The Imperial Shipyards
Imperial Creative Engineering => Custom Figures => Topic started by: Clonehead on June 18, 2008, 05:14:01 PM
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This thread is being locked and downsized to allow for more room for the site. All replies with pictures are being left alone but alot of replies with how-two and troubleshooting info are being deleted. Be on the lookout for a new custom figure thread from me soon. Thank you all for your great comments and support.
Here are some more shots of that comic pack arc that I painted red and added a resin-cast Bacura helmet to.
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TY Tamer.
I know that you have seen this one before.....I drew this picture of an AOTC era snowclone and then customized this figure to match. I put a typing paper strap on his long rifle, made a pistol holster on his leg from thin packaging plastic with typing paper strips for a leg strap. I also made a papermache kama and full cape for him. I ended up making a sort of shadowbox diorama for him, also. I will show you this in the diorama thread.
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Here is a shot with that figure's snow camo buddies. Snow camo Scorch and the AT-TE gunner. I did all three of these at around the same time.
The second shot is of another Scorch and gunner that I did later.
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This Scorch got a removable side holster and a paper mache cape. The gunner got a removable Bacura helmet, a paper mache cape, a leg pistol holster, and kind of a rudimentery back-slung holster for his medium blaster.
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Here is a jungle camo ROTS clone commander that I painted up. I made a mini dio for this guy also. I added a strap to his long rifle and painted his visor with luminicent paint.
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You are too kind my friend. I have wondered before if some of my paint jobs had any influance over some of the figs that they have produced. covert ops trooper, atrt assault squad. I really have no idea.
Here is a pic of that fig under a black light so you can see the glowing quality of his visor.
I also posted a backside shot so you can see the camo kama a little better.
I found some shots of him on his little dio and will post those in the dio thread.
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Thanks again, darth c. Here is a fig that I used a different color of the luminecent paint with. He was based on a removable helmet snowtrooper where I cut the face from the snowtroopers helmet and replaced with the resin cast face of a Airborne trooper's helmet.
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These are actually two different custom figs that were made to be identical. The first pictured is one that I made for Custom Cloner after he seen me make the second pictured one that I sold in an Ebay auction.
Both were based on the standard Airborne clonetrooper figure and were painted in a desert camo scheme. Both included the airborne helmet with a gold metal flake looking visor that I used some of the wifey's nail polish for.
Both also included a camo and brown paper mache large cape with thin wires impregnated at the coller for ease of mounting on the figure. And both included a custom helmet that was made by grafting the face of a resin GM helmet to a resin Saga Gen Veers hat with the molded on goggles.
Under close scrutiney, I thought that the one that I made for John turned out slightly better. There are a few of my past customs that I miss and wish that I would have kept. This is one of them.
Not sure how these pics got posted twice.
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A couple more shots of the same fig. First of the two, I believe.
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And I came to find a couple of pics of the Teaser that I made for Tamer some time ago. It was a custom painted GM with a custom resin helmet and a resin chain gun that stood apon a little snow dio with a dead battle droid partially buried in the snow.
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I can't actually remember which of these two dead droid snow dios went to Tamer and which one went to John. I think that Tamer got the grey one?
Both were made using a plain wooden plaque found at a Hobbie lobby, and woodland scenics model railroad snow applied with a white glue and water mix.
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Thanks DR! Here are a couple more shots of this guy and his little dio.
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Well sure, it was the only one that wasnt MOC. LOL
Thanks buddy! I always was proud of that one.
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Here are three more shots of the snow mando that I did. That back shot shows the hood detail that I added for the first time to a paper mache cape. That other fig is a clone commander body, a cast resin sandtrooper pauldren, and a resin helmet mix that is part gen Veers helmet and Cody helmet.
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Here is one of my favorite shots of John's snowclone. I like his heavy load carried on his shoulder.
I like your idea there, Shawn. Fett goes recon.
