Official Sideshow 1/6 ANH Darth Vader PHOTO Thread

[Wor-Gar]

My KP body arrived today from BlackOps Toys. Got it for $42 during a secret Cyber Monday sale and had it shipped a mere couple hours after placing my order. They've oddly jacked the price to $56 now that Monkey Depot has sold out of them. I guess those are the breaks!

As has been mentioned here before, the body is a perfect height for Vader. The neck wrap is a tight fit and the Vader head needed a little heat to fit onto the KP neck peg, but you actually get better articulation for Vader to gaze downward at his regular-sized 1/6 minions.

While I was surprised how well most of Sideshow's parts look and fit on the Kaustic body, IMHO it really is essential to pull the pegs from Vader's gloves and boots to have the whole figure hold itself together. The glove pegs are too long to fit securely onto the Kaustic wrist joints, causing the hands to easily fall off. And since I don't have a pair of needle nose pliers, I'm gonna have to make a run to the store before my Vader can be completed.

I should also add that while I admit there is a little loss in articulation at the shoulders, it's partially due to the width of the chest plate getting in between the upper arms coming together for those two-handed lightsaber poses. Also, the arms may have looked a little on the short side in Wor-Gar's photos due to the removal of the wrist ball joint. Putting them back in and using them to connect to Vader's gloves should solve the issue (the KP shoulder joint also has a strange tendency to pull the arms up a little in at a neutral position; the arms are actually capable of hanging down to those Prowse-like proportions). Finally, in order to avoid bunching up the sleeves, I took the drastic step of trimming a 1/4" off the cuff. There's no going back for me now!

Sorry if my observations went a little overboard, but I hope these tips will help out the next guy to attempt this body swap. Even without the secured wrist and ankle joints, Vader is vastly improved on this body. I'll get photos up as soon as he's all finished.

Glad you like the body. Hope you plan to take some pictures. This Vader seems to have been the never-ending conversion between helmet, torso and now full body mods.

One correction above: I did not and still haven't removed the wrist ball joint peg inside the gloves. Not sure why Vader has 'short arms' in my pics, you'd think it would be the opposite.

 

[kl241]

Try cutting a couple of "rungs" off the ends of the gloves with an exacto.

 

[PJB-1138]

Glad you like the body. Hope you plan to take some pictures. This Vader seems to have been the never-ending conversion between helmet, torso and now full body mods.

One correction above: I did not and still haven't removed the wrist ball joint peg inside the gloves. Not sure why Vader has 'short arms' in my pics, you'd think it would be the opposite.

Sorry, bro. I was referring to the Kaustic wrist ball joint that would have had to be removed from the KP forearm in order to accommodate the peg inside Vader's gloves. I would guess it would add another 1/8" to Vader's arm length and avoid the Cee Lo Green look in your photo here (which I hadn't noticed until others pointed it out):

BTW, cutting the sleeves definitely solves that bunched up look. C'mon, Wor-Gar, get those scissors out!

 

[Wor-Gar]

Try cutting a couple of "rungs" off the ends of the gloves with an exacto.

I think I will. Couldn't hurt.

BTW, cutting the sleeves definitely solves that bunched up look. C'mon, Wor-Gar, get those scissors out!

I already cut the sleeves when I first did the mod. Got no problem butchering this thing until it looks right. I definitely think trimming the gloves themselves might be the key at this point. Got to figure out which pair I want to doctor. Maybe not the EX.

 

[chRd]

ill give it to you for having the guts to be cutting and doing heavy mods on a vader piece. ill probably let mine be (apart from the minor mods - dome lowered and iforigno cape) and just wait for the new vader 1/6

 

[shockwave]

Try cutting a couple of "rungs" off the ends of the gloves with an exacto.

I was thinking the same thing too. I will have to proceed with absolute caution....

