1:4 Vader helmet - my observations

Hi everyone,

I figured out what's been bugging me about the shape of the "Samurai" helmet on the 1:4 Sideshow Vader. Most of you already know that I strongly believe the helmet is 8-10% undersized. HOWEVER, the biggest problem with it is the actual shapes / contours. Rather than trying to explain it in words, I'll let these pics do the talking.



If this helmet was scanned, how could these VERY innacurate shapes have got into the sculpt? I know that Sideshow Andy mentioned that Lucasfilm asked for many changes to be made but why would they ask for such innacurate shapes to be incorporated into this? Lucasfilm completely baffles me. It's sad to see how good it COULD have looked if the correct shape had been left in the helmet.

Chris

Nice find Chris.

It's easy to tell how off it is.

I am still keeping mine though...until something better is released.

Come on 1/3 CM!

The cape still bugs me the most. I finally pinnned mine and it looks much better.

cking, seriously...time to let it go.

The statue is out there, and it is loved by a lot of people. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

While what you point out looks to be true, it is in no way possible that it could do any good toward the 1:4 scale Vader at this point.

Blake said:

cking, seriously...time to let it go.

The statue is out there, and it is loved by a lot of people. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

While what you point out looks to be true, it is in no way possible that it could do any good toward the 1:4 scale Vader at this point.

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I disagree.

It's good to show Sideshow their mistakes so they can hopefully get other pieces in the line correct.

Blake,

Gruson has realised my reasons for showing this.
I'm not an idiot - I realise that it's too late for Sideshow to change anything on their statue. HOWEVER, if such basic issues such as these can be shown to be wrong, let's hope they pay much more attention to the details on future releases.
I was also showing this to make a point about how ridiculous it is for Lucasfilm to request changes on a sculpt that started out from a 3D laser scan of an ORIGINAL helmet. Leave it alone already and let us have a perfect miniature of the real thing instead of some idealised version!!!

Chris

damn, thats a good find. I'm still waiting for my Vader. This Star Wars line is not looking good.

I do realize your reasons, and I don't at all think you're an idiot, but it seems like Sideshow is taking a lot of shots for what looks like an outstanding piece.

Blake,

I would say that it's "venting frustrations" rather than taking shots.
Sure, it's a great statue, but don't you think it's a shame that it could so easily have been almost perfect?
My frustration comes from the inexplicable changes which Lucasfilm must have requested to the helmet to make it look like this.

Chris

Blake said:

I do realize your reasons, and I don't at all think you're an idiot, but it seems like Sideshow is taking a lot of shots for what looks like an outstanding piece.

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Chris,
Sent you an email with a question on the 1/4 Reeve.

*ss*

cking said:

Blake,

I would say that it's "venting frustrations" rather than taking shots.
Sure, it's a great statue, but don't you think it's a shame that it could so easily have been almost perfect?
My frustration comes from the inexplicable changes which Lucasfilm must have requested to the helmet to make it look like this.

Chris

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I see where you're coming from, and I'm sorry if I came off like an arse. I love the Star Wars films, but have never been one to really get into the nuts & bolts of evrything. In my eyes, the statue will probably be almost perfect.

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Agent0028 said:

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Yup

Use all the emoticons you wish.
Just look at the photo at the bottom right hand corner of my first post. I'm sure that deep down, you must know that your statue would have have looked a lot better if those innacuracies had been fixed on your 1:4 scale statue.

I can understand people not being too bothered about 100% accuracy but COME ON - look at the difference it makes!

Chris

cking said:

Use all the emoticons you wish.
Just look at the photo at the bottom right hand corner of my first post. I'm sure that deep down, you must know that your statue would have have looked a lot better if those innacuracies had been fixed on your 1:4 scale statue.

I can understand people not being too bothered about 100% accuracy but COME ON - look at the difference it makes!

Chris

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Looks great Chris. If you ever get that new sculpt commissioned, let me know. I'd like to get a new cape as well. As Gruson said, this is my favorite Vader for now, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. I've been following vaderdarth's work on the RPF, as I know that he's in the process of completely customizing his SS 1/4 Vader.

