The problem with the DP DLX was never the helmet itself but the poor quality control on the castings. It was such a hit and miss whether you would get a proper shaped one.

Yep I know mine pulls down and back on the left side. And that's one advantage the DPCA has over the DPDLX. Though the DPCA was even more misshaped, it can be reshaped to be more accurate. That's what after 20 years I'm trying to do to mine now. From an earlier pic in this thread I showed where I wrapped a rubber band around the base of the mask to narrow it. I'd left it there for a few weeks, and when I removed it I was surprised to find that it stayed in that position without the rubber band. Though after a few days it slowly started to release back to its original shape. I'm afraid to use a heat gun on it, but am trying out black instamorph to apply inside the mask/dome to secure a revised shape currently held in place with a couple of clamps and a bunch of rubber bands.



Bearing in mind, this is what I'm starting with.

OK back on topic.

DPDLX left nose detail pictures. These are unenhanced, unedited single photos taken from the same camera and helmet position. The only change is the lighting direction. You can see in the left eye the reflection of a 12" Ikea table lamp I'm holding and moving around with each photo to illuminate the left nose tip at different angles.

The thing with vinyl, you don't need a heat gun. A simple hair dryer or putting it in hot water will soften it up. Though, vinyl has memory, but if it has stayed in a flared out position for too long, then the memory changes from how it was when it was cast to how it's been flared for a while, so whatever fix will not pull it back into the "coming out of the mold shape", but will revert back into the flared state. It all depends on what quality vinyl was used. One thing when doing the heat mod and you plan on adding something on the inside to make it keep it's shape - after you've heated it and gotten it into the shape you want, heat it again and then freeze it. The switch from heated and pliable to cold and rigid helps keep it's shape for longer while you work on adding the shape filler on the inside. Cold water is not enough in this instance - you need to put it into a freezer for half and hour to an hour or something similar. I'm not entirely sure of how long, since it's been a while since I read the tip and it was for smaller sixth scale figures and not a large full scale helmet.

Something like apoxie sculpt in a thin layer on the inside will adhere to the vinyl and force it to keep it's shape. However, knocking it, you may loosen the bond, but you can always glue it back together if it lets go using cyanoacrylate glue or super glue. Don't use hot glue as it will soften the vinyl and you can risk warping things. Using apoxie sculpt you apply a small area of about 10-15 cm in diameter at a time, use water to smooth it out more on the inside of the mask. It's a really small, but also slightly elastic material when applied to thinly, but will keep the vinyl in shape, but will "breathe" with the vinyl with temperature changes, compared to a super rigid material that doesn't expand and retract as much and will more easily snap the bond between it and the vinyl.

Hope this makes sense.

Hey NHM,

Thanks for the recommendations and great info. Sorry about blending topics in this thread. I just created a new topic under the tips & tutorials section for the DPCA. If you don't mind, please post a reply there with the same content as you provided here. Then I can document the DPCA work-in-progress in the right place..

Thanks!

reshaping-a-don-post-classic-action-dpca-vt4896.html

Here are a few single image, unedited photos of the right nose tip. Again, the camera and helmet remained in a fixed position as I moved a lamp around to create reflections off different areas of the nose. Not so much to find surface detail, but to find inflection points in the curvature.

A laser scan would of course be a better way to ascertain shape and any surface details. But I don't have one of those dang it Using photographs is tricky. What looks like a surface feature or curvature change could be just a reflection off another surface, or even the shape of the light source itself.

For example, I don't think the -^_ shape in the side of the nose tip here is a surface feature:



Note the -^_ is not present in this photo:



If a shape moves or morphs as the lighting direction changes, then it's probably not a surface feature.

Single images can be difficult to analyze. From multiple images taken from the same viewpoint, we can do some interesting things. ImageMagick (free software) provides a lot of powerful image processing tools, one of which is the ability to evaluate a sequence of images.

For example,

#convert *.jpg -evaluate-sequence mean out\mean.jpg

creates the image out\mean.jpg containing the average value of every (X,Y) pixel in all the .jpg images in the current directory.

Any "glints" or moving reflections will be supressed, and surface details and shapes that persist across multiple images will remain.

