Darth Vader ROTJ Build - Studio 49

Made a heap of progress today on my soundboard box.
First up I printed myself the entire box and it all went well until he decided he wasn't going to play nice with removing the raft in a small portion of the part. But that's easily fix so I've applied filler to that area and it is almost completely smoothed out now.




























With the box ready for etc first coat of primer I switched gears to creator a completely custom bracket that houses the switches/button. This little bracket will sit directly below the hols allowing the knobs to go through the hols and be pressed while providing reinforcements. In fact I got the fit so snug I was actually able to thread the switches into the holes!




































That's all for today with updates, there's still plenty more work ahead of me with building this with sanding, filling, painting, wiring, etc.
Never thought I'd put so much work into something so small

Everything looks fantastic!! If you still haven't decided on the quotes, I'd say add "I find your lack of faith disturbing". It's one of the best, and also seems like it would be versatile for interacting with people.

So a week a go a bunch of the troops and myself headed out to have a professional photoshoot with all our costumes to get some awesome and just generally have a great afternoon!
Since the photoshoot the Photographers have been be showing us some small sneak peaks of what they're woking on and it looks nothing short of absolutely amazing! And i'm so stoked with how these are looking, cannot wait to see the rest!

These photos and more were taken by the amazing guys down at "Brisbane Photography Studios." These guys were highly professional and did a stunning job
https://www.facebook.com/brisbane.studios/?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite&notif_id=1465641149702164

Now onto the photos!






And this one was just an off hand photo that the photographer took on his phone in-between poses (that's why my hand is off the saber in a weird spot)
But if this is just form an iPhone with no editing then wow the final once will look awesome
I'm absolutely loving the reflections of the saber blades on my Bucket





The photographers loved having us there and insisted with getting in on the action with a throat hug

Great photos! & I love the job you did with your Vader build!!! Absolutely stunning!

2nd photo looks real dark and real menacing

russellsch said:

Great photos! & I love the job you did with your Vader build!!! Absolutely stunning!

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The Terminator said:

2nd photo looks real dark and real menacing

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Thank you gents!
And don't you worry there's more where these came from and I'll be sure to post them when I get them

For tonight's update I here's the paint job so far
(and also it says according to eBay and the tracking number that my sound board was delivered yesterday it most certainly wasn't... Hmm this could get a tad difficult)

So awesome - hopefully you make Comic Con or Brisnova can't wait to see this suit; looks excellent. And gr8 photos!

Dr Tumbo said:

So awesome - hopefully you make Comic Con or Brisnova can't wait to see this suit; looks excellent. And gr8 photos!

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Thank you for the compliments mate, I really appreciate it!
And of course I'll be at Nova and fingers crossed on Comic Con if Uni doesn't get in the way. I'll absolutely be there with the 501st Legion Redback Garrison out on the photo booths

Studio 49 said:

Thank you for the compliments mate, I really appreciate it!
And of course I'll be at Nova and fingers crossed on Comic Con if Uni doesn't get in the way. I'll absolutely be there with the 501st Legion Redback Garrison out on the photo booths

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Bam spiderman knows which photo he will be aiming for

The soundboard finally arrived yesterday afternoon so I was able to get to work on the electronic and audio set up for the box









First up I did a test set up with out any mods to the board, just so I knew I had the set up nailed before proceeding further
And I've got to say I'm stoked with the results! The quote choices are still in progress but it runs perfectly to the 2 AKER's and works perfectly with the breathing loop
See the video below for a demo (all that's left audio wise is tweaking volume levels and that's it)









And of course I also started wiring up the the switches for the box which was a simple matter of cutting off each existing switch then soldering + heat shrinking the new switch in place

This weekend I had the pleasure of doing an awesome troop at the Queensland Air Museums Open Cockpit Weekend
So many cool photo ops and of course so many excited fans, young and old excited to get a photo with us
I'll certainly be back next year and hopefully for the both days of the event
(thank you to TS-15070 for the brilliant photos)




Get to the Choppa

These Flyboy TIE Pilots were never heard from again

Troublesome Grandchildren...

