A Vanguard Of Vaders!!/Finished and Filmed! 3 videos pg2. /Battle Damaged Darth Vader Custom Build From The Kenobi TV Series WIP

I already have 8 1/6 Vaders (+a couple of Hasbro old school 12" scale ones), 3 of these are battle damaged and I had planed to do a 'lit up by Force lightning ROTJ' version until I saw this super cool looking version in the 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' TV series so sorry for any spoilers . Hot Toys of course announced theirs but I'd never planned on waiting for or buying theirs since most of my Vaders are custom built by me anyway. The biggest challenge to this build is probably going to be the now very inquisitive kitten Pepper who can't sit still for a second and attacks everything not nailed down (although she has been great about avoiding my collections except a couple of bottom shelves just like Murphy did to get around the inside of the couch, fingers crossed I haven't just jinxed that!).

Some live action reference stills and a brilliant short video of the fight scenes that cause the damage, best sabre fight since ROTS on Mustafa.

















Excellent video! Watch!



What I'm starting with and facing as a challenge!











Things I need to make or get are: a Crispy Anakin hs (Hayden), shoe part of boots (large obviously), correct gauntlets (horizontal lines not vertical).

So done a lot of searching both in my storage room and on the net. I found possibilities for head sculpts in/on both. Nice to see Ada Chang still offers her old sculpts like the bald Anakin one which I've used in the past a couple of times for exactly this kind of Vader build, sadly prices have gone up, used to be $20 now it's $40 for an unpainted sculpt, it is the way... to misquote the Mandalorian. Other heads online are either a joke or not much better than a joke. I found a bunch of bald head sculpts in my box that could work with some mods (they'd all need mods including the online ones) but these are free. Boots/shoe bits are sorted, found the ones that came with the over sized Kylo Ren Disney electronic figure (who's hips I just used for Sauron lol).

Online stuff



seriously, WTF?



best of the bunch probably..







Stuff from my boxes (I think I have another couple)



Boots



Oh, here's the complete final battle between Vader and Kenobi uncut, not choppy editing

Looks like a cool project. There’s someone over at the Freaks (can’t remember who) who has been making an unmasked damaged head sculpt — but he’s using Dave Prowse as the bases for it — and adding battle damage. I think his plan is to seek the sculpt to others when finished.

And here I was thinking after all your work on custom Bane, you would finally have the free time to look at all those other people's threads. :p But off to work you go once more.

Surely you will create something cool again and have a beautiful light up function. I guess you will do some actual melting of plastic here?

I think that fight was good, until those stupid styrofoam stones started flying. Really hate it when they ruin goods saber duels with their weird rock throwing stuff. And why did poor Vader have to lose like that again? Overall that series often felt like a fan film to me. The few moments with Vader in Action and menacingly walking was nice mostly (if you stop your critical thought or search for logic), but very weirdly written and cut overall. But then again I would even watch Ewan McGregor talking about sea otters for six hours, he is just a likeable guy.

Glad to see you embarking on another project. I hope kittie cooperates, of this might end up being her inside the Vader suit... And cats hate to play dress up.

Stryker2011 wrote:Looks like a cool project. There’s someone over at the Freaks (can’t remember who) who has been making an unmasked damaged head sculpt — but he’s using Dave Prowse as the bases for it — and adding battle damage. I think his plan is to seek the sculpt to others when finished.

Cheers! Cool idea! I guess the guy on SSF is on the Prowse side of that old 'Lucas vs. Prowse' war from way back to ESB I think, or perhaps he just wants to see wants a damaged Prowse hs vs. the Sebastian Shaw one?

Ovy wrote:And here I was thinking after all your work on custom Bane, you would finally have the free time to look at all those other people's threads. :p But off to work you go once more.

Surely you will create something cool again and have a beautiful light up function. I guess you will do some actual melting of plastic here?

I think that fight was good, until those stupid styrofoam stones started flying. Really hate it when they ruin goods saber duels with their weird rock throwing stuff. And why did poor Vader have to lose like that again? Overall that series often felt like a fan film to me. The few moments with Vader in Action and menacingly walking was nice mostly (if you stop your critical thought or search for logic), but very weirdly written and cut overall. But then again I would even watch Ewan McGregor talking about sea otters for six hours, he is just a likeable guy.

Sorry Ovi I'm just naturally an antisocial bastard! I'll try and visit your threads more though as I know you make brilliant work! I keep building to combat chronic depression and try to sort of socialise by posting WIP's since agoraphobia kind of killed off any social life I had way before Covid did.
As for the TV series, yeah, it was pretty lame except for Vader, little Leia and Obi-Wan at times. The inquisitors were terrible especially 3rd Sister who couldn't act to save her life (literally in her character's case although that was more forgivable). I enjoyed the rocks in the fight, broke it up a bit (no pun intended) but hated the stupid back twirling! Strange I know, I'm ok with flying rocks but incorrect swordsmanship and techniques relating to real life annoy me in a fantasy setting! . Episodes 5&6 saved the series for me, I'd recommend people only watch episodes 4,5&6 and skip 1,2&3.

