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 Post subject: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 8:30 pm 
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Hello, this past summer I decided to purchase a rubies Supreme Darth Vader costume with the intention of modifying it to an Empire Strikes Back suit for a life size display. I have scoured the boards on Replica Prop Forums as well as the 365 page thread at TheForce.net and have collected numerous photos and examples of re-modled, modified, and re-painted Rubies Helmets and armour. I've also found a couple helpful tutorials that assist in showing how to fix the neck flare and what not. However......

The thing that I find will be the most difficult to modify is the Lenses/ eye area of the helmet.
From looking at the boards I've seen that people have referred to buying replacements from someone named 'lenseman' (who since then has apparently disappeared or gone out of business). People have also managed to scratch build their own out of such things as skiing goggles or safety glasses.....

It's been hard to find any good/detailed pictures of the process of replacing the eyes and I was hoping that someone could help.

Also, if anyone could provide some more insight, advice, pictures, or tutorials into re-doing the Helmet, or chest area, that'd be great as well. Alot of the reference pictures are red-x'd on most of the boards due to the topics being from around 2006-2008 lol.



I do regret having purchased this suit because of its innaccuracies, especially having seen some of the work done on these boards, but hopefully with some help I can make it into something worthwhile.


-Vince


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:19 pm 
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Here is a good spot to look. There are quite a few Rubies builds here.
http://www.sithtrainingtemple.net/phpBB ... um.php?f=7

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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:25 pm 
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Hi Vince and welcome to the forum. You've jumped right into the deep end, I'm afraid, with this one and it all comes down to how much work you want to put into it and how accurate you want to get. Basically, they butchered the face mask and then put it back together, which is why the lower eyelids sit so low. They basically cut just above the lower tusk tube and and then across the nosebridge and the corners of the eyes and another cut down the whiskers between the cheeks and the mouth wall. All that is going to be very difficult to bring back to how it should look, so I definitely advice not to mess with that and just concentrate on the things you *can* fix with a pleasing end result.

First of all, discard the lenses altogether. From what I recall it's very distorted looking through them. You don't need them. For new lenses you should contact Vadermonkey on this forum. He makes lenses shaped after the Don Post helmets and will likely be suitable for this one. However, with the larger than normal eye sockets they may not fit perfectly. It all depends on how you manage to build up the inner eye sockets.

Some leave the nose plug in place and just fill the seamline. Others take it out. Again, regardless of what you decide, neither are really all that accurate, so it comes down to which you think is an easier fix and what you think looks best.

The bottom of the teeth needs to be ground square. Don't worry about grinding through the bottom wall, as you'll need to rebuild that area anyway, as the teeth sockets need to extend down further towards the bottom of the mouth more than they are - they are placed too high.

The neck flare, I must admit, I really have no advice for as I've been struggling with fixing it on my old, cut up helmet. Some boil it in water for a short while, then press it into shape and then shove it into the freezer for a rapid cooling to lock it in shape. Others have used a heat gun, but be careful with that as you can end up melting the plastic if you get too close or keep it on one spot for too long. After you've pulled it into the shape you want you need to figure out a way to permanently keep it in that shape, as I think this type of plastic has a built in memory and will slowly revert back to it's molded shape when it gets heated in the summer.

For the dome you need to work on the center ridge and the brow ridge. Other than that there shouldn't be too much work needed on that, but you'll ruin the shiny plastic look, so everything will have to be repainted. You need to alter the dome mounts both inside the dome and on top of the face mask to get a more accurate alignment of the dome on the face mask. There should be several topics discussing the accurate angle a dome should sit on the face mask in the regular Vader section of the forum.

Good luck.

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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 11:27 pm 
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Thanks a lot for the info! I appreciate it. :D


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Mon Jan 31, 2011 12:49 am 
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Well, I finally decided to start modifiying this monstrosity....

- I cut out the excess plastic in the eye sockets (badly, I'll have to fill the mistakes I made with Epoxy :S)

- I started to square off the teeth (hard to get into the corners, still havent done those, can anyone reccommend something?)

- The *biggest* thing I did was probably fixing the dome mount, it's amazing how much better the thing looks with the dome positioned properly! Unfortunately I ended up cutting off the male end of the mount completely and had to resort to glueing it in place with 'Gorilla Glue'.....I'm afraid it wont hold permanently so I want to use some 'Epoxy' to make it into one solid attachment.

Image

Image

Image

Image


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:19 pm 
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The angle of the dome is much better, but you may need to lower it a bit more. :thumbsup

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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:12 am 
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illbethere1 wrote:
Thats a nice size mannequin and nice pic shots. How tall is it ? Did you have to bulk it up with anything to acheive that thick look ?

Actually youve done a excellent job fitting the suit together. Everything is nicely spaced and positioned as it should be. Even the helmet.

Thats what I like to see... Good looking Vaders even if its a Rubies. You cant be a noob ! :salut



Thanks alot man! :toothy The mannequin is 6'4'' tall, but with the shoes, some insoles, and the dome, he stands at about 6'8''
I padded him out with some bubblewrap (which I plan to re-do, adhering to proper Prowse measurements...)

I'd like to add some posable arms eventually and position them in either the 'hands on belt' look or the 'force choke'


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 7:30 pm 
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Finally an update!

I did the standard dome repositioning, resculpted the eye sockets, nose bridge and 'teeth' as well as fixed the neckflare and the chest armor with a heat gun.

These pics are a day or two old and I've since given Vader a coat of Primer and resanded.

Image

Image

To those who have done this before...should I sand, prime and repaint the INTERIOR of the dome?

Sorry for the crappy cell-phone pics, better ones are on the way when I have them.


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:18 am 
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I like it. I think, if you can, that you should still lover the dome by about 1 inch, maybe less, so that in straight on shots it looks like the curve of the dome brow follows the curve of the upper eye brows, just barely above it.

Anyway. Just prime the inside of the dome with black primer and you should be set on painting the rest.

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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 11:19 am 
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That's looking good there Vince. I agree with TMG on the helmet but I'd go slowly - don't just hack an inch off the height in one go. One other thing; would you be up for the challenge of redoing the tears on the upper cheeks? I suspect that once you've put some paint on this build, you'll regret not having gone that extra mile to improve these. You've done so well that it'd be a shame not to make that final change.

Keep up the good work,

Jon


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 11:27 pm 
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Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys! Sorry for the late response...I've made quite some progress, the mask has been painted and is awaiting clear coat. One question however....How do I go about painting the inner nose area and what colour should I use, white or silver? In the tutorial I've been following from imperial-fleet, it suggested painting AFTER the clear coat is applied as well as using a silver paint. I'm not sure how accurae this is for ESB...

Should I mask off and spray it? Or use a brush? I dont want to ruin any of the surrounding black :S

Thanks guys, hope you can help.... :thumbsup


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:34 am 
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Hi Vince,

Nice to hear your project is coming along so well. Any chance of some pics?

Jon


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 11:35 am 
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Silver for the nose. Can be applied by brush. Really wish you would have shown it off before starting to paint.

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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 2:55 am 
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Pictures!

Sorry TMG, I didnt have a camera available at the time :(

Thanks for all the feedback guys, unfortunately I didnt end up altering the 'teardrops' but I think they look alright as-is. As far as the paint, this is my first time ever doing something like this and I'm rather happy how it turned out. The masking job I did wasnt fantastic but I think it worked out in the end.

Any particular silver paint you can suggest?

Image
Image
Image
Image


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 Post subject: Re: Re-working the Rubies Supreme
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:01 pm 
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Made some more progress....

Image
Image
Image
Image

:toothy


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