Oh, great... thanks for the bump.

After listening to everyone to do ROTS, I realized I made my life harder. The asymmetry of the mouth and face became an issue and concern. I think I could have made the Rubies look more like a Don Post Deluxe. The asymmetry of the mouth means the lower right corner of the triangle sticks out more. Cutting this down to reduce the base width is not an option, since we're dealing with plastic here. Yes, it can be done technically, but I really hate plastic. Covering plastic up is one thing but replacing actual structure gets really messy.

To make things more symmetrical, I'd have to move the nose a few millimeters over to the right. This creates some problems in terms of proportions.

I'll try posting a photo later.

Before I go on, I need to establish some expectations.

First, I'm not a ROTS expert. I would have been very comfortable resculpting this to make it look more like, say, an idealized Don Post Deluxe. In fact, for costuming, this would have been perfect. I don't know how many of you have actually tried wearing an original Don Post Deluxe, but the fiberglass is thick and the whole helmet is heavy, and if your neck vertebrae is sensitive to pressure, get ready for neck aches and headaches. The lightweight plastic of the Rubie's is, by comparison, a dream to wear. It's just inaccurate as heck.

So by saying that I'm not a ROTS expert:

1. I do not have an MR ROTS as a basis of comparison. Would I mind having one? Sure, I'd love one. I just can't afford one.

2. I have limited photographic references. I have virtually no mask-only shots taken 6 feet back, perfectly at eye level. Everyone photographs at 4.5-5 feet and the lens distortion means I have to make a lot of calculated guesses.

3. I'm not going to do a full ROTS conversion. I'd like to keep this mask practical for costuming, so that means no super long neck like the screen-used. Further, the upper tubes on the screenused has a ledge that extends all the way back. I honestly don't know how practical having that is because plastic flexes, and if there is too much flex, experience has taught me that even the very best of epoxy clays will delaminate and break. I've heard of people say, "Well, use Plastic Prep." That's all well-intentioned, but the fact of the matter is: if you have one substance flexing more than another, at some point something's got to give. I will therefore focus my work on the face where I feel it has the least chance of breakage due to that area being inflexible.

Okay, enough disclaimers. What am I really trying to say? Simply: Go easy on me. Please don't criticize this too harshly if it doesn't look like the screenused, because of all the iterations of Vader, the ROTS is the one I am least familiar with. Thus I'm going to simply do what occurs to me, just for my personal enjoyment.

As I also explained, the Rubie's - like the original - is asymmetrical. However, because plastic is such a pain to work with, I have to work within the limits of what I have. Could I have cut off the bottom right mouth triangle's corner and resculpted it to make the whole mouth smaller? Yes, I would have done that if I were working with FG and resin, but this is PUH-LASTIC, and if any of you have read any of my previous Rubie's-related articles, you know WE HATES IT, WE HATES IT FOREVER!

(The plastic material, that is).

So instead of altering the base of the triangle, I decided to instead move the top of the triangle a little over to the right so as to be directly over the center of the base.



This meant:

1. I'd have to shift the bridge of the nose to the right and pretty much destroy it and resculpt it.

2. Likewise, the arch of the nose had to be resculpted, so I routed the plastic out, again creating a new hole.

3. Normally - because one mouth wall is thick and the other is thin - most modders just make one side thicker, or make one thicker and the other thinner so both are not overly thick. Well, to do this mod, I have to dremel the mouth walls away and resculpt them.

4. I may have to resculpt so much of the face that in order to properly exploit the facial structure available to me and to achieve some illusion of symmetry, I may have to "rotate" the face just a tad so that the bottom of the mouth forms the base line of everything I do.

The photo I am missing is before I started these modifications. There were very gaping holes, as if someone chucked a plasma grenade into his face.

You may ask, "Mac, we know the answer to this - you're crazy - but isn't that more work?" Again, I took the calculated risk that even if I were to route huge holes and to leave what's essentially a wireframe structure, that structure would still hold reasonably well, as opposed to cutting something up in the name of "accuracy" to find that the welds aren't holding and the mask can come apart. I learned the hard way and don't want to repeat the same mistakes.

So a few things you can see here.

1. The bridge of the nose was mostly blasted away with just a few twigs of plastic remaining to help the replacing epoxy clay bond to something while it cured. I've added just a small amount here as a placeholder until I'm more sure of where the final position should be. Since I described that I'm shifting the nose's symmetry line about 1/4" to the right, this affects everything else on the face. As you flex the plastic of the rear opening, the facial area flexes least, so the epoxy clay welds should hold.

