seen them before.

These are great!

Really amazing of you to share these with all of us! Thank you cking

 

[cking]

In the same spirit as the above, these are the full resolution photos that Kermit sent to me (the ones that were used in the starwars.com article, but shown there at a much smaller size). I've had these since May 19th 2006, so it's only taken 14 years for me to decide to post them here. Ha ha. I was never asked to keep these to myself but had kept them private for the most part until now. Enjoy friends.

 

[cking]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

 

[Darth Africanus]

In the same spirit as the above, these are the full resolution photos that Kermit sent to me (the ones that were used in the starwars.com article). I've had these since May 19th 2006, so it's only taken 14 years for me to decide to post them here. Ha ha. I was never asked to keep these to myself but had kept them private for the most part until now. Enjoy friends.

Wow so amazing thank you for sharing cking thank you for participating in the spirit of friendliness and friendship
This thread has really become all this Young guy from Africa has ever hoped for

I hated reading all those countless threads of basically grown men turning into mindless apes and flinging poo at each other instead of just enjoying the hobby and allowing joy to others and accepting, everybody can share an opinion peacefully and that even though one might not agree with the differing opinion but there is a good mature way to discus things

Thanks to you ! and everybody who has contributed to this thread you all are awesome and the wealth of information here in this thread so far is everything I hoped for.May it prosper long and grow and grow so that all Vader Fan's can find all the information finally in one place easily

Thanks everyone from the Super Experts to the novices Im glad to be part of the Vader community !

 

[dcarty]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

Thank you for sharing them!

 

[ggriffaw]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

Thanks for sharing the photos.

Kermit looks way too friendly to be Vader.

 

[Kroenen77]

Wow nice stuff here..thanks for sharing.

 

[PrinceZip]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

Thanks so much for sharing those pictures!
I, for one, saved them instantly

In addition to the helmet, it's so cool seeing new references for other Vader ANH parts.
Now I can match details and figure out how to paint my cast from original chest box!

 

[Edraven99]

Thanks for sharing! These are awesome!

 

[scottjua]

Wow! Thanks so much for sharing those! Love it... these are some of the clearest pictures of the costume, and also the mask before the repaint.

 

[sztriki]

Great thread, read the whole thing in one sitting!
There's one thing that's been bugging me for years and this seems like the perfect thread to explore. Everyone keeps bringing up the ROTJ helmet as super polished and shiny, but in reality it's only really high gloss and smooth in two scenes, when Vader arrives and when the Emperor arrives. In any subsequent scenes the helmet looks even less polished than ESB to me and it's particularly dull when he meets Luke on Endor. I've heard some speculating that it may be because those sets were smaller and it was dulled down to avoid reflections, I really wonder if there was a conscious thing, sometimes it even looks like it's just full of dust and fingerprints.

 

[Kroenen77]

I´m really surprised how dark the gunmetal areas on the armor under daylight are.

 

[cking]

Yes, it's quite revealing isn't it. Also, I toyed around years ago with this comparison showing a set of my Ghost Host armor that I photographed in daylight and converted into black and white. My GH armor set was raw, unpainted black gel coat fiberglass in the first photo. Look at how closely the appearance / finish of it matches with the black and white photo of the screen used armor.

The second photo shows a painted set of armor photographed in daylight to see how it looked in comparison. It just didn't look as convincing as the raw gel coat set to me.

I´m really surprised how dark the gunmetal areas on the armor under daylight are.

 

[dme3o]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

Nice to see these again as well as extras. Thank you for sharing Chris!

 

[vader45]

How many are right-clicking "save as" into their picture libraries right now? Ha ha. Great stuff. Hope you all enjoy seeing these.

I just did! Thank you very much!

 

[vader45]

Yes, it's quite revealing isn't it. Also, I toyed around years ago with this comparison showing a set of my Ghost Host armor that I photographed in daylight and converted into black and white. My GH armor set was raw, unpainted black gel coat fiberglass in the first photo. Look at how closely the appearance / finish of it matches with the black and white photo of the screen used armor.

The second photo shows a painted set of armor photographed in daylight to see how it looked in comparison. It just didn't look as convincing as the raw gel coat set to me.

Black and white the armor does look unpainted but the color photos clearly show black and gunmetal scheme.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I think most people "over paint" their armors, so that the gunmetal color is really visible. When drybrushing with metallic colors you get the metallic effect even if the layer isn't really covering all that well and you even retain it if you wipe off the metallic paint. So instead of the full on two-tone paint scheme of ESB and RotJ, think of the ANH as black with gunmetal drybrushing for highlights.

And thanks for the pictures. There were several I'd never seen before.

 

[cking]

Exactly. It's a lot more subtle than people paint normally.

I think most people "over paint" their armors, so that the gunmetal color is really visible. When drybrushing with metallic colors you get the metallic effect even if the layer isn't really covering all that well and you even retain it if you wipe off the metallic paint. So instead of the full on two-tone paint scheme of ESB and RotJ, think of the ANH as black with gunmetal drybrushing for highlights.

And thanks for the pictures. There were several I'd never seen before.

 

[Darth Africanus]

I would like to provide some ESB images I have found all over it's not amazing full resolution like
Chris photos but its a small contribution I hope they are something new to some folks

Again they are not my photos I have collected them as my searches on the high seas of google goes
so to any owners of these photos they remain their sole property