Wow, wow, wow! That "simple" cape just elevated the skinniest villain in the entire galaxy to a whole new level. Now I have to make one my own.

Excellent job, it's like you've brought 80's parent and grandparents homemade cloaks for their children's/grandchildren's figures to Kenner in 1983 and got the official fabric.

A stellar job, as always, Dave! If Kenner had had you 45 years ago, they'd still be around today. He'll look great standing by the Emperor in your army. Thanks for all your amazing and inspiring work!

A bit of Batman trivia that very few fans probably know about: While working with DC Comics Licensing over the years as an illustrator, I learned from various DC Comics editors that the cuts at the bottom of Batman's cape are referred to as "scallops" or "scallop cuts." DC also calls those three pointy bits sticking off the back of each of Batman's gloves "scallops" as well. It's a small bit of trivia, but I thought that you might find that interesting, Dave. :) A nice video! I really enjoy seeing you make modifications on these old figures.

Thumbs up for this! Vader looks more menacing and powerful, even a bit bigger, as he should be. He stands out and above the rest when his cape looks like that instead of a wet cat draped over his body. Well done, this is most certainly an effective and good looking improvement!

The end result next to the original cape is amazing, way more impactful, I need a cape for my old cape less Vader figure I’ve had for 40 years, and this is the way to go, top work Dave 😎👌🏼

Darth Vader wears a skirt! Cant wait for Broken Vader to see this video

I agree about Darth Vader not being upgraded. I always thought that his figure was a bit too skinny, and not quite tall enough. Vader's cape is long enough to brush the floor - his entry in part IV (or Star Wars, as we oldies know it), shows this well. Great update, Dave, it looks 100% better than the original. It makes Darth Vader actually look menacing.

Thanks for the video. I did one of these for my Kenner Vader over 20 years ago, using cloth from a worn out black T-shirt. Because, like you stated, Vader was never given an upgrade.

I love how you crossed the streams. A Kenner Super Powered Darth Vader. Bravo!

After your treatment he looks a lot better than the original! Almost a totally new figure.

This is great! Darth looks bigger and more imposing now too!

Well what a difference Dave!!! To say it’s the same figure underneath it’s completely transformed! Another stellar custom Dave 👏👏👏👏

Awesome upgrade! Now I know how I'll fix my broken vinyl caped Darth. Thank you Dave!

Very cool! Thank you! I did something similar many years ago, but couldn't get hold of toy-knit back then, so I used some black taffeta scraps left over from a Grim Reaper costume I made.

Oh now I know what to do with my extra vaders! Thanks Dave

Holy Moley Batman! That looks fantastic! As always I'm awed by your Photoshop skills in equal measure to your modding skills. Great work!

Hey Dave Great tutorial and it looks 100% better than the original cape.

Great mod to the figure looks way better

Way better than the vintage! Nice job!

That cape and skirt look fantastic. Great job Dave. keep up the great work.

This is a very refreshing take on that figure - I always wondered why they never updated it. Removable helmet version? Soft goods? Makes total sense. In my humble opinion, if Kenner were to have added a skirt and cape for the ROJ line, they would have done it all pretty much like they did on Squid Head.

I can't get bat vader out of my head 😂

That’s a dramatic improvement

Impressive! Most impressive!! Seriously, what a great upgrade! Now I'm imagining the same upgrade to the Tusken Raider, Lando Calrissian, Bespin Leia and the Hoth Stormtrooper.

When I was a kid I always wanted my Vader figure to look screen accurate, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia & the Tusken Raider figures as well. The vinyl capes just didn't cut it. Same with the Empire line of figures as well. They made great strides with the ROTJ line, but never fixed the older figures. Excellent job Dave! I may have to do this using your pattern for my uncarded Vader...perhaps do my own mods for Leia as well...Always a great watch my friend! We all love what you do! Could use some more new music tracks for your "working" scenes though!

A very good and simple custom,It will be great if you did other vintage customs that look the part and blend in well along with your original collections

Impressive.....most impressive.

What a tremendous upgrade! Although Kenner Darth Vader is awesome and iconic, it's also one of my least favorite action figures from that line, because he is too skinny. This cape and skirt combo help to make him look a lot more imposing. Great job!!

Wow. What a huge difference. I always though those vinyl capes were kind of naff. Your version looks amazing!

Far better. Fantastic video. As how DV should've been.

Great update for a classic figure!

