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Fan-Made Replicas |
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Boba Fett Helmets and Armor |
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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:
 | Don Post '95, 96 or Deluxe mould (see above) |
| Natty'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...... |
| MSH2 - Based on the MSH, this is a work in progress and coming very
soon from
FettPride. |
| Mystery 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. |
| MLCallanta (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. |
| Hand-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....
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Boba Fett - ESB |
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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! |
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| 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. |
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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. |
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The guy's a genius. I don't know what
else to say, I'm speechless! |
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As
promised click here for the new 3D rotating view
of this wonderful helmet.
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| These next three images below of Chris King's old ESB Boba Fett
helmet. |
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| 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! |
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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 |
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| 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!). |
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| 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. |
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Below, Images of Well Paid Killer's Fett, this one based on a Don Post
Deluxe recast with another stunning paint-job. |
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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....... |
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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". |
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| 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) |
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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
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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. |
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| 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 |
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| 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). |
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| ..and the Helmet on the VTwins
costume - Fantastic! |
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| Just a few finishing touches and its
done. Well I'm impressed! |
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Below another great helmet - this one featured on the excellent
Dented Helmet
(the best place to find Boba/Jango Information). |
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| Jason's very pleased of his new
purchase - this one painted by the Previous owner "Marrow Sun" |
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| As we've come to expect from these
types of helmets it has an excellent paint job. |
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Boba Fett - ROTJ / SE
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...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. |
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It's taken him a loooong time for FettPride to get to
this stage, but when you see it like this.... |
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.....It's clearly worth it!
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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Above is Anson's Boba,
cast off a DP '95 I think. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| ..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! |
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Really excellent level of detail on this one - wonderful |
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The next four shots are of Han Hunters new RotJ helmet,
which looks to me to be another cracker! |
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| 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. |
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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.
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| 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) |
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| Here, below are some photo's from
Jodo_Kast of his excellent MLC2 Bucket which he has painted and weathered
himself. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
