history of this site

I have been curious of the what was the first posted thread here was and by whom(I tried using the search tool but to no luck).As well the "birthdate" of this site.
As far as I can find this site is about 8 years old???
It would be neat to know whom was the first to register and if they are still members( I am sure they are part of the Admin staff)
Anyway, just wondering if that information is out there.A curse of being a history geek.

This site started out as a listserv on the RPF, I believe. Then it was the AS You Wish boards. I'm not sure what happened after that, but I got here when the format was all different and it was the light blue and white colors.

This is somewhat dated now, but here is a history of TDH through about 2005.

A brief history of TDH

The Dented Helmet’s history began in early 2001, at the Replica Prop Forums (the RPF) with a thread dedicated to the details of Boba Fett’s costume. That thread grew to over 300 posts, which was legendary at that time. Due to the massive amount of useful information it contained, the thread was archived and a second thread was created. This thread too grew to over 300 posts, followed by a third. It was quickly becoming obvious that Boba Fett’s costume was too complex a subject to be contained within a few threads.

In August of 2001 a new ez-board was created for the express purpose of scrutinizing Boba Fett’s costume and making that information readily available to Fett fans. The board was called “As You Wish” (AYW) as an homage to one of Boba’s most memorable lines. A forum for the new character “Jango Fett” was also created at AYW. Unfortunately ez-board was not the ideal platform for a high-traffic discussion board. It was very sluggish and overrun with pop-up ads making it almost impossible to use. Within a few months of AYW’s creation talks began of creating a new forum based off the same software as the RPF and hosted on a private server.

With the help the help of Cliff Wright and Nikki Burdett, the software used at the RPF was customized to suit the needs of the new board. The domain name www.thedentedhelmet.com was purchased on Jan 30, 2002 and on March 1, 2002, the Dented Helmet Discussion forums (TDH) officially opened to the public. Credit for the name “The Dented Helmet” goes to Chris Skidmore, who suggested it as a joke. All the posts from AYW were transferred and AYW was permanently shut down.

The lead graphics designer of TDH was Dallas Poague, an avid Zam Wesell fan and the creator of TDH’s official shirt designs. As a favor for all his hard work in helping create the look and feel of TDH a forum for Zam Wesell was added to the new board.

Unfortunately, only 6 months after opening TDH, it exceeded the capacity of the hosting server. TDH was temporarily shut down. Fortunately, Nikki Burdett generously offered to host TDH on the same server as the RPF.

In Januray, 2005 The Dented Helmet struck out on its own server and upgraded to vBulletin as its platform. TDH now had a safe and stable environment in which to run. Today it is THE premiere archive for Boba, Jango and Zam costuming information.

Thank you so much.What a read.

Thanks for the history lesson.. hopefully in the future TDH.com will have become so big that it goes public, buys google,8) and we all we have stock!!!!

Here are some of the old logos we have sported, prior to GINO giving us a unified and much more professional design (the current design) in April of 2007.

Thanks Art, always loved history that went into creating something great.

And I'll always remember the Charlie's Angel style silhouette logo.

Stay safe,

Tim.

Originally Posted by Halo_1

Thanks Art, always loved history that went into creating something great.

And I'll always remember the Charlie's Angel style silhouette logo.

Stay safe,

Tim.

I still wear that shirt

hahaha wow art, thanks for the flashbacks!!!! seems like yesterday AYW started up. Brings back many many great memories

I still prefer the Charlie's Angels version... call me nostalgic.

I remember those old days with the RPF being the only option.... talk about memories!

i miss the charlies angels logo. that was what greeted me when i joined up in oct 06. and it was awesome!

The angel's logo was awesome and gave TDH its first taste of a true identity of its own. While it worked great for shirts and the front page, when scaled down, it was so detailed that it was hard to see what it was and it looked like a tomato-splat on a wall. It also limited TDH's ability to grow into new areas as it locked us in to three characters. The new branding is not as warm and fuzzy, but it is certainly more professional. Who knows... we may some day get another branding upgrade that will be even better and will bring back some of the love from the angel's logo.

Nothing like seeing the old red shirts everywhere at past D*cons

Awesome info...i was actually curious about this myself. I remember back when i originally decided to try and make a fett back in 1999, and there was pretty much NO info. everything i made was from scratch, and there were two sites i went to, how to build a boba fett costume ( i think) and jedi academy, and that was it. things are sooooo much better nowadays. I came back just at the right time.

99 is about when I started as well, maybe late 98...anyways...mark bradley's BYOBF site was one of the few out there along with TUBFC and the listserve that was part of it. I think golden armor may have existed at that time too. The 501st was still in it's infancy and was starting to get recognized. I remember a site suggesting using cups for the gauntlets and the super soaker with the backpack (one of the original supersoakers) for the jet pack. Don Post was about it in the way of helmets. Nearly 10 years later now and TDH is THE place for Boba Fett, any other costuming sites out there pretty much just say to come here. The site is about to make it's biggest leap forward in along time in my opinion with the addition of the wiki. The day it goes live will be a milestone that is looked back on for along time.

Indeed. I'm looking forward to the revamp. and as far as those sites go, i TOTALLY remember those two sites, and i didn't know bradleyfett was the owner of that site!!! crazy.

Yup, I remember when I started in 1999/2000, Mark was THE MAN! I got my first set of body armor and gauntlets from him. Those were the days!

Oh, yeah. His site is one of the one's that inspired me to start building my own costume. Nearly 10 years later I'm working on version 1.0. my original i consider the beta version lol.

Originally Posted by ART ANDREWS

Yup, I remember when I started in 1999/2000, Mark was THE MAN! I got my first set of body armor and gauntlets from him. Those were the days!

I didn't realize you ever actually owned any non-found parts .

seriously though Art thanks for taking on the burden of "owning and hosting" and all the headaches I'm sure go with it.

Yup, Mark was definitely the man! I was honored to finally meet him at Disney Weekends this year in Orlando. After years and years of talking online, reading his site and buying his parts. Nicest guy you'd ever meet too!

I remember when I first got even got the idea of actually getting into props and costuming was when the DP 95 1st hit the market. I ordered one of the orginal ones with the green interior and then later ordered another one. After having those for a few years I repainted them a bunch of times w/out any reference photos, then started reasearching online for stuff and eventually ran into the TUBFC site and later As You Wish when it started up.

I think this is all pretty interesting, not just the history of the costumes, but the history of the research that has gone into finding all the information about it as well. That would be something I'd like to see in this thread or another, the history of when "we" found out various pieces of information and when.

I was a lurker on As You Wish for a little and then some how my computer went down and I lost the link. A few years later I found TDH and found my new home

Originally Posted by webchief

I still prefer the Charlie's Angels version... call me nostalgic.

I totally agree. I really miss that design.

i still have the red TDH badge on the inside of my bucket.

it rocks!