Hot Toys Darth Vader : tips , tricks and any other mods

[McHaleyArt]

That's a very interesting approach to the neck issues.
I'm not worried about creating a gap under the neck armor after it's trimmed, for the following reason:
As you probably know, the chest armor in the movie sat on top of the shoulder bells; it wasn't flush with them as we see in all Vader figures. The shoulder bells are supposed to be tucked under the edges of the middle piece.
Therefore, after I remove 2 or 3mm from the neck armor, then I re-attach the shoulder bells under the edges of the chest armor, that should lift up the chest armor 2 or 3mm to meet the neck as before. Thus, no extra gap. (in theory)

You’ll have to find all of that out for yourself as you tinker. I did put the shoulder armor under the chest armor and I didn’t like the gap or the posture. It’ll depend on how much you shave off and you’ll figure it out as you go.

 

[Solo_bones]

That’s exactly what I did. I shaved quite a bit off. You’re not going to get it exact, as the HT sculpt isn’t flared and crooked like the prop. You can get it to look better, though. Since you’re bringing the neck rim up, you don’t want a gap. I cut off the rubber part of the neck for slightly better articulation. I also changed the neck joint, I drilled a hole up through the female neck socket at an angle and inserted a custom neck joint. This keeps the helmet flush against the chest and keeps the posture natural.

That Boba Fett and Bader are superb!! That’s the real Boba Fett.. I would buy that if I didn’t have to do all that work...but someday, maybe I’ll free up time to put that love into it. It’s just fabulous.

 

[TaliBane]

Yeah, looking good, McHaley!

How tall is your Vader overall after the helmet mod?

 

[Anthrapoid]

You’ll have to find all of that out for yourself as you tinker. I did put the shoulder armor under the chest armor and I didn’t like the gap or the posture. It’ll depend on how much you shave off and you’ll figure it out as you go.

One extra step I'm going to take will be grinding off some of the thickness under the central shoulder armor's side edges, (before I glue the soft felt in those same places) so the bells have enough room under both edges.

 

[D.R.37]

That’s exactly what I did. I shaved quite a bit off. You’re not going to get it exact, as the HT sculpt isn’t flared and crooked like the prop. You can get it to look better, though. Since you’re bringing the neck rim up, you don’t want a gap. I cut off the rubber part of the neck for slightly better articulation. I also changed the neck joint, I drilled a hole up through the female neck socket at an angle and inserted a custom neck joint. This keeps the helmet flush against the chest and keeps the posture natural.

Niiice

 

[McHaleyArt]

Yeah, looking good, McHaley!

How tall is your Vader overall after the helmet mod?

13 5/8”
Mine also has the custom body with roadblock legs...which probably brings the leg height up a bit.

 

[GodParticle]

So I had this damaged R1 head I was able to get that I was gonna try to make into an ESB head. Never tried anything like sculpting before and it's REALLY hard. Like clean, straight lines are my enemy. So far this is what I have. Is the vent too big? Wrong shape? I've been trying to file the underside down to where I can push some wireform mesh under it and I'm getting close to making it fit

 

[paulcarson]

Looking really good. I agree that sculpting this fella is not the easiest thing to do. I originally only wanted to modify a couple if little things but ended up resculpting and changing everything everything about the mask. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

 

[drjedisith]

That’s exactly what I did. I shaved quite a bit off. You’re not going to get it exact, as the HT sculpt isn’t flared and crooked like the prop. You can get it to look better, though. Since you’re bringing the neck rim up, you don’t want a gap. I cut off the rubber part of the neck for slightly better articulation. I also changed the neck joint, I drilled a hole up through the female neck socket at an angle and inserted a custom neck joint. This keeps the helmet flush against the chest and keeps the posture natural.

Thats a trifecta right there. Love grievous pose. I remember all the awesome fiddling you did with him. Love it !

