ANH Buckets

[agonistes86]

Welcome back, Will! Glad to see you're doing well.
And also great to see the progress! I love what I'm seeing, the buckets look excellent. Great photography as well.

 

[Solo_bones]

Thanks, Adam, Chris, Talibane, Ed, DR37, ZE 501 and everyone. I’m humbled by your kindness.

Here’s some more on variants. I call this guy “Worry Face” as his helmet was warped by the mold when I put too much tension on the mold. I think this occurred in production of ANH as well. See photos:






See him on the left back?? Maybe I’m wrong..just looks off.


Also see lowbrow;

 

[Adam1138]

Great stuff Will! These things really are Movie accurate. They propel the figures into the “Man in a suit” status with ease. I love the way your managing to get the same type of variants as the screen used helmets. Way beyond what I was expecting / hoping for. Excellent work mate.

 

[ZE_501]

Great stuff Will! These things really are Movie accurate. They propel the figures into the “Man in a suit” status with ease. I love the way your managing to get the same type of variants as the screen used helmets. Way beyond what I was expecting / hoping for. Excellent work mate.

Yes. This is easily my favourite custom project.

You can see the obsessive passion for accuracy and detail. It does something no one has ever done before for this character.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[irezumi]

Great to read this is up and running again, well done solobones! Helmets look fantastic

 

[Solo_bones]

Wow! Thanks, gents. I hope you’re happy..thosnwill button up shortly. I’ll folloe up with my hired talent tomorrow to see how many casts and speaker mics he was able to make. From there I will add to your orders and throw in the bonus helmet casts.

After that I’ll bet on new versions, including a Jero helmet. I think it can be done...well see.

Here’s a photo I took with my phone. There’s imperfections, but it was a second prototype..

 

[Adam1138]

These look great Will. The sandtrooper variant looks particularly awsome!

 

[D.R.37]

Seriously an amazing job Will. Just goin back through your images and I am really impressed of the range of variance you achieved. As you mentioned a stressful and expensive process but it looks like you’ve perfected what you were looking to accomplish... and more!

 

[Solo_bones]

These look great Will. The sandtrooper variant looks particularly awsome!

Thanks Adam, he’s the show stopper for sure. But the stormtroopers are still cleanest. I’ll post more photos of those. Right now I’m still playing/testing with the sandtroopers.

Great to read this is up and running again, well done solobones! Helmets look fantastic

Thank you..it won’t be long now. I will still work on New, better customs...but it works!

Great stuff Will! These things really are Movie accurate. They propel the figures into the “Man in a suit” status with ease. I love the way your managing to get the same type of variants as the screen used helmets. Way beyond what I was expecting / hoping for. Excellent work mate.

That means a lot. I can’t wait to start perfecting the various helmets.

These are on my to

Hero Helmets - low brow and higher brow (Han and Luke) helmets
Move Along v.2
Lowbrow v.2
Standard Helmet slightly bigger broengap

Yes. This is easily my favourite custom project.
You can see the obsessive passion for accuracy and detail. It does something no one has ever done before for this character.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, ZE! I’m humbled by you guys. Very gracious compliments.

Seriously an amazing job Will. Just goin back through your images and I am really impressed of the range of variance you achieved. As you mentioned a stressful and expensive process but it looks like you’ve perfected what you were looking to accomplish... and more!

Thank you. Not quite where I want to finish, but it’s a happy start at the process. I will get better.

Here’s the (4) variants I have now;

Move Along v.1
Low-Brow v.1
Worry Face
Standard Helmet (original)

 

[TaliBane]

I can't believe that someone has created something that Sideshow, Medicom and even Hot Toys were unable to do over all these years - produce a 1/6 stormtrooper helmet that nails the iconic look of the ANH stunt helmet.

You would think that it would have been achieved by now, but when you look at the HT ESB Vader helmet, very nice but still not truly nailing OT Vader's look (joining a long, long line of 1/6 Vader helmets that are nice but don't nail the iconic look), you realize that capturing the precise, nuanced look of these iconic SW helmets is way, way more difficult than you would think.

