Darth Vader

Here is what I accomplished this week. I re-ordered my truck title for the third time (sigh). Got my lawn aerated and sprinklers blown out, still on track in all my classes, listed more books for sale (I bought a bunch of books to sell on Amazon a couple years ago and they were inactive for a little over a year since I moved to Kalifornia for awhile. Now I am slowly re-listing them), and tried out a new paint for outside on the walking stones. That last one is drying right now.

However, in interesting news, I finished my manican rework! A couple years ago I built a manican for my Darth Vader costume. I figured a $2500 costume should be displayed. What I did was run to the hardware store and pick out PVC parts that would make a body. A connector for the hips that also worked for the shoulders, some elbow joints, a knee joint (only one, the other leg is straight), some feet, pipe for the bones, and a Styrofoam ball for a head. After a bit of measuring my parts I began cutting on the pipe. I added some inches to the spine and the legs since Vader is 6'7 and I am only 6"1. The boots add two inches, so I only needed to add four. Then I put all the parts together and glued some of the joints.

At this point I had a skeleton, so I added some skin and muscle. I ended up using an old pair of long johns which I filled with pillow stuffing. Then an old stocking cap over the Styrofoam so one wouldn't see the white thought the helmet. Next I made the hands. I took some wire coat hangers and bent them into fingers, then taped them into the wrist pipes and made a fist on one and a Vader like crushing pose on the other. Next I took some dish-washing rubber gloves,stuffed them and put them over the fingers. Viola, hands. These I might replace some day since they don't quite look right.

After using him for awhile I decided earlier this year he needed a rework, that Is what I just finished. The main problem I addressed was that he really had no hips, making the cod piece and belt difficult to attach and make look right. It also made him look somewhat funny. Here is how I fixed it, I bought a cheap trash can, round and about the right size for a torso. I turned it upside down and tied shoe laces to the bottom to make it less round and more human shaped. then cut a hole in the top for the "spine" to fit into and tied the same shoe laces to the hip "bones". That mostly worked but the pants wouldn't fit, so a quick trim to the hip area and my Vader looks way better. Plus his belt/pants/cod piece wont fall off anymore! Very embarrassing for a dark lord of the Sith to have his pants falling off all the time. The secondary problem I fixed was that joints were constantly coming apart and very hard to get back together without access to actually touch them. To fix that I simply took the whole thing apart and glued all of the joints except the arm to shoulder joint. That needs to come apart to get his clothes on, so I drilled a hole and stuck a bolt in the hole to hold it when together. So now my manican isn't adjustable to different posses like before, but at least he won't fall apart. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn't plan on sharing this when I was building or fixing it. Here are some though of the finished product.

Notice two things in the background, one that shelf to his right is six feet tall, second there is an unfinished Jango Fett helmet on my other shelf that I need to work on. Next though I need to finish this costume. It is a complete ESB Vader, however there are some things I want to change. First the boots are good, but the internal lifts I made myself are uncomfortable. I need to revisit that. Second the straps on the shin guards suck. Third the cape is too long, it drags on the ground a bit. Fourth the helmet mounting system I made needs to be fixed a little. and finally some of the things need adjusted so they fit correctly.