vader45
Sr Member
An alleged screen used ROTJ Vader Helmet photographed by Wired Magazine in the LFL props archive.
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That helmet. Is also this helmet.
The green is purely lighting and the environment
An alleged screen used ROTJ Vader Helmet photographed by Wired Magazine in the LFL props archive.
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Very interesting to see a hero helmet with the fine mesh behind the mouth mesh for ROTJThat helmet. Is also this helmet.
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The green is purely lighting and the environment
Also his voice and behaviour is much better. JEJ is a bit hammy and too loud in ANH, in the other two his timbre is deeper, much calmer, pretty much never loses his cool and is more intimidating. Again I like him better as a character and his look as a character in ESB but as a piece of prop item it's ANH for me for all its quirks and warts.I love Vader in any of his versions, such a great villain.
What makes ESB my favorite is the refinement of the brilliant ANH design: more elegant and seductive.
I agree the roughness of ANH is badass, but ESB´s more polished look gives Vader a more invulnerable aura. No dents, almost no scratches, like nothing can hurt him.
Also, the exquisite lighting strengthens the complex journey of Vader´s character through the film, and oddly enough, it gives the mask more "expression".
Empty, cold, manipulative, machine man.
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Murderous, maniacal, machine man.
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Disappointed? Maybe even sad ? machine man.
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Stay safe guys!
Interesting observations about the behavior of the paint!
Is this Ron Punter that Jez spoke to? I remember SSkunky telling about the time he went to an event at Elstree with Jez/Gonk27 where they met him. Mr Punter painted the helmets in Empire and has cited using Rolls Royce paint (he's on Facebook now and does the convention circuit). He also appeared on Antiques Road Show a few years ago with a Vader helmet he kept along with a prop axe from The Shining that he made.
It makes sense that they would have used the same paint from Star Wars to Empire though we don't have concrete information that that's what they did (it's what I try to do at any rate).
We've been wrestling with the gunmetal color for years. So far, no one -- unfortunately including Mr Punter -- seems to know what they used. I'm hoping that the information is in a production memo somewhere waiting to be discovered.
Jez only said Ron in our conversation- I'd say it would be a hell of a stretch to think there was another Ron who also did the painting so I'd say it is the same guy. I was hoping jez may have popped up on here, I told him about it so we'll see!
I will apolgise if this has been shared before on here and is old news, but a forum member here-Jez Firth AKA Gonk droid- spoke to the original painter of the ANH helmet. He said they used a Rolls Royce black. He couldn't remember the exact code but the go to RR black at the time was Mason's black. A friend got some mixed up but was warned by the paint shop that it was a very awkward and slow drying paint, we tried it anyway ( at this point we were under the mistaken belief the ANH helmet had been brush painted, it was only in a conversation a while afterwards Jez confirmed that the painter had actually mentioned spraying it! ), the really interesting thing was that it did indeed take a very long time to paint, but it starts off a very high gloss and as it drys it tends to turn more of a satin/ matt finish. It also retains a degree of tackiness which means any dust will easily settle onto the surface and if you handle it it's a right bitch for fingerprints.
What was interesting to see was when painting a second coating over it the paint under the surface hadn't properly dried and what you end up with is gunked paint dragging underneath the brush strokes, some the build up looked almost identical to the roughness on the faceplate- including that much debated scar!
The closest match I have found off the shelf isn't a finishing paint as such, it was a can of Halford's guide spray!
The other thing that stood out about Masons black was the original paint code- 501!
Fantastic info that I hadn't read before. Was any info given about the gun metal grey? Is it Rolls Royce Tudor Grey which I have seen mentioned before?
Likely because he followed Dave Prowse's performance in ANH, and Irvin Kershner in ESB and then continued that slower, more collected style in RotJ.Also his voice and behaviour is much better. JEJ is a bit hammy and too loud in ANH, in the other two his timbre is deeper, much calmer, pretty much never loses his cool and is more intimidating. Again I like him better as a character and his look as a character in ESB but as a piece of prop item it's ANH for me for all its quirks and warts.
Likely because he followed Dave Prowse's performance in ANH, and Irvin Kershner in ESB and then continued that slower, more collected style in RotJ.
Ooh! Everytime I see that I think about how much work you did and how much of a great job you did!II recently modded an EFX PCR from ANH to ESB, to find out how close it could be done. Widened chin vent, removed some excess from the edges of the dome, made the mohawk strip wider and repainted the whole thing. Here is the first result, using only the EFX:
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The dome still has some structural differences from ESB, very difficult to mod on my own. So I purchased a dome from Mike Warren (taken directly from the stunt helmet worn by Grandmaster Bob Anderson), and combined it with my modded EFX mask. And here is the result:
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Of course, the only real way to get 100% screen accuracy is to get an actual prop. But I believe the result is very successful in looking close to the actual screen Vader.
Lastly, I overlapped some photos of both domes to roughly compare the shapes. Its interesting to see the egg-shape contour of the top and that the Warren dome is actually a bit bigger in some areas than the EFX.
Considering that both domes come from completely different origins, the fact that they are so close in measurements sustains their direct legacy to the props used in the films.
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Beautiful mod it looks so great [emoji7]To evaluate the similarity, here is another pic of the finished “EFX+ESB Warren” mod, next to a still from the film.
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To evaluate the similarity, here is another pic of the finished “EFX+ESB Warren” mod, next to a still from the film.
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yeah they are!These 4K Ultra HD screengrabs are fantastic reference.