Well when you you're in a tight space, in Star Wars costumes you know exactly what's about to happen

Of course it's a Trench run! I get the feeling this may well become an annual tradition

Also had some brilliant photos with a fully functional Red Baron Plane

​And of course we did a recreation of Vader coming down the boarding ramp

Ok so I've got the quote line up down to 5 now which I think will get the most use
Now I just have to decide which last one is going to get chopped


1 - Impressive. Most Impressive -----> Ionic and would be used often
2 - We would be honoured if you would join us -----> For accepting Photos
3 - The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation ----->
4 - You are part of the Rebel alliance and a Traitor! -----> Another iconic line
5 - Join me and together we can rule the galaxy -----> In the right context has a bit more of a friendly spin on it than the others

The audio setup for my Vader is now complete! (Minus mounting the quote buttons in the belt box) should be good to go for this weekends troop!


The final selection of quotes I descried to use were:
1 - Impressive. Most Impressive
2 - We would be honoured if you would join us
3 - The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation
4 - You don't know the power of the Dark Side!


So there was some good reasons behind the choices I made
I tried "You are part of the Rebel alliance and a Traitor" & "Join me and together we can rule the galaxy" but they simply did not translate well to the AKER's
With the traitor quote, it was too fast for it to easily understood when coming form the AKER, even without the breathing loop and with the join, I couldn't edit it in such a way that removes "as farther and Son," in a way that was coherent (which I wanted to do make it a versatile option)


Overall what I found was the ANH quotes generally didn't translate that well to AKER's and the faster delivered lines didn't either. The slower more pronounced one were far more easily understood










Ok so in terms of changes to the finals set up I bought two 3.5mm Y splitter audio cables that had integrated volume control wheels. The solved my biggest issue of trying to work out what volume to have the quotes which was hard with the only mobile source of volume control being the AKER volume wheel
So now if need be I can tweak all levels of volume for both inputs anywhere any time without the need for a computer which is a life saver


Now I also scored a soundboard from a gentleman in my local carrion who works at a electronics store which is replacing all their head phone displays so that meant they were just going to throw it out. But instead he was able to grab a box full for us. What it has is a micro SD slot which I can load my breathing loop onto and with the simple press of a single button I can control my entire breathing loop, which is far easier than the fiddly MP3 player I had perviously that always liked to turn off.


That's enough talking, here's a demo video for you guys
















And some photos:

and with that push of the button, you killed Lord Vader! :eek


Nice setup Jonah. If you like I can have a go and try and get rid of "as father and son"...?

The Empire invaded the Albany Creek Winter Carnival in full force, bringing the excitement and fun you'd expect from the Redbacks. And of course we helped raise money for the school. Come the end of troop we invaded the second hand book store and shenanigans ensued...









Oh boy things are getting deep







"Solve your Childs sleep problems" Looking at you Luke
















If there's a chapter on force chokes boy am I set!







Hmm I found Luke in the most poplar Baby names book... Would've rather Luigi which was only a few lines above. Luigi Skywalker has a nice ring to it )

Today was also the first time I got to test drive my soundboard box in full kit on a troop as well
So before I note down my experience with my new toy, here's a video of the finished box with the whole works as it was used today (I did't get a chance to change out any of the quotes beforehand thanks to having a shift at work)




Now that you've seen the setup "armed and fully operational" here's what I found from some hands on experience
- I need to to tweak volumes (which is easy) since it was hard for me at least to hear the quotes, however those nearby-ish could
- When directly interaction with for example children, it's best not to go for the quote buttons as it is really obvious that you're reaching to press something
- but with that said I found the golden time for firing of quotes as during photos with people or as they were getting ready for one. My awesome wranglers let me know when ever I triggered one the people in the photos faces lit up!
- Of course with the said it depends on the situation and after all it's still only my first trip with it so I still have some tweaks to go before I consider it done and perfect




I think I'll also be replacing "we would be honoured if you would join us" since it wasn't coming out as crisp as I'd like.
I'll use "as you wish" instead, much more versatile and crisp

Today I was lucky enough to get the rest of the photos from the photoshoot we had little over a month ago and I have to say I am completely blown away by them and it was well worth the wait! I look at these photos and I honestly can't believe that's me as Vader




Massive to both Brisbane Photography Studios and Adam (Slide Effect - 10106) for these amazing photos! Now I have to decide which will be my new wallpapers and which will be for the inevitable trading card


Now onwards with the photos of course!

So of course with two TK's and my Vader there was one photo in particular that I wanted to recreate, you know that certain ESB Promo shot













And then a few more of Vader with his Saber out

This ones the winner for me.


Just awesome

- - - Updated - - -

Ooooo! I LOVE that smoke one!

But I love the TK's flanking shot wins now!