Ooh. That's an interesting result. It seems to blur the image a bit, but nothing serious. All these lovely cool photo editors available just makes me happy.

Yeah, the "mean" operator does tend to blur and soften a bit. Other operations you can run with -evaluate-sequence are median, add, subtract, min, max. I like that it operates on each X,Y pixel location only. No filtering, smoothing, enhancement, etc. based on the pixels next to them. I like being able to apply that kind of low-level processing. It does require that the camera viewpoint remain fixed and the picture size the same across the image set processed by -evaluate-sequence. But it has a comprehensive set of single-image operations too.

You can get some very interesting results if you combine those outputs. For example, here's max minus median which preserves the sharpness better. You can also do things like map these derived outputs into separate colors into a single image. That gets beyond my knowledge how to write it offhand, but there's lots of examples online and something I'll try also.

I know this thread is getting quite laden with large images, so I'll start posting more links rather than inlining them, and I made public the albums containing the images.

LEFT SIDE:

Raw unedited photos focusing on the helmet's left nose tip:
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_left

Set of photos above processed by imagemagick (max_minus_min, median_minus_mean, etc.):
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_left/imagemagick

imagemagick jpg's in the above album animated in a single (10Mb) gif:
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/media/Vader/DPDLX_Details/DPDLX_left_in_lightning.gif.html

RIGHT SIDE:

i split the right side into two sets, according to whether the illumination of the nose tip was bright or dim. The combo/imagemagick album combines imagemagick-processed jpg's from both dim and bright sets:

http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_right/brighttip
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_right/brighttip/imagemagick
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_right/dimtip
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_right/dimtip/imagemagick
http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_right/combo/imagemagick

Please comment if you see any images that contain a "hidden detail" or even those which highlight inaccuracies. Or any images or features that look interesting to you. I've already been able to figure out (I think) where sanding was done on the DPDLX across the right top cheek edge for about a 1cm extent as it turns in towards the nose.

Just a note, and this may just be me, but I love photos embedded in posts. Much preferred over link.

YMMV.

Carry on.

Yeah, I do too. I'm just trying to be considerate of those who may be using cellular data e.g. using Tapatalk on their phone and not eat into their data plan allowance too much. And over slow network connections pictures can take forever to load. I guess a good in between option would be to post a few of the best of the best sample pictures inline and provide the link where you can see the rest.

From the http://s89.photobucket.com/user/bpoodoo/library/Vader/DPDLX_Details/nose_tip_left/imagemagick album, this is one I think has an interesting look. Sort of a chromed-out black satin version of Vader.



And the lighting is apparently similar to what was used in a behind the scenes photo of Vader in the carbon-freezing chamber below which I cropped here to just show the helmet. The light reflections along the curvature at the top of the nose make it look sharply edged on both though it's actually a smooth curve (not including the line on the DPDLX that starts from the corner of the eye to the tip of the nose which is a paint color transition, but the arrowhead shape formed by the ones above and below it). Lighting direction also makes the nose notches look sharper, more triangular or wedge-like. The ones on the DPDLX are known to be a bit too soft and rounded but it looks much better here.

Director Irvin Kershner had complained that the black background of that set would yield virtually no reflections and make lighting a challenge. But as usual he found a way to make work. Some of my favorite captures of Vader are from that set.

I've mentioned before that the ESB Stunt (aka Bob Anderson fencing) helmet to me share a lot of similarities with the DPDLX, both the mask and the dome. It's not my intent in this thread to discover which helmet was used as the basis for the DPDLX, since I do agree it's very closely matched to the ROTJ tour helmets. But, who's to say the ROTJ tour helmets weren't derived from molds of the ESB Stunt or that the DPDLX wasn't as well? The DPDLX was claimed by Lucasfilm to have originated from molds from an original ESB helmet. The ESB Stunt wasn't anyone's first guess that was the one, but I'm thinking it could be.

Traits which are similar, compared to say an ESB Hero, include wider center strip, lack of thumbprint at the widows peak, the wider dome flare, the flatter eye shape, the slightly truncated nose, and specific defects and details which I think I see in both. In this video note the nose tip detail and what I think could be the outline of the perspex insert in the right cheek:

https://youtu.be/Bc48CQHY2CM