GubernatorFan wrote:Glad to see you embarking on another project. I hope kittie cooperates, of this might end up being her inside the Vader suit...  And cats hate to play dress up.

Well to be fair I'm not actually trying to dress Pepper up as Vader LOL.

I knew I had another suitable head! In fact I'll actually use this one with some mods of course, eye colour and added scarring on its crown. The only down side was it was already part of a nearly completed build, that of the Anti Predator Suit from the movie 'The Predator', actually that build was when I started having my burn out with 1/6. I believe it's Tommy Oliphant as The Beast in some teen like drama adaptation of the fairy tale or something, never seen it.

Don't you mean Alex Pettyfer? Or however that is spelled. Anyway, I think it is suitable, so good call.

Great choice for a head sculpt.

GubernatorFan wrote:Don't you mean Alex Pettyfer? Or however that is spelled. Anyway, I think it is suitable, so good call.

I'm sure you're right about the actor, I was just going off something stuck in my head after asking someone who they thought it was at the pub many years ago, they were  probably confusing it with 'Hitman' another movie I never watched lol.

Stryker2011 wrote:Great choice for a head sculpt.

Cheers! Still needs work, like extenuating/enhancing his eye socket and the classic scars. I believe this battle is explaining how he got that prominent scar across his forehead that's was first shown in ROTJ.





The strike goes right across and through the crown of the helmet and aligns perfectly with the scar, hard to capture on the YT video.



THIS IS THE TOP OF HIS HELMET AS HE IS CROUCHING FORWARDS RECOVERING FROM THE STRIKE OF KENOBI'S SABRE

Some reference pics of other figures and artwork etc.. for the scars and lights.











A really nice custom by someone.



Screen shot from the episode.



I'm choosing this mask as it's actually a casting I must have made years ago so not destroying something expensive!









Beginning chest box mods to old Hasbro/Kenner suit.















Modding Kylo Ren's boots to more traditional German WW2 boots.





Rough/basic start to his scarring using thee soldering iron, will be smoothed out, improved with sandpaper and putty later.

The head sculpt process continues with a bit more soldering iron work to make more curvy scarred tissue and define the cheek bone some more, then removing more plastic with a scalpel, later trying to get rid of any angular cut marks with sandpaper; all this being done under a magnifying glass which shows all the flaws brilliantly! Thought I'd messed up and lost the eye at one point but luckily it is just the paint which had adhered to a hot piece of plastic while I was giving him a more aggressive brow above the eye. Boots are getting there and started thinning out the mask to fit the head properly.





































Not the best solution but works for now.











Eh.. getting there, to quote the industrial/gothic metal band Paradise Lost: "It's in the art of the process".

Trying the acetone trick on this head that I discovered with Boba's bald scarred head sculpt I did a few figures back. This is a different polymer though, not rotocast PVC but injection moulded so a lot thicker and harder, sort of worked I think! LOL. Then did a bunch of Dremeling on the mask to fit the head properly but was reduced to doing it by hand eventually as my kitten (after going bonkers for days like she'd snorted coke or had a rocket up her butt, running laps around the room attacking everything including me) finally for the very first time decided to trust me completely, go all cute and not only sat on my lap for the first time properly but stayed there and eventually went to sleep! So I had to finish off the mask/face plate by hand as I didn't have the heart to move the little cute fluffball.

Ah... the added responsibilities to being a parent. Great work on the head. The acetone trick worked nicely to soften those edges. The result actually reminds me of Prequel Palpatine.

That’s a great job modding that head sculpt. Looks close to the Obi-Wan version. And it looks like you’re new friend won’t let you get much work done.

GubernatorFan wrote:Ah... the added responsibilities to being a parent. Great work on the head.  The acetone trick worked nicely to soften those edges. The result actually reminds me of Prequel Palpatine.

Oh yeah...but I can lock her out of the room if I need too for her safety more than anything although she was fine with the Dremel, hairdryer (for evaporating the acetone) and me working on and testing a full auto gas powered Uzi today and that was with the pheromone stuff turned off! LOL, he does look a bit like Palpatine, he's frowning severely as you would expect given the circumstances   .

Stryker2011 wrote:That’s a great job modding that head sculpt. Looks close to the Obi-Wan version. And it looks like you’re new friend won’t let you get much work done.

Thanks Stryker! Don't worry she may distract me a bit but won't interfere with my builds as I can lock her out if needed.

