Darth Kahnt wrote:
I wouldn't pay any more than $50 for that helmet. In fact, I think I'd rather own the Supreme just because it would be easier to mod.
That particular helmet happens to be based on the same mold that LFL leased to Don Post Studios. If one were to strip the paint, do any desired refinements and repaint it nicely, it should be comparable with a Don Post Deluxe provided there are few or no changes to the mold's condition since last used by Don Post Studios; I'd imagine DP made one positive out of that and gave it back to LFL, and used that positive as their master to make more molds.
Now regarding the Supreme being "easier to mod" I think that's very subjective based on how much effort you're going to put in, then you're absolutely right. Most tutorials seem to:
1. Rework the eyes a little to support rear-mounted lenses
2. Patch the forth rectangle in the nose to make it three (it doesn't make it screen accurate as the bridge of the nose is still the wrong shape)
3. Reducing the neck flare
4. Painting it gloss black.
That is probably a very bare minimum. They might swap the screens and tusks.
In my work on the Rubies, I've counted about 16-17 modifications to make it look properly screen accurate, and by the time I'm done, I think I may have covered 18-20 modifications.
The quantity and type of modifications means fussing with the plastic, and this plastic is hard to work with. It doesn't respond to filing and sanding as well as resin/fiberglass, and in certain forms of Dremel work it may have a tendency to melt and begin to gunk up the Dremel bits. Filing causes a lot of little fibers that even after sanding never seems to fully go away. And supposedly there is a release agent within the plastic that needs to be coaxed out with heat. I've found that certain epoxy putties will harden okay on it but won't truly make a bond, again possibly because of a mold release agent in the plastic (according to - LAN-ED-TUL, but I've not been able to verify this).
In short, I've had to contend with the plastic. Ironically can be a difficult material; in some cases fiberglass/resin will respond better to filing whereas the plastic will make a mess. FG/resin is easier to sand down to address imperfections you've made whereas this is much harder the Rubie's plastic; sanding will create more fuzzy plastic fibers.
I therefore do not want to over-generalize that the Rubie's is easy to modify because it's based on how much work.