The Imperial Shipyards
Imperial Creative Engineering => Resources and References => Topic started by: spudafett on August 11, 2009, 08:46:27 PM
-
Ok per doc's request I'm putting up a tutorial on how to do a gi-joe hip replacement on star wars figs. I will try and explain the process as thoroughly as possible with the few wip pictures I have, sorry if it gets confusing. Any questions anyone has on this I will try to answer. I will also be trying to get more pictures as soon as I can afford making another figure like this....
This process was born out of my want for more posable star wars figures and my discovery of the 25th aniversary articulation and body construction. this is a labor intensive process and you will need several things to get started:
A small diameter plastic rod. The plastic framing which holds together models works realy well.
You MUST have a dremel with a cutting wheel
either a drill bit for your dremel or a seperate cordless power drill
-- I have gotten where I realy like using my power drill at a low speed setting for drilling holes in the soft plastic of figures, I have a better control of the drill bit with the slower speed and I can use my finger to guide the piece over the drill bit without fear of driling a hole through my finger with the high speed dremel.... :P
You realy do need to plan ahead on the figures you want to use for this. Decide on what star wars figure you'd like to super articulate first and go from there:
I picked a standard legacy/votc boba fett figure. (this is sadly the only figure I have wip pics for too :( )
this is what the figure looked like originally:
(http://starwars.carrotnetwork.com/reviews/votc/bobafett/05.jpg)
The gi-joe figure I used for the donor parts was a gi-joe snow viper:
(http://www.longbox.net/catalog/polar-combat-snow-serpent-o.jpg)
I picked this figure because it's thigh's have similar pouches sculpted on as boba's jump suit has.
The first thing that needs to be done is to pop open the chest/torso of the fett figure. I do this by starting out at the bottom and slowly (and very carefully) cutting into the side with an exacto knife. Work slowly and alternate with each side untill the torso opens up enough to pull out the legs at the waist joint. There is no need to completely split the body in two but if you do it's fine.
at this point you need to keep all parts of the boba fett figure as we will use them all except for the thighs.
Move on to the joe fig and start taking it apart. This is the most labor intensive portion and could get confusing.
here is a picture of the parts that will be saved:
(http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs45/i/2009/097/4/e/boba_parts_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
For the figures that don't have ball joints in their torsos you don't need to worry about popping the chest apart on the gi-joe. This is especially the case if you plan on using the gi-joe's ball jointed neck for making the boba figure have a real head and removable helmet. This is also assuming that your not going to hit clonehead up for his custom cast necks and heads.... On this particular figure I used a gi-joe head and neck so I'm going to explain the entire process with that in mind. The same techniques can be applied to swap out the old neck for one of clints or a stock s.w. figure's neck.
The other parts needed for the mod are the gi-joe's thighs and the screws which hold them together. As well as the double knee joint. These knee joints are a little dificult to remove. I use a tiny flat head screwdriver to wedge around the tiny peg and pry the legs off the lower joint of the knee.
The next thing to do is make the new conection between the torso and the hips. This calls for the dremel's cutting wheel.
Cut the waist of the gi-joe right through his belt area. Use the belt as a guide and you should get a pretty strait cut around it. Try not to cut too far below the belt as you will hit the top of the metal making up the ball joints. Once you have the hips cut off of the joe put them to the side.
Take boba's hips and cut off the "t" peg off just below the peg itself. you will cut through the entire hip to achieve this. You will use this peg to attach the new waist.
here is what you should have after dremeling off these two pieces:
(http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs44/i/2009/097/4/2/fett_parts_2_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
Notice in this picture how I have placed the double jointed knee's onto boba's lower legs? This is what you need the drill and the plastic rods. Take your knee joints and make sure the plastic rod you have will fit through the bottom most hole of the gi-joe knee.
Take the boba fett legs at the knee and carefully cut the peg out. gently push the exacto blade down on both sides of the old knee joint and remove the existing peg. Take the gi-joe knee and fit it inside the groove from the old peg and while holding it in place drill a hole through both sides of the leg making sure your drill bit goes through the knee joint's hole as well. Using a bit that is slightly smaller than the plastic rod is probably a good idea for this part as the plastic of the boba's leg is soft and will expand. Push the plastic rod through the leg and cut it at a length just slightly long enough to make it all the way through. Using the soft plastic of the model kit's framing you can take a pair of needlenose pliers and compress the rod to expand both outside ends to keep it from slipping out. Please ask if this isn't clear enough, I hate that I didn't take pics of this part of the project....
