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

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away___.jpg

Darth Vader___.jpg

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The Empire Strikes Back Original Vintage 1980 Publicity Photo 8_ x 11_, available from our web...jpg
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Star Wars_ Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back - Publicity still of David Prowse.jpg
Original Darth Vader Helmets.jpg
 
Wow. This is a new look for Vader. :oops: Love those toy store appearance photos! Even as a kid, I would have been pointing my finger at that Vader and telling him to put the damn chest box on correctly. Ha ha. I can just imagine what he would have wanted to write on the photo if I'd said that to him though. LOL
 

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Hopefully this is a clear lineage line that makes it easy for everyone to see how the helmet's out there fit into the puzzle how they relate to the originals

there are other cast's floating around that are not on my line that fit into the authentic cast line
but either they are not really casts that anyone could own or they haven't been really released to the public that are really rare that anybody could obtain them so I would wait as such time that they are revealed that one can add them to the line or perhaps in my own quest to collect Vader items I come across them and it is revealed how they fit in the line and I have gained sufficient knowledge on them they will be added


Definitely not a clear lineage, this is incorrect.

The VP Vader comes directly from a cast from the UK mould of the screen helmet. The face mask copied was in Elstree and was being used by the Art Department prior to ESB.

The big confusion with the VP was that the face plate was sourced on it's own by the owner years before he sourced a copy of the ROTJ dome and tusks.

The VP copies never came with a dome they came as a stand alone ANH face plate. Unfortunately the owner did clean it up a bit when he got it.

The faceplate is definitely nowhere near the ROTJ Vader lineage.

VP is a solid decent face plate, it has also got a lot of good features that other UK mould helmets do not have i.e it still has the teeth mesh, bottom triangle vent intact (TD has drill holes), lenses and adhesive marks etc on the flip side it had the 3M tabs sanded off and had a clean up.

The TM, TD and VP face plates are pretty much from the same source in different states of clean up / usage / repair / whatever.

When the owner of the original VP made the copies of the Elstree mask he actually made more than one copy one of which he he gave to a friend. One of the other direct copies is in the hands of a private collector and still has the extended neck, tabs etc on it

So there is at least one copy of the VP prior to clean up that shows it is ANH.
 
Definitely not a clear lineage, this is incorrect.

The VP Vader comes directly from a cast from the UK mould of the screen helmet. The face mask copied was in Elstree and was being used by the Art Department prior to ESB.

The big confusion with the VP was that the face plate was sourced on it's own by the owner years before he sourced a copy of the ROTJ dome and tusks.

The VP copies never came with a dome they came as a stand alone ANH face plate. Unfortunately the owner did clean it up a bit when he got it.

The faceplate is definitely nowhere near the ROTJ Vader lineage.

VP is a solid decent face plate, it has also got a lot of good features that other UK mould helmets do not have i.e it still has the teeth mesh, bottom triangle vent intact (TD has drill holes), lenses and adhesive marks etc on the flip side it had the 3M tabs sanded off and had a clean up.

The TM, TD and VP face plates are pretty much from the same source in different states of clean up / usage / repair / whatever.

When the owner of the original VP made the copies of the Elstree mask he actually made more than one copy one of which he he gave to a friend. One of the other direct copies is in the hands of a private collector and still has the extended neck, tabs etc on it

So there is at least one copy of the VP prior to clean up that shows it is ANH.

Very interesting thank you very much yes my tree is bit unclear I do recognize my blunder lol but luckily Juan provided help and he
provided what I see as the best definitive lineage tree that is easily understood

I based my tree on information I gathered from sources such as SL etc in many old outdated threads
and since those threads died out many moons ago with no real modern updates I made something I believed to still be relevant info

I falsy went on the assumption that ROTJ helmets were smaller and more cleaned up
and that the VP dome came with the Mask and hence the tusk and so on the assumption could be made that the VP was related to the ROTJ production hence its connection to ROTJ

But I also tried to show that all helmets on the UK Mold line are all from that mold
and started out as a copy of the screen used ANH Helmet and Mask or at least just the Mask
but at the same time the off branches are just meant to show that the offshoots are related to that movie production
and fall in that time line But that they all still come from the UK mold source

Thanks for the Awesome info it helps clear out a lot off the misconceptions !
 
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.

Wasn't it all black at first and didn't look good on film, so they added the gunmetal to add contrast? The impression I have is they wanted it to appear black, but full black did not give them the look they wanted. Many people don't know there was gunmetal.
 
Very interesting thank you very much yes my tree is bit unclear I do recognize my blunder lol but luckily Juan provided help and he
provided what I see as the best definitive lineage tree that is easily understood

I based my tree on information I gathered from sources such as SL etc in many old outdated threads
and since those threads died out many moons ago with no real modern updates I made something I believed to still be relevant info

I falsy went on the assumption that ROTJ helmets were smaller and more cleaned up
and that the VP dome came with the Mask and hence the tusk and so on the assumption could be made that the VP was related to the ROTJ production hence its connection to ROTJ

But I also tried to show that all helmets on the UK Mold line are all from that mold
and started out as a copy of the screen used ANH Helmet and Mask or at least just the Mask
but at the same time the off branches are just meant to show that the offshoots are related to that movie production
and fall in that time line But that they all still come from the UK mold source

Thanks for the Awesome info it helps clear out a lot off the misconceptions !


Yes to be fair the VP image with the dome fits into ANH and ROTJ :)

I am sure Anson James posted VP pictures of the copies in black over at the Prop Den years ago.

I can't find my photos of mine as it was so long ago.

I still have one (possibly 2) VPs but would have to look at some point.
 
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.

Amazing photos! Thanks for your contribution!
 
Yes to be fair the VP image with the dome fits into ANH and ROTJ :)

I am sure Anson James posted VP pictures of the copies in black over at the Prop Den years ago.

I can't find my photos of mine as it was so long ago.

I still have one (possibly 2) VPs but would have to look at some point.
You have possibly two :eek: woooo I will trade you one lion and two elephant's for one and just to sweeten the deal perhaps
a leopard very hard to find promise they are house trained

I updated my tree hopefully it is now more clear :D
Yes I still think it would make a great ROTJ helmet it just looks the part with that dome
 
Are you talking about the VP mask copies that were sold to customers Chris? Here's a photo of the one I got before it was painted. I posted more photos of it a few pages back.



I am sure Anson James posted VP pictures of the copies in black over at the Prop Den years ago.

I can't find my photos of mine as it was so long ago.
 

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