Do you agree with prop restoration??

In the process of restoring them, would you have to repaint? You lose then the original paint.

Actually, we prefer to NEVER cover original paint or detailing. If we patch a hand, we want to paint ONLY the patch and not the whole hand.

When I say "paint matching", that's what I'm referring to: carefully painting ONLY the added material, making the repair match the existing, surrounding, ORIGINAL, paint and preserving every ounce of original material we can.

A prime example of our philosophy is the original American Werewolf restoration seen here: http://www.tomspinadesigns.com/American_Werewolf_Restoration_Project_Gallery.html

We strengthened the original material, patched the cracks and gaps, and applied minimal paint ONLY to the patches, leaving all original paint INTACT

That's our goal in almost all cases. It's one thing to stabilize a piece or repair post-production deterioration or damage, it's another to cover original character or obscure evidence of use in a film...

best,
Tom
 
However with the Nostromo rebuild (and forgive if I'm wrong) it's my understanding that artistic liberties were taken with the piece (IE parts deliberately put on that were not a part of the original... I believe these were AT-AT parts).

I vehemently disagree with that. :thumbsdown


Kevin

Hi mate, do you know where this info came from? That would be quite shocking (to me at least) if that were true...

weequay


Hey sorry for being away from this thread for a bit- I had to do some digging for what I was refering to-

It's here:

http://johneaves.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/nostromo-part-3/

10th picture down. :eek :thumbsdown

I knew I wasn't imagining this! :lol

Kevin
 
I was curiously reading this thread and what Treadwell has posted - and though I am no pro at model-building, even I wouldn't have done this way - too radical. Why bothering "this work" instead of completely copy the model?
I would have left the pin holes there, see what age deterioration the model has and then carefully renew the paint and sealing the cracks, leaving the rest intact. There absolutely no justification to strip all the paint down and smooth all the surface.

But that's just me - I don't know, what Tom as a pro would have done....
 
But that's just me - I don't know, what Tom as a pro would have done....

I don't like to talk about other people's work, but no, that's certainly not what we would've done.

I can safely say that the approach taken with that spaceship (that Treadwell posted in post 35) is VERY different from our approach and the style of work we prefer to do.

I think the approach you've outlined actually makes a lot of sense for a piece in that condition.

best,
Tom
 
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I'd not be in favor of, as someone mentioned above, repainting Boba Fett's helmet to remove the wear marks. That's what gives it character and is accurate for the piece. Leave the helmet outside for years and then, yes. I'd be in favor of a restoration.

Well, that's a toughie going by your criteria, because the Fett helmets have both. I've seen gorgeous replica helmets painted to match every little scratch that the helmet CURRENTLY has...but the thing is, many (most?) of the very fine scratches occurred during the many years since filming. The original weathering "scratches" and chips are bigger than the "real world/years since" weathering. (Fett heads present may correct or confirm!)

(No, I wouldn't repaint it)
 
The holy grail prop that I'd love to get more than anything else is a Michelangelo head from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.

About a year ago, I finally found someone selling a stunt Michelangelo head from the first film. But something wasn't right about it. Actually, everything wasn't right about it. The seller, who had offered legitimate screen-used props from the films in the past, told me that the head was original but it had sustained so much abuse during filming that to make it look presentable, the head went under complete restoration, so much so to the point that it looked nothing like the heads in the first film, nor any of the others. It now looked 100% fake with a big, bloated face. Yet I believed his story because of his past history selling real props.

Long story short, he couldn't sell it, and I'm still looking for my holy grail.
 
I think this picture says it all weather to leave things alone or restore. Ran across one of Tom Spina's restorations and I think it looks superb. This is one of those cases where things are so far gone it needs restoration and the pic in my opinion speaks highly how well Toms work is.
 
Need I mention Hoggle from Labyrinth..Needed serious restoration but was butchered. Too bad Tom didn't get it.

http://www.sowatzka.com/gary/hoggle.html

My god, that is truly awful.

Why cant people leave things alone! What was left could have been displayed perfectly well, with reference photos/film info attatched to the stand.

It was still Hoggle for lord sake!! I genuinely prefer the look before restoration as it has so much history/character.

Where is this piece now?

EDIT: Im actually stunned at just how bad this is! so so bad, I actually feel quite sad for some weird reason.


weequay
 
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There are a couple of miniatures in the June PiH auction which don't have their original paintjobs.

One is a concord from Airplane '79 which has been "restored" (the red tail marking doesn't even match the pic from the film they show in the listing) which seems like it's destroyed it's originality - OTOH we don't know what condition it was in before being repainted.

The other is an 8.5' harrier from True Lies which must have been repainted for use in another film (the squadron and build number on the tail aren't from the True Lies harrier). The original paintjob matched the real harrier almost perfectly and in the film it's really hard to tell which shots used the miniature or the full sized mockup. It's current paintjob is pretty simplistic (especially for such a large model). Repainting to match the original True Lies harrier would probably be a bad thing though.
 
When I bought my prop it was damaged and missing two parts.

serenity-rivergreenjumpsuitcostumeJ.jpg


The headpiece worn by River in the Project Oracle lab from the movie, Serenity.
If you watch the blooper reel, you'll see the headpiece fell off at least once.
The main cylinder was cracked and the end piece was not attached.
There were four cut acrylic vanes around the circumference.
One of these was missing.
There are two small cylinders that go on top of the actress's head.
One of them was missing entirely and the top of the other one was also broken off.

I repaired the broken pieces as best I could and cut one replacement vane out of a model car windshield.
The replacement for the missing head piece I machined to match the original as closely as possible.
I had to buy a six foot length of 1/2" diameter acrylic tube to make a 1.100" long part.

river.jpg


The part I made looks like the original at first glance, but there is no mistaking the replacement for the original.
I was then ready to display my star attraction.

psl002jpeg.jpg


For me, there was never any question that I was going to restore this prop to look like it did on-screen.
I didn't buy this as a monument to the abuse that used-up Hollywood props suffer,
but as a representation of the device seen in the fictional world of the film.

I'd agree, tho', that in the example of the rocket model that was stripped to a block of wood,
the "restorer" preserved NOTHING of the original artistic work.
It would be like stripping the Mona Lisa down to bare canvas and repainting it from a photograph.
SHUDDERS!!

I'm not an expert of the caliber of some of the folks on this forum.
But I tried to do justice to the piece I bought.

Mike
 
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