Now, getting back to those hips and the peg joint. You need to fit the peg joint to the new hips. I have used just superglue with the previous ones as I had nothing else on hand but I honestly would recomend a two part epoxy for added strength here. Make sure that the joint doesn't sit too far into the cavity of the new hips as it won't fit right if you do. What I usually do is close the torso up around the peg itself and press the hips up to it to see how it will fit and see if any parts are going to rub. if the parts don't match up well use a sanding drum and the dremel to trim it up.
This is how it should look once finished:
(http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs44/i/2009/097/5/0/boba_parts_3_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
All that is left now is assembling the legs, hips and torso together. this is what my boba's legs looked like put together:
(http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/097/9/b/fett_parts_5_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
The knee joints have small pieces of cardboard glued to them to make a more fettesque set of knee pads.
Now, assuming you want to take all this a step further and make a removable helmet boba fett then you need to dig out that Gi-joe's torso with the neck still left on it and dremel that sucker off at the shoulders. Dremel off boba's old neck right under the ball joint. If need be dremel out the inside of boba's neck and fit in the new neck inside the old neck. This will give it a good "turtleneck" look. Glue that new neck in place and you've got a neckectomy finished too.
Here is what mine looked like afterwards:
(http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs45/i/2009/097/0/1/fett_parts_6_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
I also took and dremeled out the original boba head to make the removable helmet. I would suggest just buying a cast from clonehead though... SOOOO much easier! and def. worth the cost.
One last thing needs to be done to make the fig complete. The belt needs to be cut to fit around the new hips. With the old figure the belt fit inside the torso and around the peg. This inner rubber of the belt needs to be shaved off with the exacto knife carefully making it more like a real belt. Try to get it to fit over the new figure's hips carefull not to rip it. If it is too tight heat it up in some boiling water and then stretch it slightly to get it to fit correctly.
This should be your result:
Before the head/neck swap:
(http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/097/1/d/prelim_fitting__boba_fett_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
after neck swap, head swap, and paint:
(http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs44/i/2009/097/b/b/super_articulated_classic_fett_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
Posing with his younger version (an animated boba fett version of this process)
(http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs42/i/2009/097/f/e/classic_vs_animated_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
For the animated version I used different joe parts, I believe it was the legs and hips of a Flint figure
This same process was done on an animated boba fett. This is a comparison pic of the difference between the SA joe version and the original stock boba fett sculpt:
(http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs42/i/2009/077/6/0/size_comparison_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
As you can see the joe parts do make the figure grow a bit taller. However, especially with the boba figure, I believe that it looks more proportionate than before. When standing side by side the old figure looks stunted.
That's all I've got. When I get the chance I will post a similar tutorial on what to do with star wars figs that already have ball jointed torso's and how to splice on joe lower halves.
Please tell me if this was helpful and explained thoroughly enough that you guys understand what i did.
-
other figures which have recieved this same treatment:
han solo:
(http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/109/7/e/Han_Solo_gunslinger_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
lando:
(http://th08.deviantart.net/fs42/300W/i/2009/109/c/b/Lando_Calrissian__smuggler_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
greedo:
(http://th03.deviantart.net/fs42/300W/i/2009/113/6/a/greedo_custom_5_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
-
That was a very informative and awsome tutorial, Devon! Thanks for sharing that with us, dude!
-
Excellent!! Now, if I could find a crappetonne of 25th Joes on ebay for 99 cents... Basically, this should let me take otherwise desirable figures that were molded in the "goose-step style" (swivel shoulders and hips ONLY) and give them some decent leg articulation? I wonder... since you end up doing so much surgery on the SW fig's knee area... I'm wondering if a "goose-step" leg could be used if you were careful about how & where you made the cut, to use Joe thighs and SW calves.
Very interesting. Now I have a MUCH better idea of how to look at Joes and SW figs for frankenmashing!