I just made the crucial cuts in the helmet components for the face reveal. Obviously there's more to do such as texturing and shaping the edges to the cuts, removing more material around the nose and mouth area but now I can see how thick the plastic is on the face plate I can carefully thin it out more to fit his face better. I'm thinking of doing electronics in there too, a blue and red binary LED and hopefully get him to say the lines from the fight too using the guts from a knackered digital Dictaphone I have.

Awww, first signs of trust and belonging! Gotta love it.

And Vader is coming along nicely!

I think the distinctive brow of the sculpt fits the brow of the mask rather well.

And yeah I guess the scar on the head has a origin story now, it's Star Wars after all...

The face mask mod looks excellent. The idea of electronics and sound effects is promising, I’m sure you’ll make it happen. Very cool idea.

Excellent progress and a perfect fit!

Diana wrote:Awww, first signs of trust and belonging! Gotta love it.

And Vader is coming along nicely!

LOL, cheers Dianna! Had to lock her out of the room today, too dangerous.

Ovy wrote:I think the distinctive brow of the sculpt fits the brow of the mask rather well.

And yeah I guess the scar on the head has a origin story now, it's Star Wars after all...

Thanks Ovy! I think the scar being part of this duel is now cannon, there might be a scene or two in ROTS's ending that conflicts with that but I think it works and like it.

Stryker2011 wrote:The face mask mod looks excellent. The idea of electronics and sound effects is promising, I’m sure you’ll make it happen. Very cool idea.

Thank you Stryker! I'll do my best!

GubernatorFan (sorry I don't know how to fix the quote misspelling!)

Thank you! Guess I chose the right parts! LOL.

So... the body is 1cm too short, bugger, I found a Hot Toys Darth Vader body for a sane price over here in the UK which was very lucky, the same seller had a complete set of HT Vader boots so I grabbed those as well since my solution so far wasn't great.
Done loads of soldering iron work on the helmet parts, it reminds me very much of my other hobby, making replica gas guns where I've done quite a bit of stippling over the years for custom grips, it's a very popular way to add 'grippyness' to surfaces that need it on competition and some military guns, usually SF pistols like the H&K 45 I've made to mimic an MK23 in appearance but is smaller as MK23's are giant pistols, too big. Anyway pics of that and what I used for reference, I'll probably need to sand some of it down and add a bit of matte paint on the edges etc.. I did my best to show the sort of 'honeycomb' structure that the material has looking at HT's interpretation and they get to see all the real props as I understand it.



Bought these





Reference pics





Stippling sort of..

GubernatorFan wrote:Excellent progress and a perfect fit!

You replied while I was creating a new post and I made a complete hash of trying to include your kind words with a quotation tool! Sorry! But thank you!

Pretty cool effect.

No problems. Glad you found yourself a taller body and boots. Very impressive work on the helmet.

I wonder about one thing -- and I'm not sure whether the source design, HT design, etc, necessarily figured it out -- if part of a helmet gets destroyed by a lightsaber, just how jagged and sharply defined would the damage be? There seem to be three options: what you got (which is beautiful in its complexity), sliced clean (which doesn't seem to be the case from HT's promo photos), or somewhere in between maybe showing some melting of the metal? I really don't know, just thinking out loud. Visually, it is already stunning.

Stryker2011 wrote:Pretty cool effect.

Cheer Stryker! Still more to do.

GubernatorFan wrote:No problems. Glad you found yourself a taller body and boots. Very impressive work on the helmet.  

I wonder about one thing -- and I'm not sure whether the source design, HT design, etc, necessarily figured it out -- if part of a helmet gets destroyed by a lightsaber, just how jagged and sharply defined would the damage be?  There seem to be three options: what you got (which is beautiful in its complexity), sliced clean (which doesn't seem to be the case from HT's promo photos), or somewhere in between maybe showing some melting of the metal? I really don't know, just thinking out loud.  Visually, it is already stunning.

Cheers and good question! My version of damage needs taming down with acetone, sandpaper etc.. and the dots on the surface areas are the result of plasma splatter, in fact the whole cut is indicative of a plasma cutter! Have you ever used one? They don't actually cut very cleanly at all (older hand held ones at least), a gas axe is usually tidier but takes longer; as part of my welding certificate I got to play around with both. His helmet would be made of 'plastisteel' so the effect plasma would have on it is a bit of a guess really but something like what is shown I think.

Some plasma cut aluminium before and after being tidied up, a lightsabre would be made of plasma I believe (some scientists have speculated this would be the only way to do it, like the Japanese/American guy from MIT who did a great tv series on SW and reality)

Below is a before and after cleaning of a plasma cut to give you an idea and this was done by a machine.