Ha! Nice work Mac.

very good job

These are still work-in-progres shots so bear with me. But it's nearly done. Just refinements are needed at this stage.

My friend T-VIRUS got swallowed up by the Sarlaac of his day job. Tugly (T-VIRUS' Ugly) was just sitting there looking very alone without a dome. Elsewhere in my home was that GH ANH dome which I had previously widened, but failed to really pair it with the mask.

I did some rework to the Tugly face to make it wider so that it a better match, else I'd have a skinny mask and wide dome.

So here's the mask.



The face slightly fuller. The head is larger than I'd like, but that might also be because the crown area is not as tall as where it should be, since on the original Don Post Classic Action this was a T-shaped mounting system. The advantage of a lower crown here is that I could get the mounting system I want without unnecessarily making the dome sit higher on the mask. The important thing is that the face is compatable with the open facial area of the dome.



And.... it worked! I reworked the frown and widow's peak area. Just the front of the center strip is reworked. The rest could still benefit from that, but I wanted to see if I had sufficiently captured an ANH look.



"Commander, .... I want them alive!!"

Yup, it's looking compatable. Hard to believe this was a smaller mask earlier.



"I sense something... something I've not felt since...!"

If you don't believe that's the same mask, look at the rounded corners of the chin triangle.

So there you have it. Tugly's dome was so warped it was beyond salvaging. I had thrown away my Darth Ugly but I'm glad to have salvaged Tugly to give it a happy story arc of devlopment. It still needs some refinements here and there, but it's about done.

That looks realy good Carsten.

You mean Mac!

And yeah, looks really good Mac!

Thanks for the encouragement, guys!

Again, I could not leave well enough alone - partly because the imperfections screamed out at me, and partly because if I didn't give Tugly a good development arc, then that Sid of ArmorMask who sold us these piss poor recasts (and who accused me to eBay of lying and being a troublemaker) would have won. Won over not just me and T-VIRUS, but just about everyone who had ever been lied to by this individual.

Some of you may recall how small the original Armormask kit was compared with a Don Post Deluxe. I was able to use some heat to modify my own Darth Ugly and to reshape the head to some extent to more approximate the size of a Don Post Deluxe.



Although I approximated its size, I never really brought it to the same level of quality of the Don Post Deluxe. I later decided that because I had so many other projects, I'd turn my Ugly into a Samurai Vader. Big mistake, and ended up throwing it away.

It was always my regret not being able to do this to T-VIRUS' mask because the side of the face had a very thick layer of material which thwarted initial attempts to manipulate the material. This time around, I persisted.

So the last you saw this mask, the crown was a bit short and so was the neck.



So, added more material to the crown, and resculpted the skirt of the neck... again!



Add a touch of black acrylic paint to see if it's looking okay:

Looking pretty swell!

Checking from different angles to make sure it has the right look:

This is exciting because, size-wise, it's a beefy sculpt. Details wise, it has more features than a Don Post Deluxe or Rubies Fiberglass Limited Edition. I unfortunately don't have either Goldie or Quasimodo any more, but I daresay this would be on the larger end of that spectrum.

And here's a final comparison:



Notice the chin triangle's rounded corners. I left them rounded so that you can tell that its origins were the Armormask kit.

I have a few more things to do, and then the work on the mask will be done.

BTW, if anyone is interested in a casting, let me know. I have permission from Ghost Host regarding the dome, and if anyone harasses me about Darth Ugly not being essentially an original fan sculpt, I'm going to ship you one and make you eat it.

However, I'm going to need some help. T-VIRUS has been swallowed up by work again, and I don't know when he'll resurface, so Goldie and Quasimodo are unfortunately on hold. I'm holding out on the hope that things will turn around, but I recently met a real special girl and I'm trying to clear all my Vader-related projects out of the house so she doesn't think I'm obsessed with Vader (man, that's going to be tough). It gave me some motivation to bring some outstanding projects to completion just to get them out of the house.

I need someone trustworthy to help me with casting these, who won't take money and just sit on the project. I'd rather front the cash for molding materials myself so that they are already made before any money exchange hands.

I'm also doing this to help raise some money for a disabled SW fan who's not part of these boards or community. Let me know if this is of interest to you, or if you know someone.

I've been doing some refinements, much of which won't get picked up by the camera, but those of you who are future owners will probably appreciate the extra effort.

Someone had asked to see this painted.

Please pardon the rush and rough job. I had no masking tape, and wanted to do the bare minimum so I can just wash the paint off and continue my refining work. No masking tape, no nothing, just a big brush and some spit for cleanup. Done just to give you an idea of what it could look like painted up.

Mounting system thus far is still newspaper and foam (but the propmaker working on the first run has a mounting system planned for this, so don't worry about it.)

Photographed at 8 Feet distance:







... and my favorite shot:



Photographed at 5 Feet distance:





Whaddaya think? It's exciting to see another helmet finally come to a happy conclusion!

Here are some nicer shots than the ones I posted earlier. Enjoy!

He once was an 'Ugly' casting, his neck flare all stubby and ...umm... brown? But in so many words, *place expletive here* get out of town! That's outstanding work right there Mac!! Pic-10 reminds me of the shot where Vader walks toward Ben and sparks up his saber. Excellent!!!

Happy to see that your jouney come to a good end, finaly.
I had never believed that your facemask has been made out of that ugly casting, if i have not seen the mods here.
Very well done job
The result very impressive.