Wow, thanks a bunch for the response guys! I'm thrilled to see that I'm not the only one who still get the juices flowing by a good prop story. I was just starting to wonder where all those great storys went!? Have everything already been discovered? Man, just think back to those awesome Trooper ID threads where people used match up buckets to their onscreen moments comparing glue residue and tiny scratches! Those were the days.
Zenwalker, it would be a pleasure since it was quite an experiance in it's self. It'll have to wait though since it would be quite an massive post, requiering a load of pics to illustrate. Currently my old progress pics and ref material are scattered all over. It would take some time to sort it all out.
Anyway, regarding the paints this much I can tell. I'm 100% sure standard Humbrol Enamels where used on the original. Behind the scene pics from that period show Humbrol tins all over the place. My original plan was to do what the Fett heads did with Boba and match up the exact tins. I figured it wouldn't be that hard since the Humbrol line isn't that big. Half way thru I learnt from a friend (whos into ww2 tanks and aircraft modeling) that Humrol discontinued most of their paints in the late 70's.
Most of the shades were redone and renamed.
I did however stick to Humbrol enamels on the efx masters but all colors were custom mixed. Everything was hand painted with a brush just like the original.
DeLucks Designs, I haven't studied Wedge as closely as Luke. Most of the ref material I have on him are crapy low res-screen caps. Here's what I notised though, concider the following as a the "mini evolution of Wedge"!
Wedge helmet in ANH was quite detailed with lots of hand painted black pinstripe detailing. It had the same wonky "V" styled decals as the rest of the ANH helmets. These were actually applied as two parts decals. One of the shelf sticker for the red or yellow circle and then a hand cut V on top. That's why there's not one V that matches another. For efx Luke helmet I actually made each V decal individually so they all would match their onscreen conterpart. The interior detailing was the same for him as the rest.
In ESB it appears quite differently though. It's hard to tell if it's the same helmet that's been repainted or one of the background stunts that's gotten a new "Wedge" job. It now lacks most of the black pinstripes and the decals are all new. They don't match the ANH's any longer. The chin cup attaches ESB style just like Lukes and it shares the same "Tipped off" mic.
For ROTJ where he get's quite a lot of screen time they reused the ESB helmet. Here as well it get's the same treatment as Luke's ROTJ version. New chin cup which are attached ROTJ style. It also seems (this one is for you GINO!"
) like it's fitted with the same moulded foam interior as Luke. What's interesting though is that Wedge uses a mic, looking exactly as the one used in ESB. Remember that Luke didn't have this feature in ROTJ.
Cheers,
Steve.
