Three New Darth Vader Figures (LAST TWEAKS TO EMPEROR'S DEATH DIO) & Dio Builds For Them 1) Bespin Gantry Scene 2) Force Lightning Killing Emperor Scene 3) Meditation Chamber Scene.

shovelchop81 wrote:Thanks so much again for all the effort you put into getting my pics to display! I'll now try to follow the less than 18 pics per post 'rule of thumb' that seems to work best

And thank you for taking the time to comment after what was probably a frustrating solution to find!

I do indeed have more Vaders than original trilogy ST's since I only have four on display but there are other troopers: Death Star, Scout, Snow, Death, TIE Pilots, officers etc.. also lots of different clones (oxymoron?) and First Order ST's and their variants...probably forgetting some.. do Royal Guards count? They are elite ST's after all.

Just remember, 18 would still trigger the anti-spam check but so far it seems to allow the images to post.

I think you need to bash some more regular Stormies... The relatively cheap recipe was Bandai kit with Hasbro's "flying" Stormtrooper's helmet (which is better than the Bandai one). By now, however, these pieces are probably harder to find.

I still think that you have some leeway with the seating area of the "meditation chamber" and a higher seat would allow you to seat your Vader more comfortably.

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:Thanks so much again for all the effort you put into getting my pics to display! I'll now try to follow the less than 18 pics per post 'rule of thumb' that seems to work best

And thank you for taking the time to comment after what was probably a frustrating solution to find!

I do indeed have more Vaders than original trilogy ST's since I only have four on display but there are other troopers: Death Star, Scout, Snow, Death, TIE Pilots, officers etc.. also lots of different clones (oxymoron?) and First Order ST's and their variants...probably forgetting some.. do Royal Guards count? They are elite ST's after all.

Just remember, 18 would still trigger the anti-spam check but so far it seems to allow the images to post.

I think you need to bash some more regular Stormies... The relatively cheap recipe was Bandai kit with Hasbro's "flying" Stormtrooper's helmet (which is better than the Bandai one). By now, however, these pieces are probably harder to find.

I still think that you have some leeway with the seating area of the "meditation chamber" and a higher seat would allow you to seat your Vader more comfortably.

I also have a Black Hole ST. Yeah the Bandai kits were perfect but they're too expensive and rare now. Got ST's where I need them, had a shelf packed with Hasbro ones before but decided it was a bit tatty and a waste of a shelf tbh. The seat will work with some mods as it's more of a round cushioned backed thing in the movie, I can change the angle of the seat etc..







Chamber's undersized but the chair is about right.

YES!! He's looking great. That unmasked head is looking so good! And the sitting pose is working. Win!

And heh, you sent me down a rabbit hole regarding the origins of "squee".  Yes, it describes a high pitched sqeal expressing a state of joyful excitement, though I consider a sqeal to be more animal-speech (especially pigs), while a squee is a more controlled human sound. I first encountered it on a Magic: The Gathering card and it has stuck with me.  

Bet you wanted to know that.

Diana wrote:YES!! He's looking great. That unmasked head is looking so good! And the sitting pose is working. Win!

And heh, you sent me down a rabbit hole regarding the origins of "squee".  Yes, it describes a high pitched sqeal expressing a state of joyful excitement, though I consider a sqeal to be more animal-speech (especially pigs), while a squee is a more controlled human sound. I first encountered it on a Magic: The Gathering card and it has stuck with me.  

Bet you wanted to know that.

That is interesting! We don't really use 'squee' in English, must be more Germanic in origin maybe? A 'squeal' is used to describe some pig like noises but also often children especially little girls. It also means to inform or 'tell on' someone i.e. to be traitorous perhaps initially described that way due to torture?
Getting there with some parts of the different builds but have some interesting problems for each one to address.

Ah... but is "squee" pronounced Skvi: in German? I have always taken it as intended when I've seen it here in type, and I think Diana is not the only one to use it.

Back to business, great job tracking down the actual look of the furniture for Vader's seat, which I'm pretty sure was not discernible onscreen. A sloping surface to the seat part (lower in front, higher in back), combined with appropriate overall height, should help the sitting position.

Wow! Lot to catch up on. This is looking pretty cool. And the fact your adding all the diorama pieces — awesome stuff.

GubernatorFan wrote:Ah... but is "squee" pronounced Skvi: in German? I have always taken it as intended when I've seen it here in type, and I think Diana is not the only one to use it.

Back to business, great job tracking down the actual look of the furniture for Vader's seat, which I'm pretty sure was not discernible onscreen. A sloping surface to the seat part (lower in front, higher in back), combined with appropriate overall height, should help the sitting position.

Stryker2012 wrote:Wow! Lot to catch up on. This is looking pretty cool. And the fact your adding all the diorama pieces — awesome stuff.