If you wad the paper up into a ball, then flatten it back out it will make the paper easier to form. 👍👍

Awesome tutorial! Vader looks so much cooler with the cloth cape. Nicely done!👍

Holy smokes! Now I know what my next customizing project will be. Many thanks!

Brilliant upgrade Dave! It really is surprising that Kenner never did something like this. I was thinking about the skirt and was wondering if you could design it more like the neck on the cape with a paperclip sown inside that was shaped to clip around the waist leaving a small opening in the front so you can actually wrap it around the belt leaving the buckle exposed. It should hang the way you want it to as well. The way you did it works beautifully but I was just thinking about that clip design and was curious if that might be an option for the skirt as well. Thank you for another fantastic customization, good sir. 👊😎🔥

What a transformation!! fantastic job yet again

What a fantastic upgrade and they totally could have (and should have) done that. Especially in the Jedi line. Time to get to work!

Amazing how much better he looks. Great job!

That is an excellent!replacement 👍🙌👏

Brilliant as always. Would love to see a more accurate saber paired with this Vader as well! 👍

Looks amazing. Now you just need a chain like effect across the cap to close the top part of the cape. But looks absolutely amazing. The Force is strong with this one.

Well done as always! I agree it's something Kenner should have done and since it wouldn't have required new tooling, would have been cost effective. Might I suggest making the cape with the other side of the material facing out? His cape has a wee bit of a sheen.

Wow that's an awesome upgrade for the vintage figure!! It puts it on another level! With your permission but I have to upgrade mine! congratulations for the video!

Simple, but brilliant! I think I'm gonna use this for my Darth Vader retro and Moff Gideon figures.

Was always surprised that after the release of Jedi that Kenner never did an updated Vader with removable helmet and a lightsaber as a proper accessory.

Bought and printed now to find my toyknit fabric . Thanks for these awesome customs .

That's a difference between day and night -- or should I say dark and light? Great job, as always, Dave. I will never grow tired of your work and videos!

Awesome, Dave! This looks amazing! 👌

Will definitely be making this for my Vader for sure. Great upgrade/video. Thanks!

once again, absolutely stellar...!

Glad to see you have gotten to this. I recall a conversation we had years ago about this very thing. I thought you might go with the bat man cape as a base and I'm glad you did, it looks fantastic.

Just a bit of gold chain on the collar and sorted brilliant job

Wow great work it sure give Vader an all new look

Looks really good Dave, well done! Love it!

Outstanding job Dave. It just looks so good. It’s a shame Kenner never thought about this.

The material would've been perfect for Jedi Luke's cape and hood, the black color too.🤔👍🏾

Love your upgrade man! Love watching your videos man!

Great work. I want to try that with other versions of Darth Vader.

If you’re thinking of updating the skirt, I have an idea. Have it clamp on his waist with the paper clip.

It's really a long vest that goes up under his shoulder armor and hangs past his knees.

Masterful!!!

Beautifully done mate

Fantastic job, there. I took a vintage Vader figure and not only modified the right arm with a Han Solo hand, but I also sculpted the skirt on along with the codpiece in Sculpey clay and used a modern Hasbro Vader cape. If you like, I can find you a photograph of said-custom figure of mine; how's that?

The skirt part is actually the bottom of a tunic. So it wouldn’t be enclosed at the waist. More off to the front of the hips. But this was great!!

Great video and the new cape looks amazing! Can you imagine if Kenner did the opposite and gave Batman and Superman the original Darth Vader style cape instead? How dumb would that have looked? 😆😆😆

You did an amazing job!

That looks amazing and basing the cape on a Kenner toy is brilliant! Fantastic work.

I had thought about doing something like this, but with a narrower, collarless version of the vinyl cape pattern, to make a robe instead of a skirt, with a custom belt to make it more like the costume. This version looks good though and maybe more Kenner-like. Hoth trooper fabric skirts would be a nice upgrade.

Great job

Looks great Dave! I will try making one myself. Thank you

That looks amazing 👏

I seen the kenner custom Cape for Darth Vader on eBay I'm grateful reproductions are the thing for kenner star action figures

That looks amazing. Great work, as always

Would be cool to see a custom Bespin Luke with telescope lightsaber in the arm.