2. I had routed out the eyes' inner and lower eyelids. I've already figured out the work I need to do in order to make the eyes more "mirrored". The lower eyelids had to be routed out and then resculpted somewhat to make them match.

3. The characteristic circular nose is, in fact, not perfectly circular as thought. But we're off to a good start.

4. The sides of the mouth are brand new. The left mouth wall has some small amounts of original plastic.

5. The teeth are gone. I'm not going to fart around with the teeth. I remember 3 years ago Carsten first directed my attention to the teeth holes being too short having rounded ends. Filing them was NOT fun. I'm going to resculpt the teeth. Eradicating the teeth was necessary anyway since I'm re-establishing the symmetry line.

Another angle. So all these shots were taken yesterday. The next few shots were taken this morning.

So this morning I set out to add a touch more material to the bridge of the nose, so now it looks a bit wider. I didn't have any ROTS photos on the wall, but at any rate, since a lot of this is epoxy clay, it makes sanding a heck of a lot easier, so now I have far more control over shape and subtleties from hereon (assuming it's epoxy clay and not plastic).

The arch of the nose is symmetrical.

The nose hole is widened just a touch.

Added some material to the sides of the cheeks.

I'll have to do something about that forehead frown bump. As you can see, my shifting things to the right is causing the frown bump to look off. Lousy bump... I'll show that bump....

So as you can see here, it's starting to look slightly better. The arch of the nose - as well as various resculpt details - will not look perfect until the final stages where I'm sanding and rebuilding, sanding and rebuilting, so please take note that it's all a work in progress.

Well, it hardly looks like a ROTS other than the nose.

Fortunately, this shot gives me hope:



There's something about the crude eye mods, the nose, the reshaped cheek lines and mouth that give it an approximated ROTS appearance. I just have to diligently watch the details and make things better.

Wow, that's a lot since this project went dead for a while.

More later!

After much more fussing with the right side of the face (I'll work the left later) I've achieved a reasonable likeness of the eye, cheeks.



This is pretty exciting. I totally forgot I had framed a Rolling Stones magazine cover in my kitchen, and used that for reference and was amazed how long the face looked in that. It gave me some insight into some details I had not noticed.

To achieve this look, I had to dremel away significant parts of the face, and with the plastic just barely holding together as a skeleton, I'd throw material back on, shape, then sand.

The whisker - which is not completely accurate just yet - is sculpted.

So the right side's

Eyebrows
Upper Inner Eyelid
Upper cheek surface
Forward facing cheek
Right mouth wall
Nose
Mouth triangle

... are all new.

I tidied the inside nose surface. There's an illusion on the MR of it being a circle. The original is still an upside down "U" somewhat resembling Casper the Friendly Ghost's head.

Started sculpting the inside mouth walls back.

I'm going to be more careful this time with my mods, and not spray things down with primer to check for accuracy/sanity like I used to - which built up layer after layer of primer, to the point of utter annoyance.



The right side's upper cheek surface is transitioning into the arch of the nose and the tip of the nose nicely, and the whisker's sculpt is holding up.

I'm basically sculpting this right side (here on the Den when we say "right" we mean the viewer's right, a.k.a. the wearer's left). Once done, I'll then work the left side.

I also heated the right neck flare and turned it inwards more.

That's it for today. More later!

Seeing your mod reaffirms just how much I hate the nose look of the ROTS helmet.

It also affirms what a crazy man you is CS!

No ROTS bashing in this thread, please! I realize the ROTS is not everyone's cup of tea, so rather than be caught up with whether you like or dislike Lucas' take on the aesthetic, perhaps appreciate my work process - this project is basically a very great challenge.

First, I'm not doing this with any benefit of 3D scanning, mirror-flipping a face transplant piece, and then ba-da-boom. Second, this is a Rubie's, which is already bastardized and horribly misshapen so as to make it easier to pull from the injection mold.

Most costumers and their how-to websites tell people how to "accurize" their Rubie's by filling in a nose notch, filing the teeth down, replacing the lenses, modding the eyes a little, and then shooting the whole thing gloss black. But in truth it hardly has the look - it's just a crude approximation of the ROTS.

My process, however, is going to result in a far more authentic ROTS look.

Sorry, I wasnt bashing, just sharing.

I really do appreciate your process and the pains you go through for the accuracy and desire to see what you can do with what you have.

Carry on

No worries, man. We're good!