Thanks guys!
Well the 3D printer guy's giving me the 'cold shoulder' probably out of his comfort zone doing something not 'plug and play' not the first time this has happened  I sent him some pics of my customs assuring him I won't be moaning about the part once it arrives as I'm very used to adapting things to my needs as long as it's the correct size (already sent him measurements in those pics I posted here before and just asked him to get as close as possible with the shape of the model/file he has). Anyway looks like I'm on my own which is fine, I hate relying on other people for stuff like this because of the unreliability, communication breakdowns etc..
So I'm doing a typical chop job of Frankensteining the large translucent helmet with the small translucent helmet, carefully cutting and gluing parts to try and get the correct 'Goldilocks' size while keeping the proportions as accurate as possible (I'll allow a little leeway for distortion as he is getting zapped heavily by Force Lightning!). I'll also include missing bts from the two by supplementing parts like the collar back and lower front etc.. using the black Hasbro bits. I've ordered a second hot glue gun to run clear glue through as my only one is full of the more expensive black glue right now and it just seems a wise cheap investment for the long run to have one gun in each of the colours I use all the time (you can't just pull out the black stuff to change it to the clear stuff, you have to waste a lot of glue each time and can still cross contaminate them anyway).I'll be using the clear glue to fill in gaps and add structural support to the rather fragile helmet. To blend the different shades of blue I'll blur the borders with blue ink so they look more 'marbled' with lighter streaks here and there. The dome is going to be a pain but I have an idea to fade parts to black leaving contrasting highlights of light and dark blue, leaving the mask to be the focus of the glowing parts from the LED, still need to cast a clear skull though unless it looks like it won't be able to be seen.



SSC parts for size comparison only.

You could try some of the other printers we suggested. But it looks like you are well on your way with this aspect of the project. And it looks promising. Frankensteining it sounds about right, given the process.

GubernatorFan wrote:You could try some of the other printers we suggested. But it looks like you are well on your way with this aspect of the project. And it looks promising. Frankensteining it sounds about right, given the process.

He got back to me today, some BS about being away (from his phone or what?) for a few days but whatever, might work out might not.
I'm just carrying on as if he won't be making it, nothing else to do with these parts anyway! Going to start the helmet's shell/bowl whatever you call it now.





THOUGHT ABOUT INCREASING HIS LENSES SIZE BY PUTTING THEM ON THE OUTSIDE BUT DECIDED IT WOULD LOOK TOO GOOFY.









IT WILL BE NARROWED ETC..

Looking good, Alex. Sorry to hear that guy isn’t being very helpful.

Stryker2012 wrote:Looking good, Alex. Sorry to hear that guy isn’t being very helpful.

To be fair he's gotten back to me a couple of times today but still not sure of the price or how clear he can print it, also 'yellowing's' a thing apparently.

So still working with what I have.

Yellowing is only really an issue with clear resin. If you print in a translucent blue, you, hopefully, won't have that issue. Exposure to UV is usually what causes resin to turn yellow. You can also coat clear resin with varnish, which should somewhat protect it.

I have a 3D printed part printed in clear resin some ~6 years ago that I sprayed with gloss varnish. It's still perfectly clear.

Your dedication to this is amazing. I've heard of people putting together life-size Vader helmets, but you are building one from pieces in sixth-scale. Wow!

Zes wrote:Yellowing is only really an issue with clear resin. If you print in a translucent blue, you, hopefully, won't have that issue. Exposure to UV is usually what causes resin to turn yellow. You can also coat clear resin with varnish, which should somewhat protect it.

I have a 3D printed part printed in clear resin some ~6 years ago that I sprayed with gloss varnish. It's still perfectly clear.

Yes, we've been talking about that and he says he has some tricks like letting it cure in water then varnishing it with UV resistant clear coat. Good to know your's has lasted so well for so long!

GubernatorFan wrote:Your dedication to this is amazing. I've heard of people putting together life-size Vader helmets, but you are building one from pieces in sixth-scale. Wow!

Cheers mate! Done it before lol. I remember getting the shape of the helmet dome right was the tough part and that was making a black opaque one so I could use putty and all kinds of glues etc..

Some really awesome custom work. When I saw the blue one I thought you were going to make a hologram of vader, the electrocuted version is way cooler than what I had originally thought.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Some really awesome custom work. When I saw the blue one I thought you were going to make a hologram of vader, the electrocuted version is way cooler than what I had originally thought.

Cheers TBB! That hadn't even occurred to me lol! Interesting idea but not something I'll be doing personally, not evil enough!


On with the head show...

nicked the HT tunic for a modded cheap Hasbro one as the lightning body needs all the help it can get in the clothing department and the HT will be sitting so kind of a waste for that version to wear it, plus the cut helps expose the battery and switch to be more accessible.



left is completely SSC so lousy comparison, grabbed the wrong figure lol!















NEVER THOUGHT I'D GET THIS GAP TO CLOSE AS IT'S HARD ABS, SOMEHOW I DID IT WITHOUT BREAKING EVERYTHING, PATIENCE IS THE KEY HERE, NOT HOT WATER.













STILL NEEDS FLARED PART SHORTENED AND MIDRIB ADDED. AS WELL AS EVERYTHING ELSE!!















21 PICS THERE, I REFUSED TO BELIEVE 18 OR LESS WAS THE MAX! FORUMOTION & IMGUR JUST LIKE TO F**K WITH ME!

Playing with lighting effects to get a basic idea, black light seems best.