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There was a time when I was into doing a line of custom figs based on the original Kashyyyk trooper except with head or equipment mods where I would incorperate a matching camo. The one featured a resin flip visor head taken from the collector tin biker scout. I made this one before the newer flip-visor kashyyyk trooper became available. He also got a double pauldron that was made from a resin sandtrooper pauldron merged with an arc trooper's pauldron. he also got a camo painted kama with a blaster holster made from plastic attached to the kama's back where the other one got the full cape, a resin pistol case from the airborne fig and a radio wire added to his stock helmet.
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Is that right? I will have to dig around in the archives and find some more pics of custom figs that I based on biker scouts.
Here is a bacura version of the Kashyyyk trooper that I did who also got a waistcape and scratchbuilt blaster holster plus, another pic of the double pauldren guy.
Oh and thanks again, DR!
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Here are a couple of shots of the fig that got the gm scorch head, sometime during that fig's metamorphisis. I will find a finished shot or two and post it later. And, here is a shot of a couple of mixes. one is an airborne face grafted to a mando back. The other is that airborne bikerscout combo that I mentioned.
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Here is one of my favorite helmet mods on a custom that resides in the incomplete project pile, currently.
The helmet is a combo of a resin cody and resin GM casted helmets. The figure is to be painted in the desert camo style and at this time, he has a full cape as well. I also intend to paint up the original cody helmet in the same style and be able to compare. I am envisioning this guy to have the same light blue visor or eyes that my previous desert camo figures have all shared. While this wasn't the first in the pile that I wanted to start working on again, I can see it possibly turning out to be one of my favorites.
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Tamer, that one isn't the one I actually wanted to start working on. I will preview the one that I wish to start with soon.
here are some more pics of the one I did with the cody/veers helmet which I believe resides in John's collection now.
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As with a few of the others that I've let go, I do miss this one. It was one of my favorites.
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I found some more biker scout pics for Pat. This was one of my earlier customs based on a POTJ scout, I think. I did this one before the elite corps camo scouts became available. Once more, I used the florecent green paint for the visor. In the last shot, I dimmed the lights and introduced a black light to cause the glowing effect on his painted visor.
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I'm sure that I have posted this pic in one of the previous versions of the Shipyards. This is a shot looking into the display case in my living room.
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Well Tamer, I've been asked this question before and while I'm not completely sure of the final tally, my best guess is 50-100 custom clones served. As far as the dios made for SW themes, I would guess 20-30.
Keep in mind that most were sold on the Bay or even contracted to me to build so, I only have a few in my collection. Otherwise, I would have a grand display indeed.
Building custom figures is kind of like learning to play guitar as in the more you do it , the better you get. With that in mind, I would put the last 15 to 20 custom figures that I have done in my favorite list. In my current collection, I would say that I only have 6-7 custom figs and 4-5 complete dios with another 3 incomplete figs and 2 incomplete dios.
Alas you say, Why did I ever let them go? The excitement of selling and creating hype twards my store was part of it but also, it holds some satisfaction for me to be able to say that I have custom clones residing in other peoples collections all over the earth. Japan, China, Canada, Germany,France, Austrailia, Great Britan, the Phillipines, Greenland, Russia, the list keeps going.
I found a few more pics of that GM with the walker driver head to post. I also found a few more shots of his dio which I will post in the dio thread.
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Here is another shot of that same figure and a couple of shots of some titanium JSFs that I painted up. I like the red and white one.
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John, that fig is still incomplete and awaiting attention. I started that fig over a year ago as a companion to the desert trooper that got the Scorch/GM head, the completed pics of which, I am still looking for.
I believe I made a mold of that cody/gm head. Did I not give you one of those?
Here are three more shots of that helmet. The first shows the two pieces as they were shaped to fit together.
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I found a couple of shots of that desert camo heavy gunner fig I did with the Combo Scorch/GM head. I found some better shots of this guy where you can see the camo on his pauldron but I need to shrink them. Yep, that is another one that I shouldn't have let go. I believe he is in that last shot also, posed on an uncomplete desert dio that I am going to give to the Cody/GM figure. I have several shots of this dios construction and while not complete, it is further along than you see here.
I will get around to posting more shots of it in the dio thread.
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I found some in production pics of the second snow mando that I did. This one was based on the saga Boba Fett fig.
