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Fan-Made/Non-Licensed The Original Stormtrooper Helmets, Armor and Costume parts varied in design from film to film. For example in ANH, there were two distinct types of Stormtrooper helmets, Hero's and or Stunt's. "Hero" helmets in for example Star Wars - A New Hope (ANH) would have been worn in close-up shots and made of ABS had a better build quality and were finished to higher standards. The helmets worn by Luke and Han in the Death Star were "Hero" helmets, as they would clearly be seen on-screen in more close-up shots. The other type of helmets are "Stunt" helmets, used typically (although not exclusively) for long shots where the overall build quality was less important and were made from Khaki-green coloured HDPE, which was then painted white. The Sandtrooper's in ANH (seen on Tattooine) all used Stunt helmets and were weathered to look dirty and used. As far as ANH is concerned, Hero helmets have curved grey or green lenses (the jury's still out on this one) and three "teeth" either side of the frown. Stunt helmets however have flat green acetate lenses with four or five teeth, and usually a higher brow. The helmets therefore look significantly different when placed side-by-side so collectors will often want to collect both kinds. Click on the helmet below to take you to the relevant subsection - and don't forget to check out the "Compare" section (see icon on the left).
One of the questions we're often asked is "Which is the best Stormtrooper helmet or armor" and its one that's very difficult to answer since it depends on your size, shape and exactly what you want to do in your armor (i.e. wear it regularly on 501st troops or just have it on a mannequin in your room). However, the one thing we can say is fan-made Stormtrooper armor is always better than Licensed - mainly because there is so little licensed armor around and its quality isn't too great. Of the fan-made armor we ourselves have tried a special mention goes out to producers like TE2, TM, Laws, SDS and RT-Mod - all of whom have consistently delivered a quality product over the years, have good customer service - and adhere to a high standard of accuracy. We're sure there are other great provides out there as well, but we mention these five as they are currently delivering armor to fans. Each of the various types of "screen-accurate" armor featured on this site was actually cast off a single set of original RotJ armor, and this process took place back in the late 90's. However, as you probably know, the RotJ armor was itself a "recast" off an original ANH set since there weren't enough sets of armor available for RotJ's filming back in 1981/82. Therefore one of the problems with all "screen-accurate" armor out there is that its actually not "ANH screen-accurate", but more "RotJ Screen accurate". Some of the armour makers have addressed this issue by altering the armour slightly so it looks more like the ANH originals. Some, like SDS has taken some original mouldings (or skins) and added them to a RotJ set (e.g. the shoulders). Other's, like Trooper Master (TM) has scratch built his armour from photographs to try to closely match the ANH armour attributes. There have been a number of different kinds of trooper Armor available
over recent years. The main volume types have been (in approximate) order of
production:
in addition there's a number of producers who've made Armor, but usually in more limited numbers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
