cinderellaboy

Josh, Vern, Mathias. Thank you for humouring me. And special thanks for the new angle...was the armourer who approached AA with regard to producing replicas the same person whose suit AA is said to have copied? Can you name names?

Thank you Mathias. I have read that AA openly admits to using skins and resculpting. As we know, the original moulds didn't even survive the original casting run for ANH. They were falling apart and repaired on the fly in a desperate attempt to finish the run. Given this fact, no-one would believe that these same bucks were in any fit state to be used to make the current SDS armour 35 years on. I don't believe that AA has claimed or would claim this as it is beyond belief.

Thank you, Luis. I seem to have touched a nerve. It's easier to write me off as a troll or AA plant than debate the issue calmly in a respectful manner. For the record, I'm no more than a spectator and have no connection to AA other than being a customer as I stated openly. I appear to be the only impartial one here.... If I've come over as arrogant, I apologise unreservedly. Isn't it the ultimate arrogance to belittle me as a novice and tell me to accept the "fact" that AA is a liar, rather than address the issues I raised and present me with answers? I wanted more than BM's word against AA's ad infinitum. I am well aware of BM's wealth of talent and take nothing away from the quality of the pieces he is proven to have sculpted. I have seen many superb examples from his portfolio. Sadly, he is probably the only person who can answer my questions. I will have to wait and hope he returns and is willing to offer an explanation. If you remember, it was he himself who encouraged me to find the facts for myself. I've raised a few awkward questions and I'm sorry if some people are uncomfortable with them. In the meantime, I'll reserve my judgement, as I have done all along.

Hi Josh, As I said, I am also on no-one's side...I am here to be convinced. At the end of the day, the original armour bucks are long gone. AA readily admits he reworked/sculpted the armour bucks anew, whichever point of reference he may or may not have used to do so. All subsequent original (ESB/ROTJ) and fan made armour derives from HIS originals. Worst case scenario: He made the originals. They were copied. He copied the copies, or the new sculpts of those trying to emulate his work. I'm surprised AA's detractors haven't done something more scientific than comparison photos to prove their plagiarism claims. Strikes me as funny that people don't believe that the man who made the originals would not have kept them or their skins...More likely he had them than didn't. Is that such a leap of faith? And to those who say he didn't sculpt the originals...even Brian Muir readily admits that there is no evidence to disprove his claims. I invited Mr Muir to comment on the "facts" I listed on a previous page of this thread, to no avail. I was particularly keen to hear his views on the point I made about the convenience of GL crediting a tragically deceased sculptress with sculpting the stormtrooper helmet and learn how he managed to remain ignorant of its authorship until just before the court LFL/AA courtcase... Furthermore, no-one has explained away the inferior prototypes that AA sold at Christies. Why did he make those if he had the perfectly formed "terracotta" sculpt to copy?...regardless of its author. Could it be that it was accidentally destroyed as he has claimed? Likewise, why are NP and AA mentioned over 100 times in JM's sketchbook while BM and LM are not mentioned once? Anyone....? Regardless of how he arrived at his new bucks, he has the ultimate USP...the original maker, making them in the very place the originals were made. Certainly carries a lot of sway. No argument there, then...

Hi Josh Congrats on your purchase ...regards the hand/blaster...don't know if this will work for you but mine has a black jubilee/hose clip bolted to the hand with a "paddle" to make it easy to adjust...the paddle gets hidden between the fingers...just an idea Enjoy the mannie. Regards Damian

As stated, I'm a novice replica prop collector and here to learn...I wanted a CONVINCING suit of armour and helmet...More screen accurate than fancy dress hire shop. I appreciate all your comments. It seems that it is easier for people to believe that SDS is a recast of an adulterated recast than to believe that the original fabricator kept tools/skins and retooled. Not even litigation by Lucas resulted in any kind of scientific attempt to prove the recasting claims. I respect your opinions as experienced collectors/troopers but remain unconvinced.

