Excellent!!

That is a definite improvement.

Perfect job!!! Don't touch it! Love it when things turn out.

Great to hear positive feedback from Vader experts. My skills are beginner, and I was afraid of messing things up, even with just this simple mod. Glad to get validation I did OK. I'm liking how it looks now, and I'm definitely leaving it alone!

Here's another comparison from the popular "You have failed me for the last time..." screenshot:


And an animated GIF of the two blending together:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B13YyeojRHKec0FIN01UaFFSR1lHdEtKQ3BXRnNPMEhDLVlF/edit?usp=sharing

The helmet matches movie screencaps pretty well (though it takes a while to get the camera angle and distance correct to reasonably match). I like the animated GIF view to make it easier to identify the shape features which differ. From them I've noticed the DP DLX has a bit more dome flare compared to ESB Hero, and the widows peak is sanded down more. The DP DLX eyes are not quite as arched as the ESB Hero (or the brow may be painted/shaded differently). The chin vent looks flatter and wider on the ESB Hero. The chin vent is either cut out differently or something about how the DP DLX was pulled or how it settled caused the lower part of the mask to be more vertical than it should have been. There are additional differences including obviously the reversed paint scheme. Fun to see in the animated GIF the gunmetal gray moving from one cheek to the other.

While Don Post sanded down and soften many of the minute details, I'm pleasantly surprised that the overall shape and proportions seem to be pretty accurate. The anecdotes of its undersized dome were greatly exaggerated! Correcting the dome placement and pulling back the camera to an appropriate distance to address perspective distortion makes all the difference.

Nice work on the dome positioning!! That does make a huge difference!!

Sigh...what could have been. The DP DLX had the potential to be a very screen accurate helmet. But IMO it's a flop. Details are way to soft and the dome is tilted forward making the helmet not very desirable for me. The gunmetal doesn't even match the black in terms of gloss finish. It stands out like a sore thumb.

Anyway I hope you modify it more! You are doing well so far.

Well, you can't match screen captures perfectly. There will always be something off. That is simply due to the difference between a movie camera and a still camera. Lens, compression, all sorts of things.

You did well on the mod. So the only mod was done to the tube mount on the face mask? Nothing was done to the mount inside the dome? Sorry if you mentioned it. The quick re-read I did didn't mention it.

This was one of my reasons for joining the forum - to understand better the accuracies and inaccuracies of what I have, and which things I should try to fix and which to leave alone. And now that you mention it, do see how "off" the gunmetal on the DP DLX is. It didn't bother me before (but it might now lol). But I'd rather know these details than not.

I did ended up sanding enough of the facemask mounting tube that I needed to sand down some of the dome ring as well in order to avoid the dome ring from hitting the top of the facemask.

The lighter areas show where I sanded the dome ring (perhaps 1/4" at the most). The mounting tube sits on the facemask off-center resulting in variation in headroom between ring and top of the facemask at different radial angles. This is why only some of the ring is sanded.

Cool. Thanks for showing that. Could be useful for others attempting to mod their DP DLX!