/me wanders off, looking for Joes to sacrifice in the name of Knowledge and Learning...
-
Incredible tutorial. I know that it took a tremendous amount of time to comprise, and will be helpful to plenty of folks.
Awesome job all around, and thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.
Great tutorial.
-
what do you mean by goose-step? are you talking about a backwards knee? I think it would work. I know I did some drastic knee replacement on the mon calamari warrior, I used normal star wars circle and peg joint parts to do that.... Let me know when you get a chance to try this doc, I want to see how yours turn out! ;)
-
Heh - you've never noticed how if you try and pose the old Kenner fig's in a walking stance, they look like they are goose-stepping?
You've got me thinking, boyo... If one of those rubber-bands I use upstairs breaks, it could be catastrophic! ;D
Thanks A LOT for the info in this! I'm sure a certain swoop-gang's members will be some of the first beneficiaries of the technique. Besides, if I screw up on one of *them,* I can disguise it as a "swoop accident"!! O0
-
doc I can't wait to see it! All of my swoop riders are either based completely on joe bodies or are spliced in a similar fashion. It helps so much with getting the figures to sit right on the swoops. That is something I've never understood about the star wars figs... WHY go to all the trouble of having to make brand new sculpts that look like a retarted bowlegged cowboy when you make a new bike? Make the all the figures with ball jointed hips and all you have to do is throw them in with the bike when you make it... no new sculpts needed!
-
I'm beginning to think Hasbro's GI Joe and SW dept's have been told "don't you DARE filch design ideals from the Other Side!" Which is really...odd, given the Joker Squad rocket launcher is actually an old Joe weapon!! Weird.
-
Spudafett, thank you for sharing your techniques. I have never met a finer group of Star Wars customizers. Just when I think I can't be amazed anymore by what you guys do, you post something like this giving up your artistic techniques for the sake of other customizers. This was just an awesome tutorial and I was even able to follow it becuase of your great pics that went along with your steps. You sure can write assembly diagrams for me anytime. This will go up on the front page tomorrow. I hate to blow the Shipyards horn, but I do not know of any other place that has the depth of posted knowledge and tutorials on how to do this from scratch the way you folks have assembled it. I might just have to sacrifice an atat driver or two to see if I can pull of the superarty and helmetless thing. Any chance you have done arms before too? LOL. I bet I know the answer to that one.
-
swapping gi-joe arms with star wars figures? actually I have... from the elbow down. this is what it was: still an unpainted figure so I hope you can tell what I had done:
(http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/141/b/b/mando_comm_spec__wip_front_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
(http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs44/i/2009/141/7/d/mando_comm_specialist_wip1_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
basically the gi-joe 25th figures have the same arm sculpting styles that most of the newer star wars figures have. The elbows are circle/peg "ball" joints and the shoulders are circle/post ball joints... We need a standardized way of talking about all these articulation points and styles... I think i'm going to start a new sticky thread if that's ok with you guys with reference pics and a standardized term for each figure part element. I'll need to get my photoeditor back working so that I can make some diagrams to make understanding these kinds of things easier for those of us who havn't chopped up hundreds of figures with varying styles of sculpts....
anyways, back to the swapping.
Most star wars figures NOW come with a two part molded chest/torso. The shoulder joints that go into these are a "t" shaped post with a circular swivel joint in the arm. Gi-joe figures have this same design. Now each figure is slightly different so some dremeling or chisseling might have to be done inside the chest cavity to get the figures arms to fit right.
for instance, this figure used mostly joe parts but the arms are that of a legacy clone figure. The arm's t-posts had a longer peg on it and stick out slightly so that at a certain angle you can see up into the joint through his pits. However from the front it looks fine! It did take some triming of the end of the pegs to get it to swivel smoothly however and is still very tight.
(http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs46/i/2009/224/5/1/wip_speeder_dude_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
Man... I need to do a few more of these articulated customs and get better wip pics... I could have explained things alot better. I'm horrible about getting lost in working on a fig and forgetting to take progress pictures!
-
Holy sweetness, spud!! Keep at it! Every pic you post, I'm learning. Yeah, and itching to rip a few out, too.
