TonyRB


TonyRB (Cyberant) has been suggesting we add these to the archive. Though not 1:1 size helmets, the Riddell ad Master Replicas "Scaled" or "Mini" Helmets are really quite wonderful reproductions of the screen-used helmets albeit at just 45% of actual size. Given the reasonable costs of these little chappies it's just a darn shame that no one's been able to officially produce anything close to these in realism at the full 100% size. So we'll start off with the Riddell range, with the MR lower down the page. Riddell came to the market with these great little collectibles a few years back, but stopped production around 2003/4 just as Master Replicas picked up on the "scaled prop" license. In producing its scaled helmet range, MR purchased Riddell's moulds for its range - hence they are in may respects the same. In 2008, Gentle Giant will continue the range, having picked up on MR's moulds - most of which came originally from Riddell!
Riddell's Mini Helmets
We took these in the Garden the other day and the lighting's just right. Not only do these little beasties look good on the outside, most of them also have internal detailing making them look pretty fantastic.

The Luke X-Wing looks great (perhaps a bit too clean), and C-3PO's light up when you walk past!

The ROTJ Stormtrooper is the rarest with prices currently fetching $150 on ebay, and Boba's not far behind. Both are finished really well and feature some great internal detailing.

The ROTJ Vader's nice and you can pull the whole thing apart for the "Reveal" look.
Riddell only ever produced five Star Wars helmet which is a darn shame since a Tie Pilot, ATAT Driver, Tusken Raider, Royal Guard and Biker Scout would have I am sure looked similarly brilliant. Most of the range were flogged off cheap at discount toy stores with only the Stormtrooper and Boba fetching a premium. I can only presume Riddell backed off, licked it wounds and went back to producing American Football and Baseball helmets. Now that's a shame!

Master Replicas Scaled Helmet Range

So in 2005/6 MR picked up on the Lucasfilm license, adding "Scaled" props and helmets to their range. Rather than reinventing the wheel, MR bought Riddell's moulds and apart from a revised "MR-style" stand, many of these are effectively the same great .45 scale Riddell mini helmets. Fist off lets get the "Riddell" ones out of the way, and the Vader, Luke X-Wing, Boba and RotJ Stormtrooper are like for like the same as the Riddell's, apart from the revised MR stand. Pics courtesy of Luke S, BenObi70 and Chuck.


Below our favourite Mandalorian looks great. The weathering's slightly different from the Riddell but otherwise its the same helmet - the Boba and Trooper pics thanks to Chuck.


MR's Return of the Jedi inspired Stormtrooper below was especially well received since the Riddell one was VERY hard to find and at times fetched over $100 on eBay.

So looking at the "new" scaled helmets MR was able to produce, the Wedge Antilles Celebration 4 Conference Exclusive was a rather nice helmet. Yes I know its just a repaint of the Luke X-Wing, but it IS a really nice repaint! Thanks to Orlando for these shots.


Again, following MR's penchant for "getting the best of their moulds", they produced a colour variation to the Stormtrooper, giving us a Expanded Universe Shadow Trooper top go along side their full 1:1 scale helmet - love the chrome lenses!.

Above a nice shot from Msmjr2003 of his scaled Shadow and below thanks to Chuck for his.

This was the "30th Anniversary Convention Exclusive" here in the UK, but was produced in big enough numbers to ensure that there should be enough of these around to meet demand.

Okay, so what about something REALLY new I hear you ask? Well to be fair to them they produced a superb scaled Clone, and in most part reproduced the same range of helmets that they did for the 1:1 scale collection (featured here)

So lets take a closer look at them separately, 501st Legion Clone Helmet, Standard Clone and finally Commander Gree. These great clone pics and the group shot top the MR section courtesy of QQb.



...and in the photo below, the side view shows just how accurate this helmet is.

Like the Riddell range the MR scaled helmets really are cool mini replicas and having access to the original digital files has really paid off as they've produced what appears to be a perfect scale model of the original CG version. To illustrate this, QQb's produced this really great comparison shot of the 1:1 MR next to the 1:0.45 scale.

