You know... Back in 2006, I flew out to California and helped a long time member here and friend of mine Tim_Allen (not the actor) with some vacuumforming he was wanting to do. Tim had sculpted in wax, VERY very accurate ESB Armor (for the time) and for a project in college he was able to make Bronze castings of them in order to make Vac Molds. So... I went to hang out with this dude I had known on TDH for almost 6 years and played video games with weekly and helped him vac form about 6 sets of armor using a makeshift vac table and his oven in his kitchen.
Fast forward about 6 months from that day and we start getting witch hunted by FP and some of his allies at the time that we "undoubtedly" recast his armor. The armor that Tim sculpted, by hand. He had all the progress pictures of the clay sculpts, the plaster mold for the wax casts, the slurry moldings, and the final bronze.... and when he and I were in full blown "Salem Trial" by FP, Art and others, the smallest detail of a PRINTED OUT PHOTO OF FP's V1 ARMOR was taped up above Tim's clay sculpts on his work bench. FP demanded Tim and I be banned because of this.
Photos folks, photos. Tim admitted that he printed out a photo of a painted set of FP armor along with all the MoM photos and used it to eyeball where dents and such were. So after deliberation from Art and the mods, they deemed it was NOT recasting. It was simply using photos as reference to replicate a new sculpt.
So...
I tell this drawn out story to bring it to this:
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FP ACCUSING US WITH NO REAL BASIS, TO YALL ACCUSING MF FOR ONLY ONE PHOTO WITH NO REAL PROOF?
I could understand if MF had literally bought some raw WF armor, and poured some plaster in it, and then added an inch or so of height on the bottoms in order to make new Vac bucks... but he didn't... he took semi trimmed armor, put clay on top of it it and then HAND SCULPTED the dents, and details, and curvatures into the clay. Did he have a second set of armor that he trimmed down immensely and pressed the dents into it? If he was making a true recast, why would he do it this way and leave THIS MUCH material missing from those parts:
Why not just literally slap on clay, and trim the clay the same edge as the formed set?
Or why didn't they just make a mold of that MDF Mando Skull armor, make plaster bucks of that, and then peel off the mythosaur parts and put clay on THAT instead? Maybe because they used what they had already to just GET A ROUGH START of their clay beginnings?
Like, you guys literally based that accusation all on Abigail Williams crying WITCH! (Crucible reference for those who need it).
Would you ban someone for using the Wizard of Flight templates to make a sintra base to get the rough shape of the armor in clay? (IE, Cut out a template in Sintra, pack clay on it and sculpt in the details? Yes or No questions from everyone, I'll wait...
Well, I won't wait, I don't need an answer on it. What I will say, is Minute's scanning of the EFX Helmet is without a doubt enough evidence for a ban. It's a very clearly written rule of TDH that casts made of Licensed items STILL in production of companies STILL in business is a no go. Making a digital copy with the intent to make and sell cheaper versions is a no go. So that alone is enough to warrant a ban. But to use this photo and say "ITS FOR SURE WASTED FETT ARMOR AND HE IS FOR SURE TRYING TO RECAST IT" is getting LAME.
You don't recast someone's armor like that. Period... we all know the methods to go about recasting peoples items, and THAT JUST AIN'T IT.