It's good to see you back on here after so long, Sir! I'd leave all the rougness of the head AS-IS!! Most people don't realise that when you're in the studio that you are paid BY THE JOB - not the hour! The more you build, the more you get paid. Most of the ILM models from the original Star Wars trilogy weren't perfect by any means! You could see uneveness in the paint, and joined parts. Places where they forgot to paint (overspray), and layers of paint in one area of varying colours, and gloppy uneven bondo'ed repair spots on costumes, models, and props while filming. Holes drilled for fibreoptics, but NO fibreoptics in all of them. Sloppy asymmetric shapes in a lot of models, props, and costume heads - Vader being one of them, and the Stormtrooper helmet that Liz Moore had created for Shepperton Studios being the most prominent.
Don't try to fix any of those things on your model!! I won't watch this thread if you do because it will take away all the authenticity of it! There were a LOT of sins perpetrated while filming Star Wars - another one being the Stormtroopers' helmets, pauldrons, and other parts having paint missing from them since the HDPE that they were made from didn't hold paint that well. They used automotive acrylic paint then which is very delicate on hard surfaces, and will chip easily. Hence tiny paint chips in them that you can see if you watch the original unbastardised version of it. Those gaps, and uneven parts showing through the paint, and the imperfections of your parts (on your model) make this OOZE with true ILM authenticity!
You see all these people kissing ass over on the rpf when one of the regulars there shows an AT-AT head that's perfect, and moulded from resin, and there are NO imperfections in it selling (a kit) for HUNDREDS of dollars. Those just can't hold a candle to yours! Most of the people here, and abroad don't even see the "shorts", or places where air bubbles were in the mould that resin didn't fill, and scribe lines that aren't perfect with edges of plastic raised up on one side, or both, and some overlapping together. These are the tiny imperfections that impart perfection on their own level that most garage kits miss! Also the same with the moulded kits that you can buy from retail stores also miss this mark by a mile! I WANT those imperfections present in my kits. If people don't like that, then they can buy from someone else, and have less accurate, and authentic kits! It's really hard to see some of these things, but when you don't look for them, or even find them it's even worse!
Thank you for sharing this with us, and for not trying to make it look like a CNC machine made it as a lot of garage kit modelers, and model companies do. Remember - all us studio modelers are only human. Most of what we see with our eyes up close don't ever show up, and are therefore never seen on screen. You do the whole Sci-Fi modeling community proud with this one!
~ Cobra Chris