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Fan-Made Replicas

Boba Fett Helmets and Armor

There are a number of different ways you can get yourself a quality Boba or Jango Fett (or any Mandalorian) helmet, however you're NOT going to be able to buy one down at your local store!

That's because if you want an accurate helmet then you're probably going to have to produce it yourself based on a number of unfinished helmets that have been produced in often vary limited numbers. Failing this then its a case of buying someone else's time and hard graft.

I've been trying to work my way through this often confusing process over the last few days (The different Trooper helmets are a doddle to understand compared to these), and can hopefully confirm the following as correct.

1) All Official Licensed Helmets, bar the forthcoming Master Replicas and possibly the rare Don Post Deluxe (Fiberglass) are simply not good enough - turn up at a Fett's convention wearing a Rubies or Standard Don Post unmodified and you can expect to get beat up! The juries out regarding the Altmann's

2) Although undersize (by about 15%), Don Posts Standard (cheap) helmets manufactured in 1995(white interior) or 1996 are acceptable as they are not too prone to warping, and have been used as the basis for many a good fiberglass copy. A DP 1995 can be very expensive on ebay, but the 1996 is more reasonable. A Fiberglass copy will not lose its rigidity, and during production may have been warped to give it that screen-accurate ESB look.

3)You should never run with Scissors

4)There are some great fiberglass helmets out there based on a number of different sources, such as:

bulletDon Post '95, 96 or Deluxe mould (see above)
bulletNatty's (aka the Movie Size Helmet/MSH) because it's exactly what it is. Natty used a freekin "Laser" pointer to be sure. These are no longer produced but however there is the......
bulletMSH2 - Based on the MSH, this is a work in progress and coming very soon from FettPride.
bulletMystery Helmet (MH) - Produced by a certain Sgt. Fang and supposedly cast off of the ROTJ helmet by Don Post and is the most accurate ROTJ shape, with just a few mods that DP made to it. See Blastech's for a great example of a finished piece.
bulletMLCallanta (MLC) - Again another quality helmet, now in two derivatives (MLC1, MLC2). I've just added a number of shots from this first rate prop-maker.
bulletHand-Schaub... original sculpt and cast in aluminum, excellent for a Jango!

Well that's all the text out of the way, so on to the photo's....

 

Boba Fett - ESB

Firstly an apology to all the other Boba Fett helmets which I've moved down in the thread but I am just so incredibly elated at my new helmet which I've just added below. Its the work of a very good friend of mine Steve the Swede who as many here will know is an extraordinarily talented prop maker, painter who has produced what is in my humble opinion the greatest Boba Fett helmet ever produced. I am biased however as he's made it for me!

Its been a labour of love for Steve who has spent MONTHS painting and weathering so it matches EXACTLY the reference photos from the Might of Magic exhibitions. I wont go into detail as to the techniques he's used although will be adding a new section to the site soon.

Based on one of Natty's MSH (Movie Size Helmets) it has a perfect custom-made aluminium rangefinder stalk which was provided by Richies Armor, many thanks to them. it has had a ridiculous amount of time spent on it by Steve and the screen-accurate Testors Paints were used.

The guy's a genius. I don't know what else to say, I'm speechless!

As promised click here for the new 3D rotating view of this wonderful helmet.

These next three images below of Chris King's old ESB Boba Fett helmet. 

I'm sorry if I seem to throw these superlatives around but when I you see props as good as this it's impossible not to. Again based around one of Natty's (MSH)100% spot-on flared ESB casts, its been superbly painted and weathered by RogueStudio to match the screen original. Must have taken bloody ages!

Above, Justin's excellent looking ESB Boba, based on a DP '95 mould but modified to feature a more "splayed out" shape. Below I've just received the following four images from Justin of his new ESB Boba, which apparently is "significantly" larger than his old one

Below a nice comparison shot of FettPride's excellent modified MSH against the original ESB helmet (left) . Note that MSH stands for Movie Size Helmet (aka Natty's) is no longer being produced), with FettPride producing the newer modified version (photo's next week!).

Looking at the two side-by-side you can see the massive amount of time and effort that has gone into this helmet. The amount of work involved in the Boba Fett makes it probably the most difficult Star Wars helmet to produce, if you're looking to produce something like FettPride's which is completely screen accurate. Go here for a separate page showing the finished helmet in all its glory.
 

Below, Images of Well Paid Killer's Fett, this one based on a Don Post Deluxe recast with another stunning paint-job.

Below is a Brilliant new shot from WPK of his finished Boba Fett Statue against a suitable backdrop. 
Eat yer heart out Lucasfilm cos this guys just stolen your Boba Fett costume!!!This is imho the very best ESB Boba Fett I've ever seen, and I've added another page here just to show it off! Just so as to give credit where it's due, the excellent paint job was done by Fett Pride (who now produces the MSH2) and who's own "Special Edition" Boba Fett can be seen lower down the page.......

 It's pretty-much agreed within the prop-making community that the Boba Fett is the hardest SW costume to make 100% accurate. This is simply due to the amazing level of detail you need to go-to on the helmet/armor with weathering etc., combined with the overall complexity of the costume itself given the sheer number of different parts that make it up. It is for this reason that Well Paid Killer's ESB Fett and FettPride's ROTJ/SE can only be described as "amazing".