 

[GodParticle]

Looking really good. I agree that sculpting this fella is not the easiest thing to do. I originally only wanted to modify a couple if little things but ended up resculpting and changing everything everything about the mask. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

Thanks. It might end up a complete failure, but at least I tried lol

 

[Solo_bones]

13 5/8”
Mine also has the custom body with roadblock legs...which probably brings the leg height up a bit.

Got any photos of the roadblock legs on the custom body? I was thinking of addding epoxy putty to the legs and chest to give him the ailuthentic build.

 

[Waste Time Continuum]

You can actually just use the entire roadblock body except for the enormous arms. I did an arm swap with the Hot Toys, ANH Vader 1.0. All you need to do is remove the ankle socket from the roadblock ankles and drill up into the shin so the ankle peg can push in there all the way.

After watching all the movies it looks like the height is pretty close to perfect. Tall actors can look directly into Prows’ eyes which are behind the bottom of the lenses, average height actors look Vader directly at the bottom of the grill, and short (male) actors look Vader in the neck/chin triangle. The thing to keep in mind with Vader height is that you can’t use Prows’ height as a reference exactly, since he is wearing an enormous mask, with an enormous helmet on top of the enormous mask. That’s why I just go by the eye-line of the actors talking to Vader, and try to only reference shots where the camera is at, or relatively close to eye level. To get a true eye-line you also need shots where Vader isn’t looking slightly upward, which he tends to do a lot of the time unfortunately.

I’ll use Peter Cushing who was 6’ as an example of average height:

Death Trooper for tall reference:

And Luke for a short example:

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[Waste Time Continuum]

My Vader is exactly 13”

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[punisher1974]

The last picture looks like Tarkin is scolding Vader for taking Fett's head.

 

[TaliBane]

That looks amazing. Do you have any pics of the overall body? I love the height, but so many of the HT (and SSC) parts are scaled for a 13 1/2" - 14" figure.

I've been saying all along that Vader should be somewhere in the 13" to 13 1/4" range (he really isn't this massive towering guy everyone seems to remember, he's just a "tallest normal guy in the room") but the issue is the HT helmet is about 10% oversized so even if you shave down say the chest and shin armor I always thought you'd have a bit of a bobblehead going. My ESB Vader is just below 13 1/2" but I worry if I shorten him another 1/4" you'll get "pile driver" Vader.

 

[McHaleyArt]

Got any photos of the roadblock legs on the custom body? I was thinking of addding epoxy putty to the legs and chest to give him the ailuthentic build.

 

[Waste Time Continuum]

That looks amazing. Do you have any pics of the overall body? I love the height, but so many of the HT (and SSC) parts are scaled for a 13 1/2" - 14" figure.

I've been saying all along that Vader should be somewhere in the 13" to 13 1/4" range (he really isn't this massive towering guy everyone seems to remember, he's just a "tallest normal guy in the room") but the issue is the HT helmet is about 10% oversized so even if you shave down say the chest and shin armor I always thought you'd have a bit of a bobblehead going. My ESB Vader is just below 13 1/2" but I worry if I shorten him another 1/4" you'll get "pile driver" Vader.

I don’t have any pics of the modified Roadblock body. I do have a several WIP images from the past couple years of him without his cloak or robes, they provide a good look at the proportions, so they may be helpful to you.

To my eyes there’s no bobble-head issues.

I have these partial pics of the Roadblock body (without the black Kenobi fat-suite which is required).

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[Waste Time Continuum]

You can sort of see here that with the Roadblock mod I did, removing the ankle sockets, the calf muscles are in the perfect spot, and the Roadblock knees are precisely behind the knee portion of the shin armor.

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[GodParticle]

Did a little mock up of what I'm going for. That mesh stuff I found works pretty well

 

[Waste Time Continuum]

Did a little mock up of what I'm going for. That mesh stuff I found works pretty well
View attachment 430879

Wow, that’s looking really good. Can’t wait to see it when it’s done.


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