It is a shame they never updated Vader. Like most of Kenner's figures from the first movies, the sculpt of his helmet isn't entirely accurate, and considering the level of quality they were able to achieve by the time they were putting out Return of the Jedi figures, they could have really nailed Vader. Like a lot of the vinyl-caped figures, my Darth Vader became capeless fairly quickly, so I pinched the cloak off Squid-Head, though obviously it's completely the wrong colour - so it's nice to be able to go back & fix this. One thing I would say though, is that the vinyl cape for Vader isn't really representative of his cape at all. It's much closer to the inner robes he wears UNDER his cape/cloak (it's not a skirt, so much as it is a long, loose armless coat) and I wonder what a piece of very thin cloth cut to a similar pattern as the vinyl cape (without the doubled over collar) and THEN a long cloak would look like on the figure? The Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jawa, Princess Leia and Tusken Raider figures all have similar problems with their capes/cloaks, in that they're not really representative of what they characters wear in the films at all. Leia has a hooded cloak. The Jawa has a hooded cloak with sleeves, as does Obi-Wan. I'm not really sure what the Tusken Raider capes were actually like in the film, but it seemed more like a coat than anything else.

Love this so much amazing work done great look!!

RE: the Batman shape cape - The concept Vader had a similar bat wing bottom edge to his prototype cape (Ralph McQuarrie). So could be something to do if you wanted a concept Vader? I've also seen blue paint added to parts of the armour which really pops and looks awesome.

that looks awesome!👏i'm going to have a go at this

Something I have thought about for years- looks fabulous! 👍 I most certainly am going to do this as well, Thank you!

What a great upgrade! I wish Kenner had done this. I hope we see you do a similar treatment for Obi-wan, tusken raider, and maybe a few others soon!

Fantastic, I already have some black toy knit so that’s my next day off project sorted, thanks again for all the work you put into everything👍

I finally got a "new" retro vader figure and it's not bad but like I did before your cape looks sh I much better. One thing that hasboro did was make it way too thin. The original picture of the new release looked like it was thicker material and it wasn't at all. Your version made s lot more sense.

Brilliant! Adding this to my list of projects straightaway. Might I suggest doing the same with a vintage 12” scale Vader? Also, massive thanks for posting a video where my name will eternally be associated with a Kenner Darth Vader figure. Nine-year-old me would be gobsmacked!

As far as Im concerned I would have been fine with leaving a batman cape on vader 😂. It certainly brought a degree of flare to old vader thats for sure.

A suggestion: it’s a lot quicker if you make only half the pattern and then fold the fabric before cutting.

really helpful video

Lovely work, Dave. I made an inner and outer cloth cape for Vader a few years ago. I'm going to give your version a try now, too. It looks great.

And a little ironic fun fact here after watching this video... but the sword mechanism in Penguin's umbrella accessory in the Super Power's line reuse the lightsaber gimmick down to the mold that they used in Obi-Wan, farm boy tatooine Luke, and Darth Vader. So I find it ironic and amusing and not that unbelievable then you can use Batman's tape and it would work. Need a little outcome here and I do agree that he looks much better.

Black electrical tape is a nice vinyl match. Iv bn wanting do some like that

Great Dave, had Kenner done the much hoped for “removable Helmet” version for TPOTF /Jedi line this cloth up grade would be the cherry on top….although Stan Solo isn’t keen on suggestions for figures to do, I seem to remember there was chat of a RH Vader….maybe he’ll adopt the cloth cape and skirt. Though perhaps not the clip, could be hard to produce in large numbers? 👍👍

That's a nice looking cape. ;) I still laugh at how precious people got about the original vinyl capes like that infamous Jawa. The vinyl approach was just too stiff and made for collar flair that put the 70s to shame lol.

nice!

Cool

@toypalloi -- its a brilliant effort. but for my taste, its too 'batman' like, in the way it looks like the same as the batman cape you showed or even the lando cape. it does not 'hang' down, but spreads horizontally. if there was a cloth version that 'drooped' more like the original vinyl cape and as in the movie. in the movie, it hangs downward somewhat + flows more. perhaps a less stiff/rigid cloth material? love watching all of your repairs and customs. cheers!

Brilliant! I wish I could sew

No no. Vader does not have a “Skirt” he does have a tunic that hangs from his shoulders. But another fun video.

Another tweak they could have done is replace the right arm with a gripping hand and add a red hand held lightsaber

Cool video. I wonder if Kenner would have glued the skirt to the figure?

Great work. I noticed, your Vader has developed some hip problems over the years, too. I also stuffed him with paper. Could a treatment with heat help?