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TE/"Anon"
Stormtrooper Helmet and Armor
(ANH and RotJ)
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Helmet and Armour maker "TE" has
produced helmets and armour for a great many years and the moulds he
cast from an original ANH Helmet have been sold to a number of other makers
including Gino, TE2, GF, AP, CO, etc. - hence the similarity. Likewise with
the Armour which was also used by AA/SDS for their armour. Below are three shots of BlasterManiac's ANH ("Anon") Stunt. |
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| This one
does suffers slightly from minor bumps which were apparent on the original,
although later versions had this removed. It is very sharp although this
particular one was very thin styrene. |
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| So BlasterManiac's got a
fine helmet here, to go with his Armor here.
Unlike most of the "Anon" helmets, BlasterManiac's is actually a grey PVC
painted white, which is thicker then the standard "Anon"
helmets. The standard "Anon" were white and though a
very good cast are made of a much thinner styrene which therefore requires
some form of effective reinforcing if they are ever to be worn - otherwise
they WILL crack and break. Right, I thought I'd show this next one nice and big so you can really
pick the detail out:
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| Above and below, three photo's of
Dean O's really impressive Sandtrooper, based on the "Anon"
original helmet. The finish on this helmet is really excellent and does not
show the topographic bumps seen on some of the early pulls. Dean O spent a
couple of weeks putting the helmet together and presumably reinforcing the
original design, as well as the fitting of a gauze behind the mouth, correct
aerators and flat green lenses. Finishing it off with a custom
paint/weathering job he really has produced a fantastic looking replica. |
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...and also below left another "Anon"
seen on ebay........ |
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| The next three below (and the one
above RIGHT) are shots of regular contributor, Tim Hanlon's ESB
Stunt trooper based on the "Anon" kit. Tim was fortunate to get the Grey PVC
Kit and this one has the "new and improved" skull cap/rear cape that has NO bumps
and like the others is very sharp in detail. He's lightly sanded it to roughen up the surface for
painting. Then sprayed it in grey primer... then painted it Krylon gloss white. |
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| The stickers on the temples, "tear drops" and back
blocks are from Oakley ROTJ stickers and are too blue to be
accurate. The tube stickers are the blue ANH stickers and these along with the
flat green eye lens material was supplied with the kit. He's
gone for the rarer ESB look (basically the ANH helmet with black mouth,
some new decals and cleaner eye sockets) |
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| Below, a quartet of excellent photos
of regular contributor Well Paid Killer's "Anon" helmet. I'm not sure
whether this is white Styrene of the grey PVC painted white. |
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Another great prop to add to your collection WPK! |
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| and below BlasterManiac's done the
following comparison of his Anon Stormtrooper and TIE helmets which show
their similarities (which is unsurprising as they use the same face plates
as did the original movie versions). See more pics of this TIE
here and more of these excellent comparison
shots here. |
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Comparisons
of this helmet against the AA/SDS Here |
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TE/Anon HDPE ANH Stunt Helmet
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| These pics have been sent to me by
AJCG of his TE HDPE helmet, which he completely painted himself - including
the helmet itself, along with all "decal" detailing. He really has done an
excellent job on this - even to the extent of adding the screen accurate
strapping. Thanks to AJCG for this excellent review and detailed breakdown
of how he painted and detailed his helmet. |
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| If you check out the
Real/ANH Stormtrooper section of this site
you will see that all the original Stunt Stormtrooper helmets were made from
a khaki-coloured HDPE (High Density Polyethylene - aka Polythene)
material that was being used in SDS's workshop in 1976. Though it had to be
painted, it was a lot easier to vac-pull, especially those troublesome
undercuts. |
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| AJCG
painted it using Krylon fusion gloss spray paint for the white base, with Testor's colours for the blue stripes (Ford&GM engine
blue) and also for
the black. For the Gray he used Humbrol #5. AJCG adds; It is very important to
put away the helmet for a week once you apply the white colour. This will
help to create a stronger bond between the helmet and the paint. The first
thing I did was scratch the surface of the bucket very softly with a scoth
brite so the paint sticks better to the helmet. After that I applied a very
thin coat of paint. Then I sprayed the helmet with multiples coats (three
coats) every 40 seconds more or less. Then I put the helmet away for a week. |
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| All the details were painted by hand without using masking tape except the
blue stripes since the colour white base colour was really solid. The white
colour base was not as glossy as I wanted and I was looking for a Death Star
Stormtrooper look then I decided to apply a coat of Krylon Triple-Thick
Crystal Clear Glaze. For the Hovi mix tips, I repainted them for a sharper
look in black and white (edges and interior) I have my helmet in a display
case, but if somebody wish to troop with it it may scratch and and crack
like the 1976 originals, since the HDPE material is very flexible. |
