Topic: Clonehead's Custom Figures reloaded

[Clonehead]

Alex, I forgot to mention that this cartoon mando's rangefinder is poseable. A first for the mandos, I think.

Well after two or three layers, I have the sand color thick enough on his armor and helmet to cover up the factory plastic colors. I touched up the brown on his undercoverings again and used the same brown to start laying down some details on his helmet and gauntlets. These areas need touching up with the yellow, again, now. After that, I will break out a lighter grey brown and paint up that belt and holster. Oh and those detail lines that are molded onto the top of his boots. The brown on those is bugging me so I think I will make them solid yellow again, and just paint the sole of the boots.

[Clonehead]

Here is a couple of shots after I painted that belt and holster combo Floquil old concrete color.
  Now, several hours later, I have brought him to his current state. I have detailed the belt using a dark brown on the belt's edges, where the belt rung holes are, around the pouches and their flaps, and detailed the holster, as well. I have used the same dark brown around the pockets on his pants and also have layed a dark brown thin line around the parimeter of every armor plate and added some details to his helmet and to his gauntlets, as well. I also had to touch up in all three colors around these dark brown detail lines to clean them up and thin them, a bit. After cleaning up the details on his boots, I am liking them better and will probably leave them this way except for the soles which I haven't painted, yet.

[Clonehead]

 At this point he has a ways to go but is looking pretty good to my eyes. I am getting excited about how this one could turn out.

ATTENTION SHIPYARDERS!!

I have an announcement to make regarding this Desert Mando custom fig. I have decided to make this figure a prize that can be won by any registered member in a shipyards contest. "don't worry about what country you are from, I will take care of the shipping"

The details of this contest haven't been decided yet but when they are, you will be the first to know.

I imagine that we will wait to run the contest until a point after I have finished the fig and possibly a little desert diorama for him.   

  For sure, when this contest happens, you would need to be a registered member to qualify and /or, compete. So if you are interested in adding this figure to your collection and haven't registered yet, do so now!

What do you guys think? Do you like this idea?

[Clonehead]

Thanks fellers.

I have started a little diorama for him in my diorama thread.
  I will get right back to the desert mando but first, I found my cape mold, digging around in the basement, today and needed to make a papermache cape for Tamer's snow mando that I have been putting off.
  This is a flexable plastic POTF Vader cape. Using the same Woodland Scenics scenic cement that I am using on the dio, I squirt a bit into the inside of the plastic cape and spread it around the entire interior of the cape with a paintbrush. Then, I tear some klenex tissue into a similar sized double layered chunk and spread it out on the now wet iinside of the cape. Squirting some more scenic cement on the tissue, I brandish it to the inside surfaces of the cape's inside with the same paintbrush. what hangs over the edge will be trimmed when it dries in a couple of days.

[Clonehead]

OK, time for more mando pics. I painted on his jetpack a little bit. I also painted his wide waist belt dark brown and I painted the hoses going to his right gauntlet  light grey. I may have to take another look at that large belt as the paint looks a little shiney. I may have to mix it flatter and repaint it.
  We are nearly ready to start applying camo on him.

[Clonehead]

More desert mando pics.

[Clonehead]

And a couple more shots.

[Clonehead]

I have made a test run of our Desert Mando's camo scheme on his one arm. I was wanting to emulate the same pattern that I used on Tamer's snow camo atat driver but with different colors. A darker desert yellow was used in the center of the pattern surrounded by the same dark brown that was used for the bigger belt.
Does this look cool? If so, I am going to continue to apply it to his undercoverings and might even throw some on the brown parts of his jet pack.

[Clonehead]

One more shot of the camo test.
Then, as I had broke my other loose cartoon mando out for a review, I took this comparison shot.

[Clonehead]

After digging around for a resin helmet to mod as a spare for our desert mando, I came up with this hollow biker scout helmet that was cast from the rebel in the shield generator BP. I only have two minor modifications planned for this helmet. I will add an antennae and a optical rangefinder. I will try to engineer the rangefinder to be posable. I also need to fill in the helmets cavity, a bit, possibly with white glue. The diameter is right for the peg but the cavity is slightly too deep.

Also, I have started working on my next sacrificial Ebay clone. A skinny version of Commander Ponds from the 3rd episode of the Ryloth trilogy.

Those two shots of him shown are property of Lucasfilm LTD.

[Clonehead]

Here are a couple of early production shots of the Commander Ponds custom.
I started with a skinny Captain Rex body and head and chose a resin casting of Rex's helmet as I couldn't bring myself to paint over a stock Rex's pretty Jeg eyes. I shaved off the Rangefinder mount on the one side of Rex's helmet.
I coated the resin helmet, body armor, and blue piping on the kama and white and I am ready now, to start on his dark red graphics.

[Clonehead]

Thinking about what else I could do to the desert mando's alternate head, I remembered the copper colored nail polish that I used for the visor of a desert camo airborne helmet, once. Then, I remembered that I had some copper bare metal foil in the customizing equipment and product pile down in Clonehead's catacombs "my basement".

Bare metal foil is a super thin adhesive backed real metal foil that is available for car model enthusiests and is used to decorate the chrome trim on a car model and has a more convincing metal color and look than silver, gold, or copper paint would. It comes in those three colors and is sold in serious hobby shops like hobbytown usa or hobby heaven.

It works like this: Using a sharp hobby knife, you cut the shape to cover and slightly lap past the shape that your are foiling. Then, using a dry paintbrush or toothpick or the like, you burnish the foil down until it conforms to the shape that you layed it over. "in my case, the lens of the biker scout visor." The adhesive backing should hold it in place and you use your hobby knife to carefully cut around the border of whatever shape that you foiled and pull the scraps away.

That's what I'm doing to our biker scout helmet visor and after I have painted around it, it will look like he has a copper color reflective lens in his goggles. Neat, huh?

[Clonehead]

Well, I got a little painting done on the Pond figure and I got a little painting done on the desert mando's extra head. I have also squirted some white glue into that heads cavity to fill it up, and make it a better fit to the mando's neck peg.

[Clonehead]

looks good Clint.

Thanks buddy! And thanks for the FP story.
  Here are a couple of update shots of progress on the Ponds figure. I have pretty much all of his dark red graphics applied. I need to touch up in white and then I will have to match his head's skin tone and make him bald.

[clonetrooper360]

hey so hows the at-ic project coming out?