Having tried my luck with sculpting a Vader face and finding that I severely lack the patience for something this complex I got really angry and started thinking... because the way I was doing the sculpt didn't work... then I began thinking about how the original was made on a life-cast of Dave Prowse and from that I got the crazy idea... if I don't have patience to sculpt the Vader mask... then Hook or by Crook: I will sculpt the likeness of Dave Prowse... as he was, when he portrayed the greatest villain in modern movie history.

Starting tomorrow... to try to steam off from my lack of patience with the Vader mask.

Vader is a tricky project as you said. Especially at 1/6 scale.

Dave Prowse hey.. That would be interesting

If it was me I may cheat and use a head from a 1.6 scale piece such as Medicom or Kobo adding bondo etc.. very lightly to the sculpt and than manipulating it to how you want. Probably not easy still but a good template perhaps compared to a scratch build??

A scratch built is always difficult... and bondo wouldn't work, I'd think... you'd need sculpting clay or super sculpey or whatever you work best with.

I'm not gonna use a head, as I don't have one to spare, though, I'm gonna build the head in stages: first a skull, which will then be baked, so it will help retain the shape, when doing the face sculpt... and then I'll get to work!

Got the skull, sans the lower jaw, pretty much sculpted. Need to bake it. Really wanted to show a picture of it tonight... but the pictures came out kinda crappy... and then the memory card in the camera malfunctioned, so I'll have to go to the shop where it was bought to have them check it out - just a shame if it's broken, as I will then have lost the pictures stored there...

Phew... taking out the batteries for about 30 seconds seems to have fixed or reset the problem. Now the camera is working properly again.

Here's a picture of my Kaiyodo Vader with the skull in the middle. Seems to me that their helmet sculpt is mirrored in places... pretty weird looking.

Yeah that Vader is pretty odd but not bad, I've seen far worse. Nice skull.

Strangely, when you flip the frontal image it almost looks like a GH style helmet. Vader is a bitch to sculpt, I can tell you that... and requires patience and knowledge of how best to build up his face - I'm beginning to think that only a skilled sculptor could do this.

Why do you think LFL and it's toy sources etc..can't get Vader right? Not easy, especially at that scale. What may be cool when you get there is to cut out Vader's eye's and use miniture lenses, may look very good?

Easy answer: LFL is the cause. Even laserscanned helmets such as the ESB Vader bust is flipped in this exact same fashion. Cheeks and mouth is flipped, while the rest is accurately sculpted. Very consistent feature seen in pretty much ALL high-end sculpts, I've seen.

I was definitely thinking about that once... if only an accurate sculpt would be created and then high pressure cast in styrene, like miniature military kits - gives extreme details and can be cast with eyes open, so no cutting required... to install clear plastic lenses from the inside... and it could be wearable to a 1:6th scale figure.

Though... pressure casting is not possible for private people to do... not in as good quality like a company could do.

I'm thinking of contacting Narin - a Thailand sculptor, doing lots of Predator kits - about this. Would be interesting to hear if he'd be interested and what it would cost... but I reckon it's at least an $800 price tag and such a sculpt.

Hmm, I have no further suggestions really other than to ask Jesper which you may of done already??

I haven't really scuplted any thing properly before other than filling in bit's etc..

I'm sure you will sort it out. Pity the Vader figures out there are made from vinyl or plastic otherwise you could sand them down and modify them, building details up with supersculpty.

I have a couple of bigger figures all inaccurate, but if you need any reference which I doubt as you can just get pics and rebelscum or sideshow.

This is what I have if it helps??

Medicom 1 ROTJ Vader
Sideshow ANH PF Vader
Kobo ROTJ Vader
Kobo ROTS Vader
Gentle Giant Crome ROTS Vader
Unmade thailand kit Vader

Busts

ESB RARE Vader
ROTS Vader
ROTS/ANI Vader

Actually... I don't really use reference from figures, but only the real and fan-made props, which I then scale down.

Have asked Jesper... thinks he's as fearful as me to really dig into this, as I know he's a perfectionist and wants it to be just as right as I want it. Also... he's also busy with other stuff, so I don't really wanna bother him with this.

Have begun "pestering" a sculpting forum... hopefully something cool may come of that.

Though... the dream is not gone of sculpting this myself... I just got to remind myself that patience is what is needed here and there's no cutting corners... especially not in this small scale.

And actually... the skull I did looks crap... but it does its job as it doesn't need to be pretty or accurate... just gotta be a hard base to be able to build up the face on!

Well good luck, it will be worth it in the end I'm sure.

Hehe thanks... yup... crossing fingers.

Well... got to working a little on it today... added some bulk to the skull, trying to get the initial generic head shape worked out... nothing really fancy yet... will post a picture once I've gotten a little further with the likeness.

Anybody got any good '76-'77 Dave Prowse pictures?

Well... his face is taking shape... got two eyes now... will probably show a picture soon. Haven't worked on him for a while... and he doesn't really look like anything yet, except the beginnings of what could end up as a face... crossing fingers: even a recognizable face.

But... got some other progress to show. This is the work of a few hours. Got so pissed at the scale issue with the Gentle Giant ESB Vader bust that I decided to take a stab at sculpting a new dome myself. Here's as far as I've come today. Will show more when more progress has been made... and I'll take all the constructive criticism I can get at that time.