Mikael who's also painted a superb RotJ Boba (see further down) has sent me these pics of his recently-completed ESB Fett. Again it really is a wonderful job (and like a couple of others on this page is a MSH helmet)

Mikael's comments on his work are below:

1. I worked on this on and off for about 7 month. though not everyday!).
I started it by trimming the edges and cut out the Visor area with a Dremel. Then it was sanded in order to make the seams go away. The ears were gently sanded and glued in place with Araldite, a strong epoxy glue.
2.The whole helmet were primed and the Visor hot glued in place with a glue gun.
3.For the main colors I used Gouache, a water-based paint. The silver scratches were drawn with a silver pen. I used a pen with a blunt tip and another which was thinner. The grey/purple + the other scratches were also painted with Gouache. I don't own a airbrush so everything was done with regular brushes. I traced the silvery areas with a pencil and filled them later with silver .
The decals were from a fellow "The Dented Helmet" forum member and were also applied

4. The opaque RF was painted black except the areas which are suppose to be transparent. I drilled 2 holes for 2 red LED's and glued in the Aluminum RF-stalk from Richie's Armor. Then i drilled a hole in the helmet and screwed in the RF.
5.I masked off the Visor with masking tape and clear coated the helmet in order to protect the paint. This also darkened the colors as planned.

Thanks for the information Mikael, and well done creating such an an excellent replica.

Next up, good buddies of mine the V-Twins from Italy have completed their ESB Boba Fett helmet and costume. As you can see they've dopn a brilliant job

The original Fiberglass helmet was significantly reworked to reflect the ESB look and a new master helmet made and a cast from it done (this one). Therefore its a bit of a one-off.

They've spent ages on the painting and weathering (obviously) to match the specific helmet used on-set. However the VTwins are perfectionists so they're going to improve it even more (such as the rangefinder).

..and the Helmet on the VTwins costume - Fantastic!

Just a few finishing touches and its done. Well I'm impressed!

Below another great helmet - this one featured on the excellent Dented Helmet (the best place to find Boba/Jango Information).

Jason's very pleased of his new purchase - this one painted by the Previous owner "Marrow Sun"

As we've come to expect from these types of helmets it has an excellent paint job.


Boba Fett - ROTJ / SE

...and speak of the Devil. Here's FettPride's equally magnificent Boba Fett. This one true to the look of the version seen in the Special Edition, itself copied on the ROTJ look.

It's taken him a loooong time for FettPride to get to this stage, but when you see it like this....

.....It's clearly worth it!

Above and below are of Blastech's lid, this one based around the "Mystery Helmet" (MH) and is seen in it's "out of the box" state and then following an excellent paint job by Blastech himself. The MH is  unique as its made from Urethane Resin (thanks for clarifying FettPride), as opposed to fiberglass.

This quartet (above and below) are of Steve the Swede's PERFECT RotJ copy (if you want to see just how perfect it is then click on the comparisons page). The image in the lower right shows what it looked like when he first decided to strip down his Don Post Deluxe Boba Fett helmet. If you want to see a tutorial from Steve on just how this fantastic look was achieved, then click the "tutorial" icon.

Above is Anson's Boba, cast off a DP '95 I think.

Above, here's a shot of a couple of raw ML Callanta's (MLC) helmets, and below a work-in-progress from Han Hunter. I'll put up a completed helmet as soon as I have one. 

above, a comparison of (from left to right) the MLC1, MLC2 and DP '97 helmets. They're best presented unpainted so they're easier to distinguish .Note that the DP '97 has had both the dome and flair reworked. I've added a number of shots of MLC stuff in the Jango section.
Below courtesy of Lynn TXP 0369 a shot showing a size comparison of his ESB MSH (Movie Size Helmet or Natty) Boba and MH (Mystery Helmet) Jango.

..and Lynn's just sent me pics of his fully completed RotJ Boba Fett which is so darn good it just makes we wanna go out and rob a bank and buy it off him!

Really excellent level of detail on this one - wonderful

The next four shots are of Han Hunters new RotJ helmet, which looks to me to be another cracker!

The helmet's a MLC2 (MLcallanta 2)and its been excellently painted and weathered by Mikael who has provided the following run-down of what was required to get it to this finished state:

1. Bucket arrived. Very lightweight sturdy fiberglass casting. Very close sizewise to the MSH helmet. The key-slots were already cut out and no cleanup was needed. I glued on the earpieces on with a strong 2 part epoxy and sprayed it with some grey primer. The inside was sprayed Black. 
2. I did a groove in the RF in order to attach the Stalk and glued in the clear RF piece. 2 holes were drilled on the top in order to fit the two LED’s. 
3. The main colors were custom mixed and painted on with a waterbased paint called Gouache. At this point the colors looks too bright, but the clearcoat that will be added later will tone down the colors, making them appear darker. 

4. Silver scratches are drawn on using 2 Pilot super color silver pens. I used 1 with a thin tip and another one with a little thicker tip. 
5. I gently misted the helmet with some primer and black spray paint in order to give it its "dirtied up" appearance. 
6. The earpieces are masked and spray painted with a Grafitti chrome spray paint and then dulled using steel-wool. 
7. I used acrylic and water to dirty up the ear-pieces. I dipped some paper towels in the paint and applied it and after it dried, wiped some of it away. 
8. Applied a dull clearcoat, making the silver areas appear less shiny and making the colors darker.

Mikael did the photo above of the same helmet but on his existing Lifesize as an indication of how great the finished costume would look, and below has produced a size comparison of the Movie Size Helmet (MSH), The Mlcallanta 2 (MLC2) and the Mystery Helmet (MH)

Here, below are some photo's from Jodo_Kast of his excellent MLC2 Bucket which he has painted and weathered himself.

As you can see he's done a great job, ESPECIALLY so as its SUCH a long hard slog to get one of these babies looking this good.

From this we go right back to the beginning so to speak and Sky Gun Bros interpretation of Ralph McQuarrie's original design concept for Boba Fett.

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