And the expert from the LFL archive who had no qualms with it?

The man who pulled the originals couldn't get his hands on a screen used ANH and thought that he could fool people into thinking a recast of a reworked recast recast was the genuine article?

If he cast anything, why didn't he just source an original ANH suit and recast that?

How do you work backwards from an ROTJ/ESB MKII to arrive at an ANH?

A much more likely scenario than suggesting that he recast an ROTJ suit. A blind man can see that both the original ANH and SDS have absolutely nothing to do with the ROTJ or anything cast from it. The ROTJ is a complete reworking. You only need to look at the overall width, the lines/angles of the crutch, the cods etc etc. The best you can say is that they are both stormtrooper armour.

I would suggest that centralising the line to the cod and removing the divot were things AA did when retooling from the skins...

Thanks again Mathias. Going back to the first pic you posted... The fact that the line down to the cod is central is the only thing that the ROTJ and SDS DO have in common in this pic....how on earth can people claim that the SDS on the right is derived from the ROTJ on the left???

Thanks Frank/Mathias for the tips on how to spot an ANH ab...any other differences between the SDS and ANH armour people have picked up on?

Btw In the second pic, from the shadow, the cod seems to be a separate piece which is being held off centre whilst in the first pic the ab and cod seem to be one piece and the line seems to be central....

Thanks for the pics, Locitus Do you have side by side comparisons of TE ROTJ and SDS? Many thanks

