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

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.

I've been experimenting with acetone and sandpaper to get a different finish on the burnt helmet parts. Tested an off cut from the shell of the helm in acetone but that was way too aggressive! I then tried painting on the acetone with a real hair paint brush (for obvious reasons) but that seemed too gentle, I finally chose to use different grades of sandpaper to get rid of most of the unwanted burrs from the soldering iron work, then applying acetone to smooth out the rest and scratches left by the sandpaper.











SANDING













SITTING A BIT WONKY..













FIRST ACETONE TREATMENT



SECOND APPLICATION AND SUPER FINE SANDING..

That's looking pretty good and very realistic. The head sculpt is looking great too.

Very interesting, glad you had thought it out.  Looks really good.

Theboo-bomb wrote:That's looking pretty good and very realistic. The head sculpt is looking great too.

Thank you very much!

GubernatorFan wrote:Very interesting, glad you had thought it out.  Looks really good.

Probably over thought it but that's how my brain works, engineering on one side and art/design on the other!

You are going to be sick of this sculpt by the end of this post lol! But at least I believe it to be finished to my best abilities right now, will need clear coats but that's it, at least the headache I now have from working on it through a magnifying glass circular light doodad for hours on end tells me I'm done at any rate!  Lots of tweaks, mostly with my nemesis, the eye! At least there's only one to worry about this time!!















































All done in situations like this or worse as at least she's not attacking everything I'm trying to work with when she decides to use my beard as a nest! LOL.

Haha! At least you know she loves you. Nice work on that damaged head, Alex. Looking good so far.

Stryker2011 wrote:Haha! At least you know she loves you. Nice work on that damaged head, Alex. Looking good so far.

Very true! And I'm glad of it as it's taken about 2 months to get her comfortable enough to come into the room, let alone sit on my beard although that wasn't exactly the end goal I had in mind, more like next to me on the couch which she does too!

Pretty much finished with the face, head, faceplate and helm just needs gluing together and another coat of gloss black then clear. I made the air supply mister/nozzle and the clear coats to the face. I've been trying to give the eye a more 3D effect with multiple coats of clear but it's not working, I need to find a 'acrylic paint and marker friendly' clear gel like substance that dries crystal clear and glossy/wet looking, any ideas? Super Glue is unpredictable I've tried it before, some times dries clear sometimes dries foggy, nail varnish top coat gloss is a bit of a gamble too as it takes so long to dry the shape deforms and it often reacts with markers and paint. He's been reminding me of one of my other favourite villains throughout this build, Tom Hardy's portrayal of TDKR Bane.





































And now compulsory Pepper pics!

Nice work on the head sculpt. Strange that even a gloss coat isn’t working on the eyeball; no idea what would work other than that.

And ha! What is it about toilet paper and cats/dogs. We had to take the toilet paper off the holder and put it in a basket on the back of the toilet that the damn dog can’t reach because of this behavior. He still tears about used facial tissues if he gets his paws on them — tears them to shreds.

Vader is looking mighty gruesome, and it's nice your kitty kat likes you so much she decided your beard would make a great bed.

The head came out very artistic, actually. I commiserate with you on eyes, although, as a matter of principle, I would have done the other one too.
Nice kitty, don't let her get into the habit of shredding things.

Stryker2011 wrote:Nice work on the head sculpt. Strange that even a gloss coat isn’t working on the eyeball; no idea what would work other than that.

And ha! What is it about toilet paper and cats/dogs. We had to take the toilet paper off the holder and put it in a basket on the back of the toilet that the damn dog can’t reach because of this behavior. He still tears about used facial tissues if he gets his paws on them — tears them to shreds.

LOL! Well I kept taking it from her but she just grabbed it again as soon as I wasn't looking so I gave up, I find it funny how she looks like a novelty toilet roll holder in the picture!
Tried super glue today on the eye but even though it dried clear it didn't add much depth and caused the red ink to run so had to paint it again.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Vader is looking mighty gruesome, and it's nice your kitty kat likes you so much she decided your beard would make a great bed.

