As you (must already) know, it’s the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, and Star Wars Celebration IV is taking place right now in LA, with lots of the usual attendant mutual fanboy masturbation and balls-out merchandise consumption. There is however, one extremely cool idea that’s come out of this, and that is The Vader Project.
The Vader Project is presented by Master Replicas Inc. and curated by Dov Kelemer of DKE Toys. Kelemer gathered 75 of the hottest underground and pop surrealist painters, artists and designers to participate. Each artist was given a Master Replicas 1:1 scale prop replica of the actual Darth Vader helmet used in the Star Wars films. Each helmet served as a blank canvas for each artist to paint, design, mash up, and customize.
Here’s a sample of my favourites off the official flickr set:
I would be remiss not to include toysrevil‘s excellent interviews with the involved artists. You cool lah, dude.
And here’s something just for kicks:
zerotwohero 
urban art toys customizers + star wars / darth vader = cannot go wrong dey! cheers for the linkage dude 🙂