Mr Muir, I have read extensively, but I'm sure not exhaustively,  on the subject of AA/NP's claims to authorship of the "terracotta" helmet and your quest for justice for Liz Moore. The authorship of the "terracotta" helmet has long since ceased to be a question of intellectual property rights, with all credit for both the 2D and 3D versions resting with Ralph McQuarrie and ultimately, as the commissioning paymaster, George Lucas, despite any input others may or may not have had in the creation of the 3D version. It is a matter of apportioning credit where it is due, which is your stated aim. In the absence of conclusive documentary, photographic or cinematic evidence of the true identity of the author of the "terracotta" helmet, the "indisputable truth" is no more than an irrefutable lie. I would be grateful if you could confirm/refute a few "facts" as I understand them: Irrespective of the "industrial vs art" ruling which ultimately lost LFL the case, LFL sought to prove ownership of the intellectual property rights to the 3D helmet by claiming that the sculpture from which it was ultimately vacuum formed had been created  in-house by Liz Moore. At the time of the sculpting of said helmet Liz Moore was no longer employed by the studio. No evidence of a contract with Liz to produce the helmet, invoices etc.were presented  by LFL at the trial. If she did sculpt it, she was working independently, at best under an "implied contract" as the judge ruled had been the case with AA/NP. AA has been accused of disrespecting  Liz's memory  by stealing credit for her work, despite there being no conclusive proof that she was the author. Conversely, it is conceivable and may be argued that LFL put forward the notion that she was the author as her personal circumstances at the time the helmet was sculpted and the tragic fact that she is no longer with us to confirm or deny authorship conveniently suited LFL's purposes. After Liz's departure, you were the sole remaining  sculptor on the ANH production. You were inundated with work on the droid heads, C-3P0, stormtrooper armour and Darth Vader, so much so that John Barry contracted Liz, formally or informally,  to sculpt the stormtrooper helmet, despite the fact that her four weeks sculpting on ANH were over and she had left the country to join her partner, the visual effects guru, John Richardson who was working on "A Bridge Too Far" near Deventer , Holland. John Barry would not entrust the job to any other, more local,  sculptor despite the pressure to ready the stormtrooper costumes for the impending Tunisia shoot. You  claimed  in a PropDen thread that Richardson set up a makeshift studio for Liz at their new home in Holland where she sculpted the first draft of the stormtrooper helmet although no documentary  evidence of this was presented at the trial or is in the public domain. The fact that it was sculpted in Holland, is offered as an explanation for the fact that no photographic/cinematic evidence of her actually working on the sculpture was captured for the LFL archive, and the fact that there is a sole surviving photo of what is claimed to be her work. In his testimony, John Richardson stated that he remembers Liz working on both C-3PO and another piece for ANH. He mentions visiting the studio lot and seeing her working on C-3PO, presumably in January 1976 while she was still a studio employee and before he left for Holland, but does not identify the other piece. He also makes  no mention of the fact that he set up a studio for her in Holland and that any further work for ANH was sculpted there . He did not identify either helmet in the photograph as the other piece he saw Liz working on. He was not cross-examined on this point by LFL lawyers, and his testimony in fact appeared to confirm that the other helmet in the photo had been sculpted by her by dint of the fact that "she only ever used grey clay", and as the "terracotta" helmet has a much redder hue when juxtaposed with the grey paint of the other, it may be inferred, as it was by the judge, that she did not sculpt the "terracotta" helmet. In this farcical manner, Lucas lost this point. The helmet in the photo is still a work in progress and alterations were suggested and carried out at the studio, rather than it being returned to Holland and brought back yet again, with  the impracticalities of the timescale and logistical issues this would entail. Liz is reported to have personally returned to the film studios from her studio in Holland with the sculpture and was asked to make some minor alterations which were done at the studio, presumably in the art department. Despite being the sole sculptor in the art department, working for many months on the Star Wars sculptures, and for more than seventy days consecutively at one point, you did not see Liz when she returned with the helmet sculpt and carried out the requested adjustments, presumably in the same space that you were working, or an adjacent one. In fact, you never saw the helmet in the space reserved for sculpting at the studio art department at all. Despite working on the stormtrooper armour sculpt you were not informed at any stage by JM, JB or anyone