So bravo, SB. You've succeeded where even the majors have failed, and continue to fail.

 

[Solo_bones]

Wow! Thank you, Talibane. I’m surprised as well. I came to the conclusion that they figured we’d stop buying if they nailed the first, second or third time.

I want to get these to you guys ASAP. I’m going to the shop tonight to check status. In the meantime; more Trooper goodness. Thanks Jazz!

 

[cking]

FANTASTIC looking Troopers Wil. Welcome back. Tried to send you a PM but your inbox is full.
Thanks again for sending those decals to me. My helmet was recently completed using the decals.

 

[Solo_bones]

FANTASTIC looking Troopers Wil. Welcome back. Tried to send you a PM but your inbox is full.
Thanks again for sending those decals to me. My helmet was recently completed using the decals.

View attachment 426408

Yours looks better than mine. Fantastic detail!!! I’m getting better at painting...but I rush it. I really like what you have done. Can’t wait to see it on a HT Trooper.

And thank you...this project was weighing on me.

 

[scottjua]

SO glad to see you're back. Can't wait to get my 2

 

[Solo_bones]

SO glad to see you're back. Can't wait to get my 2

Thank you for the very kind words and your patience, it means a lot to me. Also, you get more than 2.

 

[Adam1138]

Will are you able to inlighten us on what paints you’ve been using for these please? Also I’m looking at removing the eye lense area of the mold and replacing it with green acetate. Do you think this is achievable?

 

[Solo_bones]

Adam, yes. I’ve been using Tamiya paint. Grey surface primer and then Pure White TS-26. I’ve been using aerosol cans, as I don’t have a good air brush system. You’ll get better results with the Air brush. I’m a little impatient..but I plan on getting a nice air brush later.

I also use Tamiya Rubber Black for the band, speaker and speaker mic tips, TS-82.

As far as cutting the eyes out, that was my biggest issue for letting you guys down. A lot of them can be. A lot can’t as the way I was doing it caused resin to glob to one side. But on this new run I am rotocasting, so it spreads the resin out nice and evenly a lot of the time. So on many I have cut the eyes out, on most of my sandtroopers I did this. I painted the eyes on the Stormtroopers with Tamiya gloss black mixed with bright green..it came out nice. A lot cleaner than cutting the eyes out...but again I was impatient.

Here’s some photos with plastic eye lenses. I painted the inside of my epoxy putty plastic cover that holds it to it’s cardboard back. It was already curved, so it laid easy into the eye sockets on the inside of the helmet. I taped the back of the plastic painted lenses to prevent the paint from scratching off, then I taped the lenses to the inside of the helmet with surgical tape...my secret weapon.

Hers some pics;

 

[Tworiverz]

Firstly welcome back Will, even though youve been away for a while ( And I hope that things are looking a bit brighter for you these days) you dont seem to have been sat on you lorrels. I see some fantastic improvements on the helmets which are a testiment to the effort that you must have put in. It deffinately show , as I know how hard it is to motivate yourself in the low times, well done.

Secondly , in regards to Adams comment about installing green lenses , Tamaya do do transluscent paints that work very well at giving a subtle tint

Hope this helps.

 

[Solo_bones]

Hey, tworiverz! Thank you so much, I appreciate it...and I’m grateful for all the concern. I wasn’t on hard times, just stressed out with all the production problems and sense of letting people down. I had to buy all new equipment and more mold making material and create a new process for making helmets...the rotocasting was key.

Anyway, that’s a brilliant bit of information!! I’ll have to try it and maybe over paint on some of my helmets?

Thanks for that helpful info.

 

[TaliBane]

Yeah, while I have found some good green tinted plastic (even green vitamin bottles work well, though they only work for the flat lense variety,) I agree with tworiverz about Tamiya paints. I used some smoke and other translucent paints and they really do look very convincing for lenses.

And I need to stay our of this thread until I can buy a few of these helmets. These pics are just too good.