Was the ESB Helmet a Supertrooper?

[Baruopa]

Title says it. Wondering if the ESB helmet was ever painted gloss white for the supertroopers, or if it was just primed and shipped off to be painted as Boba Fett. I know the Daydream helmets (PP2, Sandy, and ROTJ) were, as pointed out by boba87fett here, and I believe it's understood that the helmet used in the original supertrooper screen-test footage was the PP1, but I've never seen anyone attribute one of the supertrooper helmets to the ESB helmet. Some of the call sheets seem to refer to the ESB helmet as "grey," which I believe it's also understood means primered, but was this the raw cast being primed to be painted as Boba Fett, or the supertrooper helmet being re-primed once they decided nix the gloss-white design?

TL;DR: Does the paint layering on the ESB helmet go
Raw -> primer -> Boba Fett
Or
Raw -> primer -> gloss white -> primer -> Boba Fett

Thanks for all your help!

 

[BudaFett]

I don't think we'll ever know but I would bet that raw ->primer -> Boba Fett would be the guess. No damage on the hero has any indication that there's a white gloss coat underneath a layer of primer.

 

[Ord Mantell]

We know what became the ROTJ and PP2 helmets were both white for supertrooper before being painted by Mario at Daydream. I'm doubtful ESB ever got the white treatment. There is no evidence for it I'm aware of. I agree with Buda, it looks like just primer and gelcoat underneath the paintjob.

 

[Baruopa]

I'm in general agreement, I just don't think there's enough photo evidence to show that there were ever as many as six supertroopers. I know PP3 and ESB were painted alongside each other, so it seems like too much of a coincidence that they seem to be the only casts unaccounted for when identifying the supertrooper helmets.

That being said, there is white damage visible around the the crack on the left side of the visor/dome, pic related. Do we think that's just the gel coat then?

 

[RafalFett]

I'm in general agreement, I just don't think there's enough photo evidence to show that there were ever as many as six supertroopers.

I see 5 helmets here + the dentless Supertrooper, which at the time this photo was taken might have been already repainted as the Pre-Pro #1.

 

[Baruopa]

I see 5 helmets here + the dentless Supertrooper, which at the time this photo was taken might have been already repainted as the Pre-Pro #1.
View attachment 219125

Are the helmets in the back painted? They look off-white to me, especially with the two un-cut on the windowsill, I was just assuming that those were raw casts. Maybe it's a trick of the light, but in the pic below where they're side-by-side, the supertrooper helmets looks brighter than the stormtrooper, but the helmets in the background look darker.

Then again, if they had already repainted PP1 to Boba, why would they go through the trouble of painting the others gloss white? So if PP1 had been repainted by this point, than these would all have to be gloss white?

 

[RafalFett]

Ok, I understand now what was your first reasoning. The starting point was to do 6 Supertroopers, but before the suits were finished, they changed the concept to a bounty hunter. Maybe 2 or 3 were painted white and possibly the 2 in the background were unpainted and one of them became the ESB Hero (this is of course just speculation).

 

[Baruopa]

Ok, I understand now what was your first reasoning. The starting point was to do 6 Supertroopers, but before the suits were finished, they changed the concept to a bounty hunter. Maybe 2 or 3 were painted white and possibly the 2 in the background were unpainted and one of them became the ESB Hero (this is of course just speculation).

Exactly, but I still think you're onto something. If PP1 was the first helmet completed, and we know it was never dented as a supertrooper because it remains undented as Boba Fett, then it must be the helmet missing from that photo, because the supertrooper being worked on has a dent. It also has white ears, and the photo I shared shows a dented supertrooper with raw metal ears. So through this we reasoning we have three supertroopers accounted for, with one of them being PP1.

We know that the three sent to Sandy at Daydream were all Supertroopers when they were received. PP1 was not sent to Daydream, so that puts us at at least four Supertroopers. The two helmets that remain unaccounted for then are PP3 and ESB, an interesting coincidence as it's my understanding they were painted together.

So, as far as I'm aware, there were either only ever four supertroopers, and ESB and PP3 were presumably left out because the decision to rebrand as Boba Fett was made before they were painted gloss white, or all six helmets were, at one point, supertroopers.

I've seen some threads on here before where members have attributed photos of supertrooper helmets to certain casts, ie., I believe this one (pic below) is thought to be the ROTJ? Have any of the other supertroopers been identified? If so, maybe we could figure out how many there were. I'm already noticing that this one has colored turn signals, which the two previously shown do not, so this would put our count up to four supertroopers (provided the turn signals weren't painted later).

 

[RafalFett]

Just to be clear: at first they wanted to do 6 Supertrooper suits, but only one was fully made and by the time it was presented to Lucas and Co. the concept was already changed to Boba Fett; in the light of this change, the rest of the 5 suits can be called Boba Fett prototypes and no longer as Supertroopers.

Regarding the dented prototypes, there are 2 helmets that can be traced their later counterparts, This helmet became the Pre-Pro #2:

And this became the ESB Promo #1 and later as ROTJ:

There are to chipped in areas in the right mandible and the bottom of the rear keyhole and a small gap between the lower front part of the left ear and platform.

 

[Baruopa]

Just to be clear: at first they wanted to do 6 Supertrooper suits, but only one was fully made and by the time it was presented to Lucas and Co. the concept was already changed to Boba Fett; in the light of this change, the rest of the 5 suits can be called Boba Fett prototypes and no longer as Supertroopers.

Regarding the dented prototypes, there are 2 helmets that can be traced their later counterparts, This helmet became the Pre-Pro #2:
View attachment 219179

And this became the ESB Promo #1 and later as ROTJ:
View attachment 219180

View attachment 219181

There are to chipped in areas in the right mandible and the bottom of the rear keyhole and a small gap between the lower front part of the left ear and platform.

So then the only still unidentified supertrooper is the one in the workshop photo. I'll try and see if I can match it. The only helmet left that we know for certain was painted as a supertrooper is the Sandy helmet, so if the workshop supertrooper matches Sandy, or does not match ESB or PP3, I think we'll be able to call it pretty definitively that there were only ever four supertroopers.

 

[Baruopa]

Was the interior of the Sandy helmet ever black??? This photo of it from the archives makes it look like the interior was unpainted.

The helmet in the workshop photo clearly has a black interior

The only remaining helmet with a black interior is the PP3, right?

 

[Baruopa]

I'm also not sure that I can see any areas on the PP3 where the primer shows through like it does on the ESB. In that photo of the Sandy helmet, though, there's a large section where the paint has chipped away to reveal the gloss-white underneath. You'd think if the paint chipped, it'd go down to the primer, speaking from experience, primer's pretty darn hard to remove. I'm starting to think then that maybe the supertroopers weren't even re-primed before they were painted as Boba Fett? The ESB helmet is the only one I know of that shows primer, so perhaps that's the proof?

TL;DR
Current theory is that all other helmets went
Primer -> Gloss White -> Boba Fett (not re-primered)
The ESB helmet is the only one never painted gloss white, and it goes straight from primer -> Boba Fett