else that Liz had been contracted to sculpt the helmet. As the sole sculptor in the art department, at no stage did you ask John Mollo or John Barry who, if anyone, was working on the helmet, why you had not been asked to sculpt it as the centrepiece of the costume, or whether you would be required to sculpt it at some stage. Your only contact with the helmet was seeing it outside the art department. Even then, you were not interested as to the author, despite the fact that you were working on the rest of the costume and admired the quality of the sculpting. Despite your friendship with Liz Moore, in the six months between your seeing the helmet and her untimely passing on Friday 13th August, 1976 the helmet was not mentioned in any correspondence you may have shared. Eg. telephone conversations, letters etc. In the intervening years, given the enormous success of the Star Wars trilogy and your role as the sculptor of key characters, including the stormtrooper armour, the issue of who had sculpted the helmet never arose in the prop making community and despite  your continuing to work for the studios no mention of Liz Moore having sculpted the helmet was ever made. You only became interested in who had sculpted the helmet just before the trial, angered by NP's/AA's claims to be the authors. You made enquiries and were informed by unnamed persons who had worked on the ANH production in an unstated capacity that the author was Liz Moore. Thus, your only evidence that Liz sculpted the "terracotta" helmet is anecdotal. You have claimed that AA/NP  never mentioned a clay helmet until you pointed out the existence of the photo to LFL lawyers. Nick Pemberton's diary records obtaining clay and many days spent sculpting a Star Wars helmet. NP  and  AA are mentioned over 100 times in John Mollo's sketchbook. Neither you nor Liz Moore are mentioned. The photograph of the two helmets shows the studio's failed attempts at stormtrooper armour lying on the table between them. You have stated that these items may have been parts of the C-3PO costume, although they do not bear even a remote resemblance to the pieces which had been sculpted by Liz, cast in plaster and further sculpted by you by the time the photograph was taken. Despite the existence of thousands of  stills and film footage of  ANH pre-production, no evidence exists in the LFL archives of clay/plaster/fibreglass sculpture/mould/vac forming tools  for the stormtrooper armour having been produced by the studio. However, AA openly admits to receiving some plaster cast armour parts which by no means constituted a full set and could not directly be used as vacuum forming tools. These were presumably those used to produce the failed armour attempts in the photograph. Cinematic and photographic evidence of you working on Vader, Death Star Droid etc. exists, but none of you working on the huge project that the stormtrooper armour undoubtedly was. Likewise, no photographic evidence of any in-house vacuum formed armour in its accepted ANH form was presented  by LFL, and it may be presumed therefore that none exists. Several prototype helmets, patently cast from different tools, were sold by AA at Christie's the auctioneers. AA has stated that various sculpts and prototypes were presented to GL. None of the prototype helmets sold  bear a striking resemblance to the clay sculpt, suggesting that it was pulled from a tool cast directly from it,  and at least one has a distinctly asymmetrical faceplate. The prototypes appear to confirm AA's assertion that he sculpted various tools before arriving at the final version used to pull the screen-used helmets. AA admits to disposing of the original armour forming tools he had kept in his prop store for decades as they were not as well made as the helmet tools and even by the end of production of the suits for ANH they had seriously degraded and were not producing suits of the quality achieved at the start of the run. AA did however retain the protective skins from which he later made new forming tools. This would account for the minor discrepancies between the screen used armour and AA's new replica armour. The armour that he is accused of recasting was itself cast from a screen used suit and tools made from it would presumably produce armour much closer to screen accurate than the armour  produced by the new tools. On the eve of the trial, an expert from the LFL archive inspected the replica armour produced by AA as it lay next to an original set of armour from the archive. She did not raise any concerns that the replica armour may  not have been pulled from an original set of tools, and that the two sets of armour were all but identical in form. This was witnessed by both sets of lawyers. You have sold a large number of copies of your book "In the Shadow of Vader" as a direct result of participation in the various forums and AA/SDS discussion threads and continue to do so as the controversy created by your claims rumbles on. These are some of the "facts" as I  understand them. I apologise in advance for any errors in comprehension  contained in the above and appreciate your correcting me and setting the record straight, accordingly.