Cheers! Yeah she's become a lot more friendly recently and is also going bonkers attacking everything as kittens do...

GubernatorFan wrote:The head came out very artistic, actually. I commiserate with you on eyes, although, as a matter of principle, I would have done the other one too.
Nice kitty, don't let her get into the habit of shredding things.

I imagine she'll grow out of it, she has a scratching post that she uses. As for the eye, well redone it again, going to just leave it now.

I took my dictaphone apart as it still works to my surprise! I'd thought it was broken but I guess it just didn't like the long USB lead I'd used for charging it. The pictures will show the idea I had of installing a small speaker into vader's mask behind the vents which I planned to connect to the recorder to play the lines from the battle in the Kenobi episode. Apparently I was being thick... .. as a smaller speaker means it's really quiet unless you stick it next to your ear like it is meant to be since it was from an old set of headphones! . Found this obvious flaw in my design out after having untangled loads of headphones, modifying one (breaking it apart) and soldering it to the recorder, worked great..next to my ear.. . So guess I'll be using a bigger speaker then taking advantage of the HT body that I ordered which already has the space cast in it especially for one!DOH!





Yeah, had to lock the cat out of the room lol.

























Latest eye 'touch up'

Bloody hell! This sound editing malarky took me hours!! First I had to convert the video file into an audio file (bare in mind I've never done anything like this before, other figure's clips were recorded directly from the tv through a microphone) then came the painstakingly boring stuff, editing everything from the entire episode except Vader's lines in the fight scene which is split into parts across the episode. Then there was was the fractions of a second to edit out when Kenobi yells a word here and there so they are almost talking over each other. Then I had to learn how to put it back into a video format to upload it to You Tube so I could share the exciting 1 minute 20 seconds of Vader/Anakin talking with you guys! LOL. Boy do I feel sorry for sound editors now!!

I was wondering if you were going to take advantage of that feature of the Vader body. Glad it will come in handy.

That’s pretty cool, Alex. Nice job editing that all together.

Stryker2011 wrote:That’s pretty cool, Alex. Nice job editing that all together.

Cheers Stryker! My very first time using the free software so could easily been a lot worse hopefully I'll be a lot faster in the future!

My HT Vader body and boots arrived....yeah...not thrilled. At first I put it next to the body I'm using and was like WTF?! It's shorter!! I then thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and put the boots on as they just peg in and might have built-in risers at the ankles, it seems they do fortunately but it's still shorter than my SSC ones . With the boots the body is taller than the one I was using (I need it for my custom Dooku anyway) but when you factor in that the non Vader body isn't wearing boots the difference is negligible. We'll see how it goes when everything is put together after it's been made of course!

Who would have thunk it? But, yes, HT's Vader bodies are not impossibly tall. Have you considered whether some of those ankle extenders might not help?

GubernatorFan wrote:Who would have thunk it? But, yes, HT's Vader bodies are not impossibly tall. Have you considered whether some of those ankle extenders might not help?

Impossibly tall? I think you're being a bit facetious there GTF,David Prowse was 2 meters tall or 6'6", basketball players are usually around 7' and there have been cases of people growing to over 8'. Ankle extenders have a nasty habit of throwing all proportions out of whack i.e.: then the arms and torso are too short etc.. but I'll make it work.

As you said, I think the Vader boots would make him the correct height. I have the Sideshow Vader, and I think it’s ridiculously tall — too tall, even for Vader. He looks like he’s 8’ tall when you put him next to other SW figures.

Stryker2011 wrote:As you said, I think the Vader boots would make him the correct height. I have the Sideshow Vader, and I think it’s ridiculously tall — too tall, even for Vader. He looks like he’s 8’ tall when you put him next to other SW figures.