I love that Cody-esque Mando. You need to finish him up.
-
Yepper that Cody looking Fett looks sweet. Thanks for showing the arm trick!
-
yeah that mando was supposed to be a "scout/communications" specialist and was going to be done in forrest camo, but I havn't brought myself to paint it yet...
I will keep working on these tutorials, I've got some techniques for the new animated clones I know you guys will want to see.
I also have an idea for making removable armor from an animated clone.....
-
I'm beginning to think Hasbro's GI Joe and SW dept's have been told "don't you DARE filch design ideals from the Other Side!" Which is really...odd, given the Joker Squad rocket launcher is actually an old Joe weapon!! Weird.
The Hunt for Grievous battle pack has a pretty sweet chain gun that was originally used in a Roadblock GI Joe figure, too. I wonder what else they've borrowed? :D
-
Hey XizorsYirago, welcome to the shipyards!
I noticed that the Rise of Cobra Heavy fig comes with a pretty good looking chain gun.
-
That's quite an undertaking to get better articulated hips, it does allow for the figure have more poses. I've never really been a fan of Joe articulation though, it just doesn't seem smooth and transitional as the SW joints do.
-
in alot of ways the joe metal ball jointed hips are awkward... BUT the ease of being able to swap the legs and parts by taking out the screws is what I like most. The worst part of the star wars figures is having to remove the pegs. Unless you heat up the plastic they are almost impossible to remove without breaking them. Not to mention if the part you want to swap out doesn't have the same sized male peg then it won't fit in the original hole. With a peg that's bigger than the original it's not a problem and just a matter of drilling a bigger hole. Of course this isn't always possible either. I've ran into several figures that the leg/arm/hand/whatever is so small or skinny that drilling a bigger peg hole is impossible.
I am please to see with the new ARF trooper a ball jointed hip style though. That will make making super articulated animated clones easy. BUT you still don't have a good way of making older figures and legacy figures super articulated.
This is a very labor intensive process. However I can have a figure completed in at least an hour or two (all except for painting). As long as the super glue cures quickly that is...
Masterfett I'm not trying to shoot you down, just try to explain why I take the time to do this stuff. Unlike most collectors I am still a big kid and love playing with the figures as much as I do working on them. Of course I play with them with my kids (i'm not some goofy 22 year old single guys playing with his toys in secret..... lol!). From a collecting point of view a stiff unarticulated figure is no big deal because either 1) it won't even be opened, or 2) it will be opened once, examined, and then displayed on a shelf indefinately. I try to make my customs in a way that I know that as a child I would have wanted them to be made. More poses means more playability and more senarios which will keep the attention of a child more than something that is imposible to play with or pose.....
anyways I'm rambling on now.
guys thanks for the responses on this. I'm going to try and do another for the newer style figures that have a two part torso with the "ball" jointed chest/gut or whatever you want to call it. I have done a super articulated kashyyyk trooper in this way which came out awesome. I have been wanting to do another with the comander faie figure but I will need to collect the figures to do it so it may be a while before I post the next tutorial. Until then I'm going to work on the parts reference/ anatomy of a figure thread I've been thinking about.
-
And the more articulated, the more useful in a photonovel!!
-
Thanks, Clonehead!
Spudafett: I really love the articulation upgrade you've done on your Fetts, all they need is the little armor piece below the belt and they'll be perfect! You should see if you can salvage them off the old hips. Great work though, can't wait to try this on some of my figures! Oh also I totally am the goofy 2(4) year old who plays with his collection in secret :X lol oh well.
-
Ya know, I sold one of these super articulated fetts to a collector of mando's on e-bay a while back and he said that the only thing he didn't like was the absence of the cod-piece (that little piece of armor below the belt ;) ). I have actually figured out a way of sculpting a pretty nice little piece to fix that problem with apoxi sculpt. I just never bothered with this figure honestly! lol
here is a pic of my "self custom" mando gunslinger which I sculpted on all the armor to a Wild Bill 25th aniv. joe figure. The chest armor and the cod piece are all hand sculpted directly onto the armor.
