intwenothor where can I read up more on the MR helmets? This is hugely interesing to me... Especially your opinion of the significance of it.
You'll just have to use the search function. There are tons of threads on the thing.
You shouldn't have asked me my opinion; legions of other TDHers will be rolling their collective eyes as I start on one of my rambling posts... Luckily, it's my thread so I guess I can assault you.
When I talk about the MR helmets, I am generally talking about the corrected MR recasts and not the MR production helmets, which were made in limited and signature editions. Those helmets were allowed to escape the factory with an inexcusable taper to the visor that should not have been present. I have no idea how, or why, they were allowed to escape in this way. The taper wasn't the only visor issue; if I recall there was some sort of additional lip behind the visor that didn't look too great. That said, it was a game changer at the time and it's only now that it is truly being topped.
So, the corrected MR recasts. They come with a variety of name e.g. the Fettpride premium/Animefan premium/RS Propmasters, but what's on the table is a recast of a MR helmet. In the case of the premiums you're looking at a recast of the MR prototypes before MR made additional cleanup to the helmet. Even if you're looking at one of the corrected LE or SE helmets, e.g. the Fettpride budget/Asok budget then you're still looking at a recast of the MR. Not the Animefan budget, that's an Animefan premium/Fettpride premium that has been cast with the ears affixed. The Fettpride/Asok budget is no longer made to the best of my knowledge.
With the MR recasts you're getting a cast with excellent properties in terms of overall size and shape and I don't think it's been bettered since they became available. Whether they should ever have been recast is another subject but they have been, so it's a moot point by now. These MR recasts do have issues. The dent is the easiest thing to pick holes in [nice one Andy] becasue it isn't very good; it's a crater. Jeff Bridges could have stood in it at the end of Starman. These MR recasts are relatively inexpensive, and they're widely available. It's worth pointing out that few share my opinion.
For the sake of some objectivity, I'll compare that to a cast I've been working on, on and off, for about five years. Why five years? Because I'm slow. And a bit lazy. Quite lazy in fact.
The cast I've been working on is an unaltered copy of the KT plug. This is a PP2 based cast. It's a perfect copy of the KT but that only means that it inherited all of the bad, as well as all of the good, of the KT. Overall it retains a very good size and shape. On the negative side, I had to remove the ears, with no ears available for the helmet off the shelf, and fashion new ear platforms from scratch. I had to correct the dome distortion and address the issues in the left rear quarter back panel and orbital band. The damage to the bottom of the mandibles had to be fixed. The signature PP2 damage had to be filled and the burlap texture that covers much of the surface had to be removed. That means carefully sanding much of the helmet. Unless you're making a PP2 replica from the thing, which I'm not (although I do have another for that), then you're taking a lineage cast and then obliterating much of what makes it what it is. Additionally, you're dealing with a relatively rare and expensive cast with the standard no recast clause. That means you have to make the alterations direct to the cast. You can't recast it and then make the alterations to that.
The point is that with all of the available casts that you will always be dealing with tradeoffs and the real issue at hand is what sacrifices you are prepared to make. Some things on my corrected PP2 cast are better than the MR recast, e.g. the dent, although it's still that distinct PP2 dent. Some things are worse, e.g. the keyslots. I mentioned I had another to make a PP2 replica from, which I do. That means I have to make many of these alterations a second time. I also wanted a copy for archival purposes. That means buying three of the same helmet cast!
So, my prevailing high opinion of the MR recasts is because I feel that there are fewer tradeoffs than have to be made than with the things that have become available since the availability of the MR recasts and where we find ourselves today.
Recently ESB casts have become available - Unaltered ESB casts at about five hundred quid. Frankly, if you're going to buy anything then buy that!
No longer are we discussing a cast of a mere production helmet cast or a scan of one. Now we're talking about casts of an actual screen used hero helmet. There are still tradeoffs though. It was cast in 2012 and the intervening years had not been kind, however; unless someone has a time machine, or there's a 1980 ESB mould floating around then I think it's higly unlikely to improve on the current situation. In my view, these do not seem expensive considering what you would be getting. The downside is that, in my view, you'd need two. One for finishing and one for archival purposes. That said, I do not think that the money being asked is anything other than reasonable considering what you'd be getting. When I first started lurking on this board a few years ago such a thing was an unthinkable pipe dream.
Live the dream.
