Best Way to Shorten 1/6th Darth Vader?

Sorry if this topic is more appropriate to the Custom Figures forum, but I'm wondering if a consensus was ever reached on how to best shorten the Sideshow 1/6th-scale Vader?

It's always bothered me, despite all the work & engineering that must have gone into it, that this figure looks so out-of-scale when stood next to other figures in this line. In fact, this seems to be much more of a glaring issue than how poorly the helmet sits (which has already been elaborately discussed in another thread).

Last night, while examining its base body underneath its outfit, I noticed that the over-sized Prometheus can be easily taken apart by undoing the small screws that hold it together. I then reassembled it with some of its abdominal parts substituted with those from a Stormtrooper figure just to see how it looks.

The result? A skinnier but perfectly scaled Vader knocked down that crucial 3/4 of an inch in order to bring it in better proportion to all the other 12" figures!

Now that this figure has been out for almost a year, I'm curious to know how other owners of this figure may have been able to literally bring Vader down a peg or two.

PJB-1138 said:

Sorry if this topic is more appropriate to the Custom Figures forum, but I'm wondering if a consensus was ever reached on how to best shorten the Sideshow 1/6th-scale Vader?

It's always bothered me, despite all the work & engineering that must have gone into it, that this figure looks so out-of-scale when stood next to other figures in this line. In fact, this seems to be much more of a glaring issue than how poorly the helmet sits (which has already been elaborately discussed in another thread).

Last night, while examining its base body underneath its outfit, I noticed that the over-sized Prometheus can be easily taken apart by undoing the small screws that hold it together. I then reassembled it with some of its abdominal parts substituted with those from a Stormtrooper figure just to see how it looks.

The result? A skinnier but perfectly scaled Vader knocked down that crucial 3/4 of an inch in order to bring it in better proportion to all the other 12" figures!

Click to expand...

Could you show some pics?

Actually, people have done the research and determined that Vader's height is exactly perfect in 1/6 scale.

Shortening him makes him inaccurate.

Here's my shortened Vader next to an unmodified Sideshow Stormtrooper & (believe it or not) a Medicom Boba Fett that I customized with a slightly taller, slightly beefier Medicom X3 Wolverine body:



And here's a closer look at how they measure shoulder-to shoulder to one another:



It may not look like a drastic change, but then again the scale was only off by a smidge in my book (now I just have to pad Vader's abs so his gut doesn't seem so shrunk down).

the dude person said:

Actually, people have done the research and determined that Vader's height is exactly perfect in 1/6 scale.

Shortening him makes him inaccurate.

Click to expand...

Um, no.

I did the research when I made my custom Vader before Sideshow's version. David Prowse's height was 6'7". The "official" Star Wars height for Darth Vader was 2.02 meters (6'7.5"). In 1/6th scale, this is 13.25". You can float that a little higher to allow for the boots and helmet if you want, but the end result is that Sideshow's is too tall by quite a bit at 14.25".

Prowse was 6'7" himself, but with Vader boots i thought he was 6'10"... I dunno....three inch boots on vader....the first time I met him to get an autograph, I could have sworn he told me 6'10" but I may be misremembering

AmanaMatt said:

Prowse was 6'7" himself, but with Vader boots i thought he was 6'10"... I dunno....three inch boots on vader....the first time I met him to get an autograph, I could have sworn he told me 6'10" but I may be misremembering

Click to expand...

6'10" in full costume as Vader? That sounds believable. Sideshow's dimensions have Vader standing well over 7 feet. Peter Mayhew is almost 7'2" and he was still much taller than Prowse in costume.

What mods did you do to the suit? The extra material that may be bunching up?

Cryoguns said:

6'10" in full costume as Vader? That sounds believable. Sideshow's dimensions have Vader standing well over 7 feet. Peter Mayhew is almost 7'2" and he was still much taller than Prowse in costume.

Click to expand...

Prowse being 6'7" normal, i'm sure the costume boots and helmet put him well over 6'10".

For those that are interested, here's a closer look at how to do this simple modification:

First, I took a Stormtrooper Prometheus figure apart, which is all easily done by simply starting with the chest piece & undoing the tiny screws in the back:



Then, I did the same with Vader's body which, for the most part, is just a larger version of the Stormtrooper body:



You can see here how much the abdominal pieces differ in size, which I measured to be about half-an-inch in height:



Here's Vader's body assembled with the smaller abdominal pieces:



Digging around the house, I found some nice thick black Gorilla Tape that could fill out Vader's otherwise emaciated waistline:



BTW, it is very important that the Stormtrooper's spring-loaded bolt with the square base is used to connect the pelvis to the abdomen. The bolt on Vader is designed for a smaller slot & it will slip out of the Stormtrooper abs, causing the figure to fall apart!

Once you slip his body suit on, it should still fit nice & snug even at this slightly shortened stature:



As Vader gets completely suited up, you can hardly tell he's even had any work done:



And, once the cape is on, voila -- a perfectly sized 1/6th-scale Vader! By my measurement, he's almost 14 inches, which I suppose works out to what a near seven-foot Vader should be:



Anyway, I don't remember seeing any similar suggestions here on how to easily resize this figure without the need for Dremels, messy glues or hack saws. Of course, any & all feedback to my solution here would be greatly appreciated! ;-)

Looks great PJB! Thanks for the pic tutorial. I will definitely give it a try!

Nice! Looks great.

Obi Wan knows how!

PJB-1138 said:

Sorry if this topic is more appropriate to the Custom Figures forum, but I'm wondering if a consensus was ever reached on how to best shorten the Sideshow 1/6th-scale Vader?

It's always bothered me, despite all the work & engineering that must have gone into it, that this figure looks so out-of-scale when stood next to other figures in this line. In fact, this seems to be much more of a glaring issue than how poorly the helmet sits (which has already been elaborately discussed in another thread).

Last night, while examining its base body underneath its outfit, I noticed that the over-sized Prometheus can be easily taken apart by undoing the small screws that hold it together. I then reassembled it with some of its abdominal parts substituted with those from a Stormtrooper figure just to see how it looks.

The result? A skinnier but perfectly scaled Vader knocked down that crucial 3/4 of an inch in order to bring it in better proportion to all the other 12" figures!

Now that this figure has been out for almost a year, I'm curious to know how other owners of this figure may have been able to literally bring Vader down a peg or two.

Click to expand...

Great idea!

Trustey said:

Obi Wan knows how!

Click to expand...

Hahaha...for this mod you will need the following things, if you are under aged then you will need an adult to acompany you:

- X 1 Lightsaber

Great mod! I think you could wrap his tiny abs in gauze to fill it out a bit.

I wonder if you could use the thicker abs to make a custom "SW Fan" stormtrooper to look like a fat guy in armor.

Great work on the mod I was figuring you could just saw a chunk of his thighs.... but your method seems much more civilized

The fig looks great. I assume one can use a SSC Ep. II and/or III clone trooper abdominal pieces as well?