(http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/125/7/4/showing_off_the_articulation_by_SpudaFett.jpg)
I just realized it but this is another instance of me splicing star wars figure arms into the upper torso of a gi-joe figure. This time I had used boba fett arms and spliced them onto wild bill's body. Of course I sculpted on the armor.
-
I didn't take anything you said personal spudafett, and I do agree with you that Joes are the best and easiest when it comes to part swapping between them, done it for years myself. I was just stating my opinion that I'd like them better if the joints were more aesthetically pleasing is all. I agree they should make SW more universal between the figures, but I think they do it on purpose because secretly they hate us customizers.
-
HA! I agree with them hating us customizers... or perhaps it's that they know they can make crappy figures that we will buy 4 of just to make one custom figure?!
Your right about the hip joints looking a little funky and definately are not aesthetic. Some of the newer ROC figs seem to be a little better though I think.
I've been able to get around the aesthetics of the ball joints by adding belts with holsters, pouches and dangly bits to break up the recessed area around each hip. That seems to help a little bit.
It's all a give and take with action figures though, sacrifice accuracy and aesthetics for articulation or vice versa? it's a hard choice sometimes. Thats where we as the customizer get to make the decision on how to tackle these problems and find a nice blend of both... or try at least! :P
(btw I hoped that you didn't take my comments personal, I was in a rather bad mood eirlier and thought my comment might have come off a little snappy... of course that's me trying to be politically correct and worrying too much I think!)
-
Good call. I really like your self-image mando, makes me want to try that recipe for making some characters from the Republic Commando book series. I know the commando elite pack is out there, but that has some room for improvement, and Joe articulation is definitely on the list! Your fig's colors are pretty close to Kal Skirata's, makes it easy to see the potential there, haha.
-
xizorsvirago, there are better pics of all these figs and many more that I've done similar splicings with in my customs thread here:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=720.0
browse through it and I'm sure you'll get some good ideas, steal all you want ;)
-
xisorsvirago, I read in another thread that you needed better hip articulation for a legacy sand trooper? Have you figured that out yet? I think I have the perfect solution for you. Using the lower half of a gi-joe figure and the upper legs of one you can splice it all together in a similar fashion as here.
Basically the way to fit a gi-joes lower torso half into a star wars figures upper torso is you have to split open both figures chests and remove the lower portions. You then need to test fit the new bottom to the star wars figure and see if there needs to be any adjustments to the peg on the lower torso which fits up into and holds it inside the upper torso. You may have to trim down the actual peg or dremel out a larger area for it to fit inside the chest. I will be doing a tutorial on this with pictures to better explain like I've been saying.
The only problem with this technique is that it will not have the correct armor details on the lower torso or the upper thighs like it should. You might be better off using a dremel and cutting off the waists and glueing the gi-joe waist to the bottom of the lower torso of the star wars figure. You would still have the problem of the legs not being armored though... This could be sculpted over if you have the stuff to do it... or you could try cutting the gi-joe leg tops and splicing them onto the existing star wars legs....
there is probably a better way to do a legacy style clone or stormtrooper though. This splicing technique is realy better suited for figures that a change in shirt/pants style won't affect. Figures with full body armor makes it hard to find a suitable joe counterpart to swap parts with.
one of the project ideas rattling around in my head is to find a ball joint torso boba fett and jango fett (same sculpts as in the evolutions pack) and do a joe hip splice with them somehow.
-
Yeah... I was thinking maybe i could just slice off the Joe's legs at the upper thighs above where the sandtrooper's armor stops, so the Joe leg would only be where the black body suit is. Not sure how well that would work, but one of these days I'll just have to start slicing on a Joe and see what I can figure out, lol
-
I know of someone else on the sealteamsix custom boards who spliced a joe leg exactly like that. Here's a pic of his:
user "plastic surgery's" jedi master:
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5918/cd2s.jpg)
-
That is really cool looking and spooky at the same time.
This is a great thread, Devon!
-
Wow, that looks pretty badass! It makes me want to go buy a terminator figure and make a custom of the clone trooper Corr from the Republic Commando books. (He had prosthetic arms from trying to disarm a bomb or something)
-
I need to post my Corr custom. Easiest sod in the WORLD to do...
Whoa...turns out I need to PHOTO my Corr! Watch for him to appear later tonight.