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| This helmet is made from a similar type of material as the
original and also painted white, as opposed to using an already-white
plastic. Again, like the original helmets the overall finish is quite bumpy. |
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TE/ "Anon"
ANH Armor |
| BlasterManiac has sent me
some great pictures of his rather-unique Armor. Both the helmet and the Armor
have been cast off
original (though not screen used) RotJ Armor. |
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| The Helmet and armor
are made from grey PVC, painted white. The armor has also been cast off an original
ROTJ set. Blastermaniac's gone for an ANH stunt look
and the results are very impressive. |
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| Note how the suit control panel is not totally accurate yet (button
positioning), this will be modified shortly. The accessory belt is
wearable and a real demilitarized BATF approved sterling E11 completes the picture. |
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| Displayed on a
mannequin (itself 1.90 metres tall), the overall look of this prop is very
impressive. |
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| Above and below, check
out these new pics from BlasterManiac which really show off the detail of
this great helmet and Armor. Cheers Fil! |
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| Below, another "Blaster", this one from Blastech of
his "Anon" ANH Armor. Blastech has spent a lot of time on
this project but looking at these images it looks like its been time well
spent! Based on "Anon's" styrene Armor, it's been sprayed in primer, painted
white and then finished in a coat of crystal clear gloss. |
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| Perhaps the most
important modification Blastech's made is in providing the Armor with the "Illusions of thickness"
which was present in the film versions. Essentially this is the addition
of a "lip" to the edge of the Armor in a number of places such
as the bottom of the chest plate, around the groin/leg area of the cod
piece, the top lip of the butt piece and the bottom lip of the lower back piece.
Update Jan 2009 - Finally some great shots below from Armando of his TE HDPE
(painted) helmet. A lot of work went to this but Armando may be selling soon
so he can "upgrade" to a newer lid.
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ANH
Sandtrooper Armor and Helmets
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| Dean O's sent me these
pictures of his absolutely perfect Sandtrooper. Based on the
"Anon" Armour and Helmet he's gone to a huge amount of effort to
weather it and has the look EXACTLY right. |
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| The one thing about
weathering is to make sure that you don't over do it, and Dean's followed
this rule too. He started by using the tutorial at thedentedhelmet.com, modifying
this technique a bit to for a more randomised effect and then smoothing
the paint out with a crumpled paper towel, dabbing it around and removing
some of the paint |
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takes some practice to get a good looking random effect but the good thing
about this stuff it that it can be cleaned up and you can try again. Then
once it dries a bit I go over it with the next colour and so on and so
forth. Then as a final touch I go back over it with a paper towel to
remove the "dirt" in some areas to show a bit of clean. I don't
ever completely clean the area just take most of the "dirt" off
while leaving traces of it in place. If the paint won't cooperate with you
then use a damp cloth and the crumpled paper towel. |
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| The
crumpled paper towel is one of the key elements to getting the random
look. Change it around a lot or just use lots of different towels. A brush
will give a "brushed" look so try to only use that when applying
the paint. |
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And finally below a great close-up of the helmet showing
the fantastic detailing. |
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RotJ Stormtrooper Helmet
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| More recently TE has
produced RotJ helmet kits and the following photos are of Armando's (AJCG)
helmet that he's painted, weathered and otherwise detailed - adding decals
from Mike TK-4510 |
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| Armando has done a
really superb job on this Return of the Jedi Stormtrooper helmet - and in
our opinion has truly captured the "wonky" look the original helmets had. |
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| As you can see it has
the straight edged frown end seen on the "background" helmets - and its nice
to see some subtle weathering that just gives it that appearance of
originality. |
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| Below a useful
comparison showing the (work in progress) replica RotJ Stormtrooper against
an ESB replica Stormtrooper. Even ignoring obvious things like the eye
lenses, the overall shape of the RotJ helmet was completely different. |
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| If you want to look at
info and photos of
Original Return of the Jedi Stormtrooper Helmets then click here.
Alternately if you want to see a comparison table listing (and showing) all
the variations between
A New Hope,
Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Stormtroopers then click here. |
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| The decals are from a
run don by Mike (TK-4510) which very closely match those of an original Jedi
Stormtrooper helmet. |
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| We think you'll agree
that Armando has don a superb job on this helmet, which if it had a bit of
yellowing (of the ABS as it ages) would be close enough to convince some
people that its actually an original, not a replica. High praise indeed! |
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