| Assithstance (a.k.a. Helpful Hints) |
| Before even starting the costume figure out which size mask works best with your proportions. For the most part, I think that I did OK, but there are some things that perhaps I will make a little bit smaller when it's time to re-make them. Anyway.... HEIGHT: Unless you are relatively close to Dave Prowse's 6'7", don't plan on making your accessories to full scale. Instead, divide your own height in inches by 79 (Dave's height in inches). This will give you your percentage of his height. Costume pieces will look better if they are scaled down to match. Example: I'm 5'2"= 62". 62" divided by 79" = .78 or 78%. I could have scaled up to 80%, but where I have such a short torso, I chose to scale down to roughly 75%. This helped with the belt boxes and the chest box. I didn't really need to do much math, though. Most of my scaling down was down by eyeballing things. Look at photos and try to get your things to fall into the same region of the body. Also helpful is to study silhouette photos (ESB at top of Carbon Freezing Chamber stairs) to get just the basic shape. WIDTH: Width is important, too, though it's a little more difficult to make adjustments for some people. Some shorter guys may have very wide shoulders, which are made even wider by wearing the shoulder armor. You end up with a very "square" looking Vader. I guess the best way to deal with this is to not over exaggerate the shoulder area with armor that's too big, and maybe use boots with a higher heel. The helmet is supposed to be pretty wide in comparision to the width of the shoulders, and had Don Post Studios made the helmet dome for the Standard mask about 10% larger, it would look much better. GIRLS: On the other hand, those of us Vaders who have that hourglass figure have different problems to deal with. Making the shoulders appear larger is easy to do with the armor and shoulder pads. But the hips...that's a different story. it wasn't until I built my cod piece that I had hip troubles. The portion that is covered by the inner cloak that wraps around only further emphasized my girlish figure. I had to eliminate the padding in the wrap around sides. A sports bra is a definite must to flatten the other curves. If this isn't enough, some sort of padded torso wrap will help level things off. (Oh, the things we girls do for beauty!) My wrists, hands and feet are in the petite department, so I needed to make adjustments for them, too. I wear a second pair of gloves underneath my Vader gloves to thicken up my hands and especially my whimpy little wrists. Be careful not to buy gloves and boots that are too girly with pointy finger tips and pointy toes. Also, a pair of boots a half size or a whole size too big will help if your feet are tiny. (I've since upgraded to slightly larger boots than are what's seen in the photos on the site. ) |
| Darth Sye has many good tips on his web site, so I'm not going to reiterate them here. |
| Walking the Walk Darth Vader has a very distinctive gait. He doesn't walk like a Geisha girl. He means business. Get this down, and it even makes a 5'2" tall Vader seem menacing. Practice at home. Walk along taking your normal everyday steps. Imagine that taking a normal step forward, your feet would fall at ~12:00 (straight in front of you). Now, increase your stride length by a couple of inches. Still comfortable, but longer than your normal. Don't look like you are playing Giant Steps! Now that yo've got the longer step length down, step more towards the left of 12:00 with the left foot, and more towards the right of 12:00 with the right. This slightly lateral step gives you a gently sway. You don't want to look like Frankenstein, or a penguin, so make sure you aren't rocking too much side to side. I kind of get my head into it, too, but it's hard to explain. With the costume on, you can actually feel it betterso practice in the suit. The wind gets caught up in the cape, and it swings a little like a pendulum.. The helmet is heavy and causes your head to sort of have a delayed response to the rocking motion. Watch the films. Watch Vader in ESB as he rushes back to his chamber to make contact with the Emperor. If you just can't understand my directions, don't worry about it. I can't explain it any better than this. |