I REALLY hope Cinemaquette gets the 1/3 scale license, and I'm sure that will be the best Vader we'll ever see. All of the pieces they've released so far have been pretty darn near perfect.

CK we know yours, Grusons, Elwoods, etc point and I'm absolutely sure SS has taken into account the uber word of the higher order of SW fans. However, to tell you the truth I wouldn't have been able to pick out what you showed ever. So it makes no difference to me at all if they fixed that little bit and NO I don't think it would have looked better. Why? Well, because it such a minimal change that it wouldn't have affected how I think of this piece. Just at this point I think the horse is being beaten for the sake of trying to continue to bring down this piece.

elwood49 said:

I REALLY hope Cinemaquette gets the 1/3 scale license, and I'm sure that will be the best Vader we'll ever see. All of the pieces they've released so far have been pretty darn near perfect.

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It would have to match up with the Terminator items of just the droids. Because I think their human stuff so far has sucked balls big time.

jlcmsu said:

It would have to match up with the Terminator items of just the droids. Because I think their human stuff so far has sucked balls big time.

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Sucked balls??!?!?

Give me a break Josh.

CM Aragorn did look pretty bad but that was a prototype. We should get new pics soon and HOPEFULLY it will look better.

As for Arnold, tell me another Arnold statue that looks better than than CM Arnold.




There are none. Attakus T-850 is probably the only one that comes close and it's a joke compared to the CM!

Attakus:


Getting back to Vader, I am really looking forward to the mods done by the guy on RPF as well!

,...is that a picture of arnold??,.. ,.. i have to say that's impressive,..really impressive!,..

Yeah, Josh, CM's just "suck balls" as you so eloquently put it. I asked cap70 on Statueforum to take a pic of his for me:



It doesn't get much better than that. Also, since you "love when the original makers work on the piece", Richard Taylor has been working closely with CM on the new version of Aragorn. I agree that the old one didn't look that great, but hopefully the new one at ToyFair will be massively improved.

All the CM's have been made by the original makers: 3 Terminators made by Stan Winston, Alien worked on by H.R. Giger, and Richard Taylor helped with the new version of Aragorn.

News from ToyFair: "The fifth piece to be released is Aragorn was on display.

Toynami have worked very closely with Richard Taylor from WETA who created all the costumes and weapoary for the LOTR films.

They have recreated the real metal chainmail outfit with over 3000 links in the armour.

Real leather outfits with detailed stitching.

Real metal sword and accesories.

Over 2000 human hairs stitched into his silicon head.

It will be released later in 06 for $1500.

No Photography was allowed of Aragorn or Jack as it was a work in progress piece but we all agreed its looks absolutly stunning and will blow away all who see it and will be a fantastic centrepiece to any collection."
https://www.action-figure.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=19057

The Alien is also incredible:
https://photos.figures.com/photo/1/showphoto.php?photo=31081&cat=3444
https://photos.figures.com/photo/1/showphoto.php?photo=31083&cat=3444

I'm getting the Alien and will be getting the T-800 and Indiana Jones. I may be getting The Godfather or Bruce Lee also.

Gruson, those pictures of the CM Arnold are absolutely amazing! For budget reasons, I will have to stick with buying five Sideshow PFs for the same price, but I can see where the money goes with those CMs.

tomandshell said:

For budget reasons, I will have to stick with buying five Sideshow PFs for the same price, but I can see where the money goes with those CMs.

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Yeah same here. I can't afford to buy all of the CM's, but I can get a few. They are expensive, but retailers offer them with 15-20% discounts. Bigbadtoystore had the T-X for $800, and the T-850 for $950 a few weeks ago. The T-X at that price was basically the same as the Vader and Grievous Exclusives added together.

The Alien is $1,500, but a friend on this board offered me one for 15% off of retail, so that's not much more than the SS Predator. You just have to find the good deals to make these somewhat affordable.