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Screamin' 1/4 Darth Vader (ANH)


Speedman

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Bought this on eBay from a guy who had stored it away for a few years after buying it off someone who had cut the legs off and cut the lower torso up. Apparently the first owner had wanted to change the stance and given up, I've had this one on the go since February and it's been very slow going as it's the first time I've worked with vinyl and having to repair the damage wasn't the easiest thing I've ever had to do. I've done a stupid amount of research which has revealed errors in nearly every part of the figure which I've tried to address as best I can. It's about 80% done but one of the big things left to do is to build a Lightsaber from scratch.

This is the photo from the eBay listing, I took a bit of a chance on it but I'm glad I did. It helped that I only paid just under £15 posted :D

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You can see where it had been cut, I really needed to be a model making octopus when I fitted it all back together!

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The moulded belt box details were awful so I started from scratch and turned a lot of the parts from acrylic rod.

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I bulked out the belt boxes with Milliput, the middle one should just be a belt buckle but there was no way of doing that with the way it was moulded.

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And this is where I'm at with it. I have both arms done and have reworked the right hand for a correctly sized lightsaber. (The glossy finish on the helmet is polished CA, lots of CA!)

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Well, I've got 3 builds on the go for the Obsolete Kit Group Build with possibly another two to join them but at the speed I go through kits it hopefully won't be long before I crack on and finish him. I've stalled because of the Lightsaber to be honest, it's finding the right materials to make it that's the main problem. Hopefully this group build with get me going again.

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  • 1 month later...

It's been a while since I've had time to try to get my head around building the lightsaber, it didn't help that I ended up doing 10 builds for the obsolete group :P I'm not complaining, I thoroughly enjoyed them all but it did preoccupy my modelling for a few months. I've spent the last few evenings trying to find more details on Darth's lightsaber from episode IV A New Hope (ANH), Darth's lightsaber changed subtly from ANH to Empire and had a major change by Jedi. The reason I have to be so specific is because Darth's costume changed as well. The Screamin' model represents the ANH costume which is easily identified by the chest armour being under the inner robe. Also little things like the sheen of the helmet and the colours of the chest box switches changed in later films.

I finally found some CAD drawings online and managed to get information on the length of the hilt so I could then scale the drawings down. I had a eureka moment last night over what to use for making it and I'm going to use a pen as the main body. I found a pencil which is close but now I have the drawings to take measurements off I can go around all the stationary suppliers in town measuring the diameter of their pens. (I'll keep a tally of the strange looks I get ;)) I'm hoping to find something with a lid that matches the diameter of the black sections at the front and middle as well, this will save quite a bit of work I hope, the rest of the details will be scratch built from card etc.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Moving forward quite fast with this one now. Yesterday I glued magnets into the corners of the cape which line up with magnets inside the figure roughly where his collar bones would be. This is the same method I've used for attaching the helmet, I've also got magnets in the toe of each boot so I don't need to glue him to a base. I primed the cape last night and brushed on two very thin coats of Revell acrylic matt black, I finished it tonight with a thick coat.

I managed to find a perfectly sized pen in town today which has a nice tight fitting lid I can use as well. I should have the main parts done over the next couple of days.

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I can't believe how much stuff was packed inside it!

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Still drying when I took the photo :D

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Edited by Speedman
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I ordered some 5mm acrylic rod on eBay and it arrived a couple of days of days ago. Cut to 25cm in length with 1cm of that used to mount it inside the "inner pen tube", it gives a fairly accurate scale length of blade. The "inner pen tube" is the long hollow stopper the pen manufacturer sealed the end with during production. It was a little loose inside the main tube so I added some plastic strip and gradually sanded it down to give a good fit, there's still a little bit of friction between the two which is ideal. The hilt will be glued into Darth's hand so I needed a way of removing the blade for storage of transportation but I didn't want the blade to wobble around and not look straight. This gives me the stability I need without worrying about breaking anything installing or removing the blade.

I've rounded the tip of the blade and have given it a dull finish with a scouring pad so it has more of a "glowing" effect in normal light. As much as I would have liked to have the blade lit, having played with various light sources it just didn't give a good effect over the entire length.

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Thanks :)

I primed it this morning, a few things to touch up but overall I'm pleased with it. It was hard to judge how it was looking with the black & white stripes but it's much easier now to work on and I should have the first few coats of black on it tonight.

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I painted a base coat of silver and black on the lightsaber then I chromed it using aluminium foil. I smoothed the foil out then stuck double sided tape to the dull side. I cut it roughly to shape then applied it trimming it with my scalpel and using a cocktail stick to push it into the corners. I painted the necessary parts in black and have given the whole thing a coat of Clear to seal it, I'll used matt varnish for the front parts and rear grips but a few more coats of Clear for the middle which needs to be high gloss.

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The lightsaber is now finished, the last piece to be fitted was the "bubble display". I made this by applying blobs of Krystal Klear on a strip of clear plastic and backing it with some foil, I slotted it into the rails I had already made for the lightsaber out of Plastruct U channel.

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Thanks :)

I've attached his left arm and fitted the lightsaber to his right hand. All those little black plastic fins and bits have been fitted to the end of the lightsaber giving the illusion that his hand is holding flexible rubber grips.

The scalpel is there to give you an idea just how big he is! :o

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I've included what is left of the original lightsabre to show how undersized it was.

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Almost there... I've painted some chain and glued it to his chest and cut semicircles in the corners of the cape to cover the ends so it looks like the chain is fastened to the cape. I added a line of gloss black around the cape's neckline to simulate the leather trim of the film costume. Two rivets for the belt hook were made out of plastic rod, sanded into a dome, cut and painted before gluing on. The buckle and controls have been glued onto the boxes using Krystal Klear, rather than CA, so I had some time to play with the alignment. The helmet has been lined with foam for a snug fit, the circle of foam in the centre is glued to a magnet that lines up with one inside his head so the helmet can be removed for polishing.

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