 

[Tabula Rasa]

IMHO it really is essential to pull the pegs from Vader's gloves and boots to have the whole figure hold itself together. The glove pegs are too long to fit securely onto the Kaustic wrist joints, causing the hands to easily fall off. And since I don't have a pair of needle nose pliers, I'm gonna have to make a run to the store before my Vader can be completed.

I dremeled the wrist holes on my KP a little bit to make the Vader wrist pegs fit in perfectly.

 

[bruin1773]

If anyone is in need I have a spare KP02 (for full body swap) and a spare bacara body (I think it can be bashed for torso mod) for cheap, PM me if interested

 

[shockwave]

So I trimmed one of Vader's gloves; just one ring. It doesn't look great to me. It kind of makes the arms even shorter. Maybe trimming the forearm body suit so the gloves will look better. Not too much bunched up?

 

[abake]

Could you post some pics?
I'd be interested to see how the trimmed part looks.

 

[shockwave]

Could you post some pics?
I'd be interested to see how the trimmed part looks.

I took a blade and cut around very slowly one ring on the glove. Much to my surprise it didn't come out that bad. But now I have one Vader glove slightly shorter.

 

[Tabula Rasa]

I would never do any permanent mod to any piece of Vader. I've only done reversible modifications.

 

[PJB-1138]

Here are pics of my Vader on the Kaustic body. Thanks again to King Darkness for first reporting the results here since I'm very pleased with the results. As others have correctly pointed out, the height and build are perfect and, thanks to Tabula Rasa for noticing how the pegs can be removed from the boots and gloves, connecting the wrist and ankle joints weren't too difficult once I got some hot water going and got hold of a good pair of needle nose pliers.

As you may notice, I solved the issue of the shorter arms by connecting the gloves to the ball joint that came with the Kaustic body instead of connecting the wrist to the original Sideshow pegs inside the gloves. Taking a Dremel to that forearm seemed too drastic a measure since it already took all my courage just to cut the sleeves of the body suit a 1/4" shorter. While it makes the forearm look slightly elongated next to the undersized Kaustic upper arm, the shoulder bells do a good job of disguising the matter. Most importantly, it gives the arms enough length to make two-handed lightsaber poses easy as well as make it less obvious how long those gloves are!

Anyway, as always, any feedback (positive or otherwise) is appreciated.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Looks good to me. I love how large he looks, especially next to other figures -- but large without looking like a towering giant. Just a massive guy, like he was in ANH, before they made him more regal and Imperial.

Relieved that you like it, after all the flack from others. I'll have to get in there and use the Kaustic pegs on the gloves. I didn't even both with the boot pegs because the legs fit so tight into the boots as it is.

Now we just need a new cape and tunic....

 

[jedijim3002]

Looks awesome pj. It really makes him more realistic and lifelike. The helmet was huge on Prowse. If you look at ANH it clearly is enormous compares to his shoulders and other characters heads. A normal 6'4" guy with a 2 inch boot and a huge helmet would measure 6'7" it seems. Way to go everyone for coming up with this swap. Especially since I have a KP body handy .

 

[jedijim3002]

Love this shot. Shows it all perfectly.

It almost seems like all the complaints about the dome may have been it proportion to to size of the body. To me the SS dome seemed small so I did the hasbro swap. Seeing your pics pj make me think the SS wasn't small at all. That it was just the position and size relative to the entire figure.

 

[wax murderer]

The SST dome doesn't flair enough in the bell, and the top half isn't full enough. Put a Hasbro dome on him and he'll be as close to perfect as can be achieved...PS

 

[King Darkness]

Impressive PJB, most impressive .....

That looks as close to perfect as I think we can get! Thanks for the info about using the kaustic ball joints, its a small but definite improvement. I'll be do that additional mod

Last shot is fantastic

 

[shockwave]

Excellent work PJB-1138.

Oh well back to the drawing board for my Vader....

 

[King Darkness]

Wrist mod done. Brilliant! Thanks a ton PJB!

That made a huge difference, I'm extremely happy with additional arm length