Shepperton Design

[Line_Of_White]

Apparently they make the "original" design, but as far as i know they don't ship to the US... any answers?

[TKDUEUNO]

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[darren1970[501st]]

Don't know if there legal case is sorted yet?

[Line_Of_White]

TKDUEUNO said:

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thank you, very helpfull

Edited February 4, 2021 by gmrhodes13
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[Dmian]

Apparently they make the "original" design, but as far as i know they don't ship to the US... any answers?

It's a well known fact that Brian Muir sculpted the armor and Liz Moor the helmet from Ralph McQuarrie's drawings.

AA made the original moulds (he had to solve some technical problems) and pulled the original armor.

Years later AA decided to pull helmets and armors again. He said he still have the original moulds, but almost everybody doubts that.

I've read somewhere he had some reference helmets and some kind of "protective plastic" used to preserve the moulds and used that to make new moulds... but the helmets and armors looks suspiciously like parts of other helmets and armors...

To make it short, he started making armors claiming the design was his.

Lucas sued in both USA and UK.

He lost the USA case, so he can't sell there.

In the UK the judge declared that the copyright was the property of Lucas... in the USA. So AA can still sell his stuff in the UK.

Lucas appealed, but SDS is still open.

 

Don't know if there legal case is sorted yet?

As I've said, the UK judge let him sell armor, because the copyright from Lucas applies only to US. But LFL appealed, so maybe in the future he can't keep selling armor, or maybe he can. Nobody knows for sure now. These legal battles are lengthy.

[carbonitekid]

For a full summation of the court case have a read of this:

 

http://rpf.exoray.com/LFL_vs_SDS/UK_decision.html

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[Bell[TK]]

Just to check but is the SDS battle spec helmet up to the required standard for trooping or does it need modding like the master replica?

[SuperTrooper]

The battle spec is fine out of the box.

[firebladejedi[TK]]

It's a well known fact that Brian Muir sculpted the armor and Liz Moor the helmet from Ralph McQuarrie's drawings.

 

True

 

AA made the original moulds (he had to solve some technical problems) and pulled the original armor.

 

False Brian Muir made the moulds

 

AA only actually pulled the plastic he didnt have any imput into the mold or design of the stormtroopers.

 

His newer armour is widely known as recasted from other sources such as TE and GF amoungst others...

[Bell[TK]]

Thanks for that. I'm thinking about buying my first bucket and the battle spec is looking a lot more tempting than a master replica

[james007bond[TK]]

Thanks for that. I'm thinking about buying my first bucket and the battle spec is looking a lot more tempting than a master replica

 

The battlespec is a lovely trooping lid..... but you may find that you'll have to do a little work on it to get it perfect....

 

If you want to have some fun, get yourself a bumpy TE2 lid kit.... and then post your build pics up here....

 

We luv picture postcard threads here...

[james007bond[TK]]

Incidently, I have a SDS Hero lid in my small collection and to tell you the truth, I would have expected better quality for the price... hey ho... I'm in the process of smoothing out the eyes and I will at some point take the helmet apart and get new ears for it and trim them up my way.....

[troopermaster]

1. 
    
   

False Brian Muir made the moulds

 

AA only actually pulled the plastic he didnt have any imput into the mold or design of the stormtroopers.

 

Brian sculpted the armour and then the plasterers at Elstree made the moulds from this, then fibreglass castings were made to vacuum form over. These were then sent to AA after the vac machine at Elstree was faulty, so AA continued to pull the majority of the armour used in the movie.

 

It's believed AA did some refining to the helmet moulds in order to make them more user friendly, though this is not concrete, just what AA has said. It's been proven he did not sculpt the helmet or armour, but he may have sculpted the ear caps, knee caps and other greeblies to make up the complete stormtrooper as we see it on screen compared to what was made at Elstree before filming started.

 

Just a bit of background info there

[Dmian]

Thanks Mark and Paul for the info.

I never stop learning here.

[Star Wars Helmets]

1. 
    
   

 

Brian sculpted the armour and then the plasterers at Elstree made the moulds from this, then fibreglass castings were made to vacuum form over. These were then sent to AA after the vac machine at Elstree was faulty, so AA continued to pull the majority of the armour used in the movie.