Lamp



Very old mini Maglite pre LED that served me well on the road for 20+ years but is dying, batteries and bulb.. what I had close to hand as phone normally used as torch in work area but used as camera too! Most decent torches attached to guns!lol.















LED black light















These pics were all taken in the shade during daylight so probably better at night.

That’s pretty cool. From the way you assembled the helmet to the different lighting takes. Neat stuff.

I second Mark. Impressive Frankensteining (and patience!) and interesting to see the different ways different light affects it. The black light, in particular, seems most promising, but they are all cool.

Stryker2012 wrote:That’s pretty cool. From the way you assembled the helmet to the different lighting takes. Neat stuff.

GubernatorFan wrote:I second Mark. Impressive Frankensteining (and patience!) and interesting to see the different ways different light affects it. The black light, in particular, seems most promising, but they are all cool.

Cheers! The tricky part will be making it look good unlit too! It will be partially black gloss for that with translucent streaks in the dome plus I'm going to incorporate blue clear parts at the front of the dome so the lit up areas don't just change transparency (dome ABS not very translucent) abruptly as soon as the dome starts but flow into it more naturally; I trimmed the flare of the dome's neck guard to be more accurate and in scale.
I'm setting up a mould to cast the skull and spine in clear resin today.
Done lots of mods and filling/sculpting on the mask and dome with hot glue, my cool dinky little glue gun arrived (has an on/of switch yay!) so I could do this. Lots of dremeling, sanding, scraping with a scalpel and even a belt sander used on the crest of the dome which was a lengthy job with all the hand tool work needed as well. Added blue ink to the mask after testing how it worked under UV light, much better than the Sharpie that just blocks the light! Reshaped the rear neck guard and glued it on, the bulk of the helmet will be black at the back so should fit in fine as it is.





PRE HOT GLUE DREMELING ETC..

















TESTING BLUE INK'S REACTION TO UV LIGHT VERSUS SHARPIE





BLUE INK WASH



SHARPIE INK





HOT GLUE FILLING AND SCULPTING

Well that was 20 something pics posted together and it worked, must have something to do with adding text in between pics?

SHAPING THE CREST





INK WASH APPLIED TO MASK AND TESTED WITH UV LIGHT













BELT SANDER SAVED A LOT OF WORK! LOL



STILL NEEDS A LOT OF TIDYING UP UP BY HAND WITH A SCALPEL, FILES AND SANDPAPER THOUGH..



HAS TO BE ROUGHED UP FOR BLACK PAINT ANYWAY.





AGES LATER...











TRANSPLANT AWAITS...







COMPARISON WITH SSC DOME







INNER RIBS ETC ON THE CLEAR PIECE HAD TO BE REMOVED WITH DREMEL, SCALPEL, SANDPAPER ETC..

Nice work, looks just right when lit.

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice work, looks just right when lit.

Cheers! Hopefully will have improved upon that now too. Swapped out some of the 'translucent' material for some transparent blue, not easy as the curves barely line up anywhere due to the different scales and moulds etc.. but used super and hot glue to mesh them together then painted it all with blue ink. I've just painted the basics of electricity/Force Lightning patterns with black liquid latex as a mask to preserve the translucent blue from the coat of black to come later, basically it looks arse-backwards now colour wise. I'll improve on the lightning effects later by carefully scraping away black paint using a scribe, the latex was very runny, the brush was not the best (tend to get destroyed by latex so chose an expendable one just in case) plus my hand's a bit shaky.
Also made a two part mould of the skull with spine using reusable Vinamold (cut it up and microwave it 15 seconds at a time between stirring, never overcook!! Morphs into a giant foaming monster that stinks the house out and needs a hose outside to control, I did it once..) the postman literally just delivered the 2 part crystal clear resin which I'll mix up later, takes 24hrs to cure which is pretty long compared to easyFlo 60. Hopefully the mould making pics will be of some use to our younger members who might not have learned this craft due to 3D printing.























YEAH NEEDED A LOT OF HOT GLUE TO SEAL ALL THE GAPS BEFORE TRIMMING IT DOWN/OFF WITH A SCALPEL.













BLUE INK

REALLY HARD TO BALANCE EVERYTHING TOGETHER ON A TORCH HEAD!











STILL A BLOODY GAP! FIXED IT THOUGH WITH SUPER GLUE.



OH YEAH, TINNED OUT THE SHRUNKEN VINYL ARMOUR PIECE THAT I MIGHT USE BITS OF WITH DOUBLE SIDED TAPE OR MAYBE SOME E-PANEL ON THE ARMOUR TO LIGHT IT UP. TOUGH STUFF! THOUGH IT WOULD TAKE A FEW SECONDS ON THE SANDER, NOPE ABOUT 20 MINUTES ON THE SANDER AND GRINDER!









FORCING IT TO COOL INTO THE CORRECT SHAPE TO FIT ON THE SSC ARMOUR. IT'S THE ONLY VINYL PART THAT SHRANK TO THE CORRECT SCALE!!













LATEX MASKING











SHOULD END UP SOMETHING LIKE THIS WHEN ALL IS FINISHED..







MAKING A MOULD WITH VINAMOLD AND PLASTICINE