MR also produced other exclusives in this range including the Shock Trooper for the UK market, thanks to Darth Fetty for these pics.


..and Darth Fetty's also given us a good photo of the insides showing the detail - very similar to the Stormtrooper.

Finally the Utapau Shadow Clone Trooper - again there were plans to do a 1:1 full scale version of this but it never happened as MR ran out of time. However the scale helmet is still do for release and is down as a Razors Edge Collectibles exclusive due end of Jan. Thanks to Yodasnews for this picture.

Below a shot from Spudmanski of his Utapau Clone, the last of the MR Scaled Helmets.

...and finally from Spudmanski a shot showing all the MR Clones together.

So........ why no TIE?
Customised Riddell's
These shots are from Uber Fett who's produced his own Jango Fett for the base Riddell Boba Fett helmet, which I think is rather excellent. Maybe this is the best way forward, If licensees wont produce the helmets the fans want, then perhaps we should do it ourselves!


I'm really starting to like these Riddell Helmets, especially these excellent bespoke versions. Here's another, this one by Steve from Richie's Armor who did for Garick Hagon (played soon-to-be-dead Biggs in ANH). Steve did a great job on this and presented to Garick at Dragon con in 2001.

...and here's a shot of the helmet along with a signed photo from Biggs himself.

Update Jan 2010 - here are some excellent MR mini customs from Cyril

Starting off with some custom paint jobs he's also added some great weathering to the following two.....

...and with the next a very impressive Commander Cody.....

...and also a Commander Bly with flip-up Binocs - these are really great and a cool inside into what MR could have done.....

Following on from Cyril's great work we've also had some shots of some more superb custom mini's, this time from Wondergarage. Note that these are fan-made mini replicas and not licensed products - so you wont see these in stores!

For those of you out there collecting the (near) half scale helmets they've gone and produced a number of new scaled helmets neatly dove-tailing in with the Riddell and MR range. Good to see therefore that they've gone for the TIE helmet and it's every bit as good as the Riddell was going to be - in fact probably better as they've added the breathing pipes!


So it really is a very nice sculpt and will sit very nicely alongside the MR/Riddell range. We're assuming these are the exact same scale as the licensed pieces so it'll be nice to see a side by side if anyone out there has already bought these. Next up the AT-AT - infinitely they've gone for the white finish although we've told them that the originals were in fact light grey so they're going to do that as well!


That AT-AT looks superb - and we just love the cutesy side hangers. Next is the biker scout and again we're very impressed with the sculpt - remember since this is just 0.45 scale its not like they were able to full scale Don Post helmet so these have all been bespoke sculpts.


What's especially pleasing is that they even have the stands and plaques so should fit nicely alongside the Riddell and MR mini helmets. Following on from Return of the Jedi's Biker Scout is the Imperial Guard, which looks to have precisely the right proportions.


Lastly (for now) is the Clone Trooper from Attack of the Clones. Not sure if the proportions of this are quite as good as the others but again its a really nice addition.


We've not had a chance to see these mini-helmets in person so can only go on the photographs we've received. However, looking at these shots (and assuming the product despatched are as good as these ones), then mini-fans are in for a treat.
Finally for now, Paul K sent us this photo of a slightly modified MR Scaled helmet - based on a (very) simple customisation to an MR scaled 501st trooper helmet, to change it to a Jet Trooper as seen in Star Wars Battlefront II. He explains... I first removed the lens/visor which is held in by 2 small Philips screws and a bit of glue. Getting the screws out is a very fiddly job, but once these are out you need to press the visor from the outside to break the contact with the spots of glue; mine was quite easy, but others may have more glue so it needs to be done carefully.

With the visor out I used it as a template to cut the green mirrored window film sample I bought on Ebay for 99p, this was set inside the helmet and the visor put back into position, check the film is positioned correctly, do the screws up lightly and job done. There is a groove around the visor which fits over a lip in visor opening of the helmet, so you don't want to do the screws up tight as it will wrinkle the film as it is pressed into the groove.