 

It's believed AA did some refining to the helmet moulds in order to make them more user friendly, though this is not concrete, just what AA has said. It's been proven he did not sculpt the helmet or armour, but he may have sculpted the ear caps, knee caps and other greeblies to make up the complete stormtrooper as we see it on screen compared to what was made at Elstree before filming started.

 

Just a bit of background info there

 

Just to add a little more to Paul's comments. Having looked into this at length it seems that Elstree were just not cut out to do any vac-forming for the movie which is why everrything was outsourced to (a non unionised SDS). This started with the helmets and then moved onto the Armor. Ive never seen any evidence that Elstree did any vac forming of costumes/helmets and I'm pretty certain that the armour showin the in the video grabs Brian Muir showed were just standard Ainsworth armor - hence I think SDS did 100% of the armor.

 

I think Ainsworths "contribution" to th stormtrooper was (as you said) a refinement of the clay sculpt that better suited the vac-forming process, and as such we can probably put the ears and brow trim down to him. As far as the armor's concerned, like you said he probably made some parts that refined the sandtrooper into the stormtrooper.

 

I think his input on other helmets was greater. He claims that it was his idea that a black trooper faceplate was added for the TIE Pilot. Ive not seen any pre-produciton drawings of that design ( although there are some storyboards although the date is unclear), hence this cant be verified either way. I think the quick win he gave John Mollo and the Art Department in resolving the Stormtrooper production problem probably gave him a more free reign over some of the other helmets/costumes he was involved in - although of course most were based on existing real world designs (like the XWing and TIE) although there was some skill in the way he made the finished designs work.

 

Over recent weeks weve been updateing StarWarsHelmets.com and the new version went live yesterday on a new server. All the Stormtrooper info is now in one place so its more easy to find. However given the volume of information its split across a LOT of pages as it deals with Original, Licensed and fan-made replicas - and all the different movie/version connatations.

 

http://www.starwarshelmets.com/Characters.htm

 

Hope this helps

 

Cheers

 

Jez

[firebladejedi[TK]]

The new look site looks totally awesome Jez, well done

[troopermaster]

Several suits were produced by Tashy Baines at Elstree before the same set of moulds were sent to Ainsworth.

 

Just going by what the man himself quoted

 

Great new layout of your site Jez, I like it!

[Star Wars Helmets]

Just going by what the man himself quoted

 

Great new layout of your site Jez, I like it!

 

Yes I know he said that but TBH I dont think he's correct mate. We've never seen anything to suggest there were 2 different types of trooper armor and the photos posted just looked like an unfinised set of Ainsworths. Having spoken to a number of people it sounds like Elstree were incapable of doing anything as complex as the helmets and armor at that stage which is why they outsourced it all.

 

Thanks for the coments on the site guys - Ive had a lot of help from Art Andrews but there's still a mountain left to do. The Stormtrooper section has bee completely overhauled ad I realy need to do the same on the Vader, then Boba etc etc.

 

Cheers

 

Jez

[s4awd]

Here's mine. I had to have a buddy ship it for me. The suit looks really nice as well as the helmet. I had to adjust the brow to match the sandtroopers to give it a more screen accurate look. Expensive but very nice. The armor is on a mannequin and is going to be put in my home theater room. For now he's in the junk room because my wife thinks he's creepy lol. This pic is from my blackberry so please excuse the 

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[TK-7980]

The ears look a bit off, but it looks really fantastic over all.

 

Grats on your acquisition.

[s4awd]

The ears look a bit off, but it looks really fantastic over all.

 

Grats on your acquisition.

 

Yeah, I had to drill new holes for the brow adjustment which are under the ears. I made two temporary holes to get the helmet together and wasn't sure if I was going to like the adjustment so I just taped the ears back on for now. Hopefully the rest of the operation goes well

[TD6598]

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Here's my SDS gear!I've never had a problem with this suit when trooping!

 

The Battlespec lid is nice and roomy(would have to be as I've got the RomFX,aerator speakers,2 fans and all the batteries to run that lot and there's still a bit of room left to spare!

 

The armour has stood up well to trooping over the years with only a couple of small cracks appearing on the edges of the chest plate and these have been repaired with material supplied by AA himself and the edges of the chest have been reinforced!.These cracks where caused by myself being clumsy when packing it away in readiness of a troop the next day!

 

SDS may not be as robust an armour as say FX but it's like everything else as it'll last for ages if you take care of it!

Edited February 4, 2021 by gmrhodes13
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