Mr Muir Thanks for your advice. I've taken you up on it and will be posting my findings here soon. Stay tuned....

Hi Dennis I'm not saying the one I have is any BETTER than any other... At the end of the day all any mannequin has to do is display the props as you wish them to be displayed... As we can see from your photo, yours does the job you want it to do ( and does it extremely well if I may say so, :-) ), just as mine fulfils my needs....people think me insane for spending £1,000 (GBP) on a few bits of vac formed ABS... They were less critical of me spending a lot less money on a precision engineered, steel, medical grade aluminium and injection moulded plastic mannequin that is highly adjustable and grows from 5"8' to 6"6', is fully poseable and "flies"... Lol Btw I love your armour... Excuse my novice ignorance, but which is it?

Hello Mr Muir I'm honoured that you have taken the time to join this thread. As I mentioned, I am a complete novice and did not want a screen accurate set of armour, nor one for trooping. I was merely looking to fulfil a childhood dream to have a life size, realistic looking stormtrooper standing in the corner of the room. I am a layperson in this field, but I can discern between a fancy dress costume stormtrooper and the better reproductions on the market. For all the bashing that the SDS armour and helmet take from the connoisseurs and hardcore troopers, it was aesthetically close enough for my needs and when I learned that AA was the original FABRICATOR, I decided that that was good enough for me, especially after reading his version of events and the outcome of the courtcase on the SDS site. Given what I know now, I may have considered my choice of armour more carefully. Having been made aware that AA's version of events is not gospel and is even seen as the antithesis by many, I was extremely curious to learn more about the chain of events that led to the creation of this most iconic of screen characters. I stated that I understand that the colour of the clay and that the identity of the sculptor/tress of the "terracotta" helmet was rendered irrelevant by the judge's "prop not art" ruling. You have said that it was established that AA did not sculpt the helmet. Forgive me, but I fail to understand what bearing this has/had. As far as I'm aware, he never claimed credit for this, but gave it to his friend, NP.However, AA makes a great deal of the fact that it was deemed to be NP's work and not LM/LFL/the studio's as being the reason why he is able to continue production. The fact that he won this point, thanks to the testimony of LM's boyfriend alone and disregarding the fact that the clay WAS studio clay which matches the hue of your Death Star Droid and was obviously the work of a sculptor/tress of great ability as opposed to a scenic artist and puppet maker left me utterly incredulous. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the judge hadn't ruled "prop not art" the fact that it was deemed to be the work of NP would still have led to a victory for AA as NP was not under contract with LFL or the studio and therefore the intellectual property rights would not have been LFL's. Please don't think me lazy for not wishing to trawl though masses of court transcriptions to find the answer to the burning question all this has left me with...and i thank you for your presence here as it will hopefully mean I don't have to..... As a key witness yourself on this point and the man who pointed out the existence of the (untouched, i assume?) photo to LFL's lawyers which ultimately led to LFL conceding the credit to NP/AA, could you answer me this: How could anyone who isn't colourblind and can tell his a*se from his elbow (or his finely sculpted helmet from a "spray painted, mishmash, Blue Peter, here's one I made earlier from scrap, and it's all held together with doublesided sticky tape monstrosity") have ruled the way the judge did??? I know you have said that the colour of the clay was not discussed in depth and that it was more important that AA was not the sculptor, but I fail to see how this is so, as to me it is the crux of the whole matter. I promise i am not being wilfully dim. Can you enlighten me? As far as the armour is concerned, is it known on which date the photo of the "in house" armour pictured above was taken and how this fits into the timeline of events? I am completely impartial and just seek a greater understanding of events. Many thanks, Brian for taking the time to address my questions.

Mathias. I appreciate your stance. It is hurting my head. I guess without the photo of LM working on the terracotta sculpt or the full sheet of armour parts sitting outside the vacuum forming shed there is no way of proving either version of events. I noticed in the photo which alleges to be of in house armour that the helmet is close to, if not "the" finished article. It has the ears which I believe AA is universally credited with conceiving. So the armour could be an early SDS version??? Please, correct this novice if I'm wrong about the helmet or if you know more about the photo. Thanks

In that case, I'd go for one of the poseable wire and foam ones...

I agree, Dennis. Mine is a little overkill for a stormtrooper. As I mentioned, I'm building a carbon freezing chamber diarama base for the mannequin and have grand plans for it. The long term goal is to recreate the moment when Chewie gets angry and knocks the trooper flying. That's what I had in mind for my mannequin...a flying trooper. In the meantime, I don't need a second mannequin when I get bored and want to swap out my trooper for the Vader. When I eventually get the Fett, I can have him taking off.... All with the one mannequin till I get to fulfil the dream...I just love the flexibility. The parts of the mannequin expand to fit different body types... So i've matched the circumference of my biceps, thighs etc. And you can adjust the length of the limbs. I'm 6"1' but have stupidly short legs! Like sb of 5"8' would have. Lol Mine is a mannequin that covers pretty much all eventualities, which I was prepared to pay for. Not too expensive for sth that does it all, will last a lifetime and that i could sell on to anyone (not that I ever would!). He's part of the family now. You know how it is .

You're welcome, Josh. As I said in my thread..."horses for courses"... The duct tape approach could be making a duct tape cast of your own body (over an old t-shirt and jeans of course) then filling it to bulk it out... There are lots of how to videos on YouTube... Or it could mean taking a shop window dummy, cutting it up and reattaching limbs and hands with duct tape, fibreglass etc...there are also the wire and foam kinds mentioned in my thread, with links to the guy who's selling them...many ways to do it, depending on your preferences.

Then again, if you want something that does a lot more than "the job" and are willing and able to invest in quality....