The first shot shows the base paint which looked alot like the other snow mando that I kept. The second pic shows the first layer of camo painted on the cloth areas under his armor and his little half cape. the third pic shows the second layer of camo.
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More shots of the finished snow mando 2. I also painted up a resin cast concept snow troopers head to go with this fig. No modifications were necesarry for the resin head to fit the saga boba figure's nub.
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More shots of the complete snow mando 2. The last shot shows the painted jet pack.
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Three more shots, the first two showing a comparrison in between the original snow mando and it's brother the snow mando 2.
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The reason I've showed so many pics of that second snow mando is that I am basing the paint scheme of my current custom on that fig. This current fig is based on an elite corps body with a mixed head of a resin casted Veers helmet and a resin nubbed AOTC clone's helmet. As shown in the first shot, I have a paper mache waist cape made for this fig.
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He re are a couple of shots of the helmet and of the figure in it's current painted state. The body's nub is a bit small for the resin helmet's hole so I will have to narrow the gap a bit for the nub to fit right. I still need to trim, paint, and mount the fig's waistcape and then, add some piping. I was thinking about giving him a sandtrooper's pauldron as well.
After I get the helmet's nub hole right, it will be time for some paint. How bout the main visor, guys? Should I make it black or should I make it light blue like the eyes on that concept snowie head? Also, I plan to add some black to the fig's camo like that second snow mando had.
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Found some pics of that clone wars kenobie that I did including a couple with him next to a jungle camo cody.
I did the clone wars obi wan at least a year and a half before we got Hasbro's version.
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I used an Aotc Kenobie head and mounted a post in the clone's body so one could interchange it and this rots clone's head. Also, here are some closer shots of the two droids that were on his dio. The regular battle droid had a removable pegged hand that was also painted with the neon orange paint at the hacked off point. Also on him, I used a black wash to bring out the detail lines on his body.I chopped off a couple of the super battle droid's limbs, drilled in some wire and wire insulation, painted the center of the hacked off limbs black and painted the edges and the ends of the wire and insulation detail neon orange to simulate the hot metal of a fresh light sabre cut.
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Thanks as always my friend. Here are some shots of a snow clone that I made using a clone commander body, a cast resin sandtrooper pauldron, and a resin airborne helmet. This guy also got a back slung blaster holster made of thin plastic packaging. The strap is painted typing paper strips.
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I always liked the paint job on this guy. Kind of a cody theme with the stripes on his chest. I also like the brown on hte airborne mouthpiece. Another one that I shouldn't have let go.
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Another couple of shots of this guy. One with a couple of figs from the clone wars general dio.
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Here are some shots of that camo Cody that John had mentioned. The first is him with the camo clone commander that I had posted about some time ago.
This Cody got a camo papermache waistcape and full cape, a removable cap and night vision combo that was donated from an elite forces fig, and a gun from the same fig, I believe. I also made and mounted a holster for a medium blaster on the back of his waistcape. I also added a strap to his long rifle made from a rubber band. This one was done prior to when I started mixing helmets.
Funny thing, I was mocked when after I posted pics of the airborne helmeted snowclone on ST, someone mentioned that it was just a repaint and didnt show any real talent. Undaunted, I posted pics of this Cody there, next and the mocker was silenced.
As I had mentioned before, about the time I had finished this Cody, I was starting to really get into my custom groove and things were starting to look increasingly pretty to my eyes. I think that this might have been the first fig that I had scratchbuilt a holster for.
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More pics of that camo Cody. Boy, the Ebayers were really hyped up about this one. By this time in the great experiment that was making and selling custom clones, I had made and sold 30-40 figs including some on custom cards and some with mini dios. At the point this one was listed, it was probably the best one that I had done. I made a little dio for this guy also. I will show it in the dio thread.
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A few more shots.
This fig was the first to get the neon paint on his visor, and I added it to his night vision goggles also.
I had painted up about 2-3 codys prior to this one. To me, this one turned out so good that cody became one of my favorite figs to customize. I think that it was because he was the first clone with a removable helmet. I don't think I have done a cody since then except for the desert cody that Is sitting on my workbench still awaiting completion.