I used that body on a lot of my Vader's so I want consistency more than anything and too tall is way better than too short, trust me I have the Medicom ROTS version which is displayed on its own by some 3&3/4" dios of Vader in his meditation sphere, Death Star etc..

I've been soldering like a mad man trying all these speakers again and again! I found the video tool can actually increase the audio of the file which is great as I couldn't hear a bloody thing with any of the speakers at first! I'm still going to need to use the largest speaker for the best volume though so I've decided to incorporate it into a base like I did for my scratch built TDKR Bane and dying Vader figures; I'll probably put the power pack for the LED(s) in the base too. For the base I'll use half of what was left from the 1/6 Sauron build I did recently, it's rocky and suitable for the fight scene on that wasteland planet; I'll use the other half to match it for a custom Obi-Wan Kenobi I'll probably do next and they can then duel and throw rocks at each other . I recorded the speaker live with my phone in a video below (it's the real world playback through the speaker picked up by the phone's microphone, not a direct link to the file like above).

That's real progress, very promising.

GubernatorFan wrote:Who would have thunk it? But, yes, HT's Vader bodies are not impossibly tall. Have you considered whether some of those ankle extenders might not help?

Stryker2011 wrote:As you said, I think the Vader boots would make him the correct height. I have the Sideshow Vader, and I think it’s ridiculously tall — too tall, even for Vader. He looks like he’s 8’ tall when you put him next to other SW figures.

OKAY, now I understand what you meant to say GTF, that I should remove the extensions of the SSC Vaders rather than worry about increasing the height of the HT body right?

GubernatorFan wrote:That's real progress, very promising.

Cheers! Not much progress but something, testing and experimenting mostly.

That’s correct, Alex. I think that SS overdid the height of Vader. He may have towered over Leia, but he wasn’t a foot and half taller than Han, or other taller folks.

Stryker2011 wrote:That’s correct, Alex. I think that SS overdid the height of Vader. He may have towered over Leia, but he wasn’t a foot and half taller than Han, or other taller folks.

Well when I put all my Vaders together for a comparison pic at the end of this build, I'll see if I need/want to make any height adjustments.

On with the build...

I decided to take advantage of the built in battery holder on this body, of course all the electrics had been gutted for this release due to major QC issues with the previous version i.e. they didn't work. So I had to create new contacts and leads, switches etc...
Once I had all the wiring done and hot glued everything into place (the best way of isolating and securing any electrical hard units or weak connections) after some mild Dremeling, covering the wires in black shrinkwrap (took a bloody hour and a half to get the last stupid piece over the connection!! ) I needed to work out where to place the red LED. I've given up on the blue changing to red idea (symbolising light side turning to dark side used very briefly on his face as he talks) as it's far too complicated and expensive for such a subtle gimmick. The red LED is sort of directional, as in it doesn't flood the area with coloured light but focusses it forward in one direction making it more controllable but also harder to cover a curved surface since it 'bounces' off the first surface it strikes (like a bullet hitting a giant steel ball). This means it required 'guidance' in this case by reflecting the light back and forth across the face (like the ancient Egyptian 'sun mirrors' used to direct sunlight into caves/tombs etc..). I used a foil lid from a coffee creamer tub as I like the pattern it has that gives it a more structural and purposeful look as part of the helmet's construction than silver paint or regular tin foil could ever do. Seems to work well too! I'm thinking about lighting up his belt boxes too since I have then cast in clear resin just for this purpose, never tried it before...I think..























REPAIRED WITH ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME HEADPHONE PIECE I BROKE APPART TO TEST ITS SPEAKER IRONICALLY! LOL.





BEFORE REFLECTIVE FOIL AND JUST EXPERIMENTING A BIT















NECK MODS AND ADAPTORS NEEDED AND CREATED FOR THE NEW BODY

















AFTER FOIL ATTACHED

That is very cool. Neat effect.

Very ambitious, and very ingenuous. I think it worked out very well.