STAR WARS New customizing Hot Toys ESB Vader head

That tears it. If my Sideshow Vader needs adjusting, I’m sending it to you. I would never feel confident enough to do any of this myself. You only have yourself to blame if people want to hire you for this. Each upgrade looks really good, and seems to change the whole thing so much.

Stryker2011 wrote:That tears it. If my Sideshow Vader needs adjusting, I’m sending it to you. I would never feel confident enough to do any of this myself. You only have yourself to blame if people want to hire you for this. Each upgrade looks really good, and seems to change the whole thing so much.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Sideshow's Vader is a somewhat different animal. I've never done this much adjustment to that set -- apart from reconstituting it after having tried to use parts of it for my earliest HT-based kitbash. I do know that the design of the boots makes it difficult to have a stable standing pose and he can easily fall on his face and lose his tusks -- in fact when they were first shipping (this may have been fixed since), many of the tusks were damaged in the box and Sideshow made an arrangement with sellers to provide replacement tusks (or rather heads). If a tusk is missing when you first open the box, look carefully in the box or anything you may have taken out of it. I found mine and then used superglue. Should have taken them on their offer, as about a year or two later, he did fall on his head and I didn't find one of the broken off tusks...

I’ll keep an eye out for the tusks issue, and the standing problem. Hopefully they’ve corrected it on this iteration — but I’m generally not averse to using stands to prevent that; I need to get some more stands in fact — I don’t always like the big clunky ones that often come with these figures — they take up way too much space.

The change is great, it's also the first time I notice Vader's mask had eyebrows so that's new for me. Also I wasn't expecting the head inside the helmet/mask to be like that, I expected it to have something similar to a fabric covered face not a scared mutant county fair hot dog.

Stryker2011 wrote:I’ll keep an eye out for the tusks issue, and the standing problem. Hopefully they’ve corrected it on this iteration — but I’m generally not averse to using stands to prevent that; I need to get some more stands in fact — I don’t always like the big clunky ones that often come with these figures — they take up way too much space.

My Sideshow Vader is back to being complete with genuine parts (although as long as they got the job done it is really good enough); the only issue is the strange surface cracking (?) on the separate helmet intended to be displayed alongside the extra head and face mask. The Vaders you see in this thread are both kitbashes based mostly on the Hot Toys sets, with a few Sideshow pieces thrown in wherever they seemed better to me. They do have HT bodies, ankle pegs, and feet, but I still worry about them flopping down on their faces and the consequences for the tusks.

I completely agree on the use of simpler, smaller stands. I think they are probably still out there and available, but I stocked up on a few inexpensive plain black oval-based crotch-grabber stands years ago (they came with blank black nametag plates -- which you could attach or not, and also with pre-printed stickers with the names of various popular brands). You can actually see them in the photo with the two Vaders and Luke. They are an economical solution in every sense, from size to price.

Theboo-bomb wrote:The change is great, it's also the first time I notice Vader's mask had eyebrows so that's new for me. Also I wasn't expecting the head inside the helmet/mask to be like that, I expected it to have something similar to a fabric covered face not a scared mutant county fair hot dog.

Thank you very much. I'm also glad this was educational.

Awesome Job! By any chance do you have any Youtube Channel showing this? Do you have any pictures of the Modded Vader from the Front? Not from the side or from down but straight front.

Vin wrote:Awesome Job! By any chance do you have any Youtube Channel showing this? Do you have any pictures of the Modded Vader from the Front? Not from the side or from down but straight front.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you like it. Here are a few frontal shorts of the two modded heads, from slightly below, from straight on, and from slightly above. I hope this helps. (It is remarkable how much more translucent the ANH lenses seem to be; again, without a direct light shining straight at them they all look black.)





As for video, I don't have YouTube videos on my mods. However, below are links to the Jaz Inc Vader customization videos, which helped my work -- I didn't do all that, but definitely did the slimming down of the body (ANH), removed padded undersuit (both; I don't think he did that), used some other pieces here from the Sideshow version here and there on the ANH version (right now I'm failing to remember, but I think at least the greaves), lowered the helmets over the head and lined the lenses with bare metal foil as explained and illustrated above; my recommendation is that you don't attempt to replicate Jaz Inc's sinking in of the nose cap -- I just ruined a head when I tried. Maybe it was lack of luck, or skill, but it wasn't worth it.

Note, the videos are about changing the (original) HT ANH Vader; the HT ESB Vader head is much easier to modify, as covered above.







Hope this helps.

Good work.

Wow, again realizing how great this Darth Vader character is designed. They should make a Space Samurai movie about him or something. Was thinking of something like 'Battle Star Wars', but a movie with that name already exists. Maybe "Space Wars"?

But yes, those old lenses just look too...nice? Like something from an old Japanese Scifi movie or Power rangers?

ukshaun wrote:Good work.

Thank you very much.

Ovy wrote:Wow, again realizing how great this Darth Vader character is designed. They should make a Space Samurai movie about him or something. Was thinking of something like 'Battle Star Wars', but a movie with that name already exists. Maybe "Space Wars"?

But yes, those old lenses just look too...nice? Like something from an old Japanese Scifi movie or Power rangers?

Thank you, glad you still like it/them. Space Wars like Space Walls? They can do it just using GTP products and Hasbro 6-inch figures. Old lenses too nice? Hmm, not sure I follow the precise meaning you have in mind. If it's about them looking red, it doesn't really show much in normal circumstances (more coming up with those in Part II of the Imperial Mechanical Crew custom I did, and a spin-off photo story).

I must have missed this one before, and I'm all about Star Wars. Very cool comparisons and customization instructions. Tempted to try it. And that includes Ovy's Lego-ish smiley face suggestion!

ZombieTestSubject wrote:I must have missed this one before, and I'm all about Star Wars. Very cool comparisons and customization instructions. Tempted to try it. And that includes Ovy's Lego-ish smiley face suggestion!

Thank you very much, glad you liked them and good luck if you do try it. I myself plan on following Ovy's suggestion next time I open up the head or modify a new one.

That is so cool! It is amazing how the small mods you made have made such a huge difference . I don't have a Vader, but if I do get one, then I will definitely look into making these mods

Thanks for linking me to the thread

BAMComix wrote:That is so cool! It is amazing how the small mods you made have made such a huge difference . I don't have a Vader, but if I do get one, then I will definitely look into making these mods Thanks for linking me to the thread

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it. Like you said, the mods are not massive, and I think most of us could pull them off. These are nice figures, but they have even greater potential. And there are many more experienced and more ambitious customizers than me.

GubernatorFan wrote:

BAMComix wrote:That is so cool! It is amazing how the small mods you made have made such a huge difference . I don't have a Vader, but if I do get one, then I will definitely look into making these mods Thanks for linking me to the thread

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it. Like you said, the mods are not massive, and I think most of us could pull them off. These are nice figures, but they have even greater potential. And there are many more experienced and more ambitious customizers than me.

It is amazing what some people can do with their figures! but I think your right up there with them

BAMComix wrote:It is amazing what some people can do with their figures! but I think your right up there with them

Awww, you're too kind. And thank you kindly. For the most part, what I do manage to do serves my limited purposes.