Hey all,
I can answer a couple of things here. In fact, you are both right in certain parts.
I started the sculpt in late August September last year - there's actually a build thread for the Kid Vader suit that segues into the helmet sculpt on the Sith Lord forum. There were a few stop/starts with the sculpt until it settled into its current form.
Then I bought the Rubies as a little side project, a Halloween-level costuming prop just for fun, off a guy in my Garrison in mid-December. It did answer the question in my head at that time around how the side tubes and facial geometry of that area of the mask all worked because I could actually feel the shape instead of just interpret from a screen. So there is an influence in the way the tubes stripes on this sculpt of mine are done; the Rubies gave me an 'a-ha' moment when I saw how that was formed. However, I did learn later that indeed, the inward curvature is not quite as deep, but for this sculpt of mine, since I have made it kid-friendly anyway, I've persisted with it and it helps to reduce the volume of the helmet somewhat. But to be honest, I actually like that geometry of the mask!
I have long recognised the shortcomings of a Rubies though as well, so it hasn't really influenced much else on the mask. I really did just buy that as a plaything. I have almost exclusively referred to Bookface, SL, useful screen caps of the movie, Shadow FX etc...in sculpting the mask and helmet. Certain pics from some are useful in certain areas, and other ones useful on other parts. I've collected a small library of pics as well as my go to bookmarked pages.
I'll try to describe what I'm thinking when sculpting from an artistic view here...originally, I was aiming for an ANH helmet. In my head, the ANH seems more enveloping around the head than the others - it's hard to describe and could probably very well be just the way it's mounted. There has been a heavy influence of the SL Vader helmet and pics online, many through forums here and elsewhere, in helping me get at the proportion and shape of the helmet. To my mind's eye, I see volume in the helmet that looks to wrap around and down around the eyes and temple area. I spent a lot of time in getting the profile of the dome to sit around the eye/temple area with the volume that I see in my mind, trying to capture screen shots into the sculpt in front of me. It's not easy, and takes a lot of rework till I think I have it right, I try to use surrounding structures to help me get proportions and size. A perfect example is the cheek/mouth areas. Different pictures reveal different parts of the mask and I use those to help determine angles, size etc. A perfect example of when it doesn't work so well is the neck, I've found that part challenging to do.
There is another clay sculpt that is in the works, what you're seeing now is an offshoot of that, which was made to give my son a helmet for a couple of Cons at the time. I then wanted to repurpose that cast and that is the one you're seeing these days.
The clay sculpt I am still working on is the Big One, the one I really want to get as right as I can. I haven't shown much of it lately as I've focused on this current cast first. Now that it's nearly out of the way, I'll be focusing back on the final clay cast.
Hope this clears it up somewhat...while the Rubies has influenced the concanve cheeks and therefore the path of the tubes in this particular mask, I have used the other big name sculpts as my main references. It is true that the main purpose of the Rubies helmet in my thread here has been to show relative sizes of mine so that you all can get a better idea of how big my sculpts are.
...and I certainly welcome your feedback. In this case we all see the same thing differently, my work will of course give people different opinions because it's been done without a lineaged prop on hand (apart from the Rubies!?
), and can only be nothing more than my interpretation made at a distance.
