Panic!
Andrew saves the day
We produced the originals for the first Star Wars ANH film back in 1976 and are still producing fantastic products more than 30 years later. Read our story below!
As Elstree Studios Art Dept struggles, Andrew is called in to make the Stormtrooper armour in time for the first shoot in Tunisia - less than a month away.
PANIC!!
This was the entry in Nick’s diary from 25 February 1976… Nick was away and Mollo called a rush meeting with Andrew at Nick`s to ask him to attend a meeting the next day at Elstree Studios to discuss the production of the armour.
Andrew met with the production crew headed by John Barry, the Art Director, who explained to Andrew ‘We have been working on this film for three months and all we have to show for it is this’ as he held out one of 3CPO's eyes.
Andrew saw no evidence of any armour being made, but Nick had said that he had seen some grey armour being worked on, probably in the same style as the grey clay helmet from Liz Moore.
In any event, John Barry gave Andrew a further sketch which portrayed a Stormtrooper with canvas type ammo pouches as per a soldier from the Vietnam war. He asked Andrew if he could make the armour in time for the first shoot in Tunisia, less than a month away. Andrew said he could, and the Art Dept at the Studios abandoned any further work on the armour and moved on to Darth Vader.
Sculpting the armour moulds
Armour moulding detail.
Andrew set about making the moulds in a completely different way to that of clay sculpting. The moulds were hewed out of the resin/metal composite that Andrew had developed for just that purpose, much the same as a sculpture is hewed out of solid marble. The studios sent over a few useful plaster casts for reference, but they could not be used to make moulds, nor did they in any way constitute a complete set of armour.
Andrew sculpted the moulds to take into consideration the post trimming and assembly. The chemical welding process used for assembly required the parts to be substantial enough in thickness, so Andrew used a double step technique in the mould to stop the material from thinning when vacuum formed.
This could not possibly be conceived from a clay sculpting. You can see more about how the original armour was created in our video, below.
Lucas approves
The armour grew in stages; matching it to himself as the dummy, Andrew cut and remoulded parts and adjusted the moulds until the parts fitted together in a coherent manner. You can see how the armour was made in our video, right.
The 35 mouldings that go to make up the armour were developed over a period of time, with visits to the studios where Lucas vetted the latest developments. Some items, such as the legs, were in fact re-tooled three times to satisfy Lucas, several months after Brian Muir recorded working on the clay effort.
Five pieces of the armour, shoulders and shoulder bells were recorded as being developed and supplied as late as 5 April 76 (Mollo's sketch bookJohn Mollo's sketchbook
John Mollo, ANH Costume Designer, kept a sketchbook/diary which annotated the design ideas for the props and costumes developed for ANH.
Andrew Ainsworth gained access to these sketchbooks and they formed part of the evidence in Andrew's successful court win. page 329) and other parts of the moulds that were made from wood, bore no possible connection to any clay original.
"I stylised the ammo belt, which had originally been conceived as canvas pouches. Lucas, being a pragmatic director, accepted the new style as it enhanced the overall slick futuristic appearance of the Stormtrooper." Andrew Ainsworth talking about the armour development.
Producing the Armour
Moulded sheets of plastic cooling on the pavement.
Andrew’s large vacuum forming machine had a 15 ft x 3 ft bed that could accommodate all the moulds in one hit. However, the old Sweet Shop in which it was housed was a bit tight for space to say the least. As it was also a little hot, moulded sheets of plastic were turfed out on the front pavement to cool down.
The original armour.
Once a set of moulds had been developed. it did not take long to mould all the armour needed to meet the shoot date in Tunisia, however the initial 'Sandtroopers' were cleaned up a little before the crew came back to shoot the rest of the film. Later Stormtroopers therefore showed slight variations from the first batch.
Andrew made 50 sets of armour in all and as they were quite versatile in fit, they were used over and over again for not only ANH but also the sequels.
