He did tell me that HE would fix little things on the suit, like re-glueing the tusk tips after being knocked off, and the rocker switches and stuff. But never said it had been painted or touched up.

Before the poster with him holding the saber was released.

From the The Definitive Darth Vader Timeline ANH/ESB/ROTJ Screen/Tour thread:

It's a good question because the helmet was definitely repainted at some point, certainly during the time Kermit was touring. Either Kermit doesn't remember it was repainted at some point or the chronicles isn't the original ANH, but I think it is the former. I realize that Kermit remembers a lot, but if you were to show him photos of the chronicles helmet he should be able to tell you when it was taken.

Nice comparison. I am not 100% convinced, but it sure appears to be a fresh coat of paint. I see one obvious difference which tells me it's new... the area on the inside of the eyes/nosebridge. It looks gunmetal in the black and white pic and black in he color pic... interesting.

I think it is just shadow making it look black - it already looks "dark" in the face mask shot... so it wouldn't take much for it to register as black, if there's no direct light making it pop. And they are probably not using flash photography in the Chronicles shoot, as it is a professional shoot.

it looks to me like the color image used flash. And both flashes are coming from almost the same direction in both images, but in the b/w image there is a lighter look to it and a clear reflection in Vader's lense. In the color image, there is no obvious reflection in Vader's lense, suggesting that it is a much darker color in that spot.

If you think they used flash in the studio shoot, then why isn't the whole side of the face lit up, like the b/w picture? That rear cheek area is also dark, where we KNOW it is painted gunmetal. What makes most sense you are seeing is the diffused studio lights reflection.

Well, I know that I have taken MANY photos of my collection of helmets and masks with and without flash, and pics of masks with the flash go really dark; except for parts that are relatively straight-on to the camera, and look alot like what I see there in the color pic. I don't say that all the Chronicles pics were with flash, but this one appears to be, to me. However, I see that the side of the cheek (the side of the face) looks very dark, too, which is what you are probably pointing out. The light (flash?) is slightly more forward and slightly higher. Perhaps that is enough to change the look, but the angle of the cheek is down whereas the inner nosebridge is more level in relation to the camera. You may be right. I still think it might have been redone as black.

Isn't there at least one photo out there showing the set-up for the "chronicles" photo session? A flash isn't evident --which doesn't prove that a flash was not used-- but the lighting in the chronicles photos seems pretty consistent across the board with the kleig light arrangement you can see in the behind-the scenes picture. If you've got that much candlepower and a large format camera would you need to use a flash? (It probably depends on the speed of the film and the lens -- I don't know anything about large format photography)

Ok, but notice how different the first color pic posted above looks compared to the new ones just posted. The lighting in the first is much more harsh, maybe like a flash photo? Do we KNOW the first pic is part of the official set of pics taken that day or maybe from someone's personal set? Looks like there were a handful of folks there (ILM right?), and we know at least one person was taking personal shots that day.

Honestly, I see nothing in that first picture I posted that suggests the using of flash - otherwise the light source would have been dead center in the picture, like is seen in the b/w shot, and I doubt they'll use handheld flash-guns. All I see is stage lights moved around depending on the shots.

The last three I posted clearly show that they moved the lights around to get a specific look to the costume in the picture. For test shots you usually use a Polaroid as it spits out the image pretty quickly.

You're probably right, but it looks very different to me than the rest.

Unfortunately this is one of the reasons behind my suggestion that you really can't tell too much detail from single photos. Any of us could argue black or gunmetal for years and still have no definitive proof. My gut tells me gunmetal due to the paint strokes visible, but even that is a flawed assumption.

I could also argue that by it's very position on the checkerboard paint scheme, that it's undoubtedly black as that is what would be in that checkerboard spot.

There is no good answer. Perhaps watching the film again will help. Moving pictures are less likely to lie.

Dave

In the movie it shows up as predominantly black - always consistently darker than the right mouth wall that is clearly predominantly gunmetal.
The harder to see areas of gunmetal are the left rear cheek area and the two whiskers under the cheeks and occasionally the neck due to angling away from the camera and predominantly being in shadow from the rest of the face.



Especially check this one.