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As I remember, John, that Stealth guy was in the military overseas somwhere as his shipping address was an FPO.
I had posted some pics in the dio thread showing the jungle camo Scorch that I had done some time ago.
At this point in my custom clone production, the only resin helmet mod that I had made was to hollow out a resin bacura helmet. Most of my customs to this point had been just custom paint applications. I believe that this was the third scorch that I did.
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More pics of jungle camo scorch. This fig was done prior to the elite corps figs being released. Otherwise, I probably would have tried to mimic that camo scheme. In the last two shots, he is posed next to a jungle camo clone commander fig that I did a couple of. In those shots, you can see a previous stage of the figure's paint job and then, the finished product.
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Speaking of the second mold that I made, I found some pics of it. It was a solid Airborne and Bacura mold. I used to take a pinvise (finger drill) and would drive it into the heads bottom a bit and then gently pull out to extract the casted piece. Man those boys were a pain to hollow out. Not too bad to make a nub hole though.
As I remember, after I started making molds to cast hollow helmets, I ended up selling this mold with some small bottles of resin compound on Ebay. The ebayers were hyped up about this one. I was glad to be rid of it. I remember thinking " is this a good idea, creating a resin casting competitor by supplying a clone mold and resin?" Then I thought, "nah, it will take em forever to hollow those things out"
Man, look howbig that mold is. the molds that I make now are less than half that size and cast 3 or more pieces.
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And speaking of the hollow bacura helmet, Here was the first one mounted on what was to become the jungle camo ATTE gunner. In the first three shots, you can see the beginnings of this figs ATTE gunner base customization. "I made about 4 based on that fig's base" In the last shot, You can see the comparrison between the partially painted resin bacura helmet and the factory hasbro helmet that I used to make it's mold.
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Two more shots of the helmet comparrison, one shot showing his leg holster and the sholder slung bandolier holster prior to paint and before I added the leg straps, and one shot of the fig with all of his accessories.
More shots of this guy, tomorrow. ;D
By the way, I like how the Shipyards customs section is getting more populated. The more the merrier.
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As promised, I have some more pics of the ATTE gunner fig with the hollow Bacura helmet.
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Sorry about the sideways shot on that last post. Tamer, is there a way to remove attachments as you modify your post?
More shots of the Bacura gunner including one with him and his buddy Scorch.
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Keep the pics coming.......OK!
I am still on track to show you the mold making process this weekend but first, I thought that I might show you a couple more of my molds. The first two pics show a couple of molds that used the old mold making compound from alumilite. the smaller one makes two helmets and one clone head. The other makes one helmet, one clonehead, and the general veers chest plate which I never could get to work very well. This yellow mold making material isnt very flexable and to make it easier to demold the parts, I have split some of the molds around their parts just twards the top. The result of these splits are additional mold lines that are easily removable with a hobby knife. I found that these yellow molds would degrade over time because of their lack of flexability. Sometimes I would demold a part and part of the mold would come out with the part. The negative nubs of the human clone heads were often doing this much to my dismay.
Now I use the High Strength material from the same company that comes out pink. None of these pink molds have ever wore out on me due to it's flexability and strength.
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See the small hole in the top of the pink mold? The huge mushroome head of the concept snowie fit through that little hole. That's how much stretch this pink stuff has. You would never pull this off with the yellow stuff in this way. the next two shots show a comparrison of the two parts that I used to make the mold and the two parts that it casts, concept snowtrooper and hollow tie fighter pilot from the comic pack.
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Digging around for those mold pics, I came up with a couple of shots you might find interesting.
Once for a contracted order, it was requested that I paint some clone heads. Here are a couple of shots of those heads during their painting. In the first shot, there is a hasbro clonehead with factory paint that I am using for referance. I believe that he is in the second shot also but need to see it bigger to be sure. Can you find that factory clone head in the second shot?
OK, I see him now. ;D
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Not a problem, my friend.
I've got a two pic update of the Veers/ aotc mix snow clone.
Man, it takes some effort to climb up on this horse again. I find that my painting skills are a bit rusty.
More touchups are required on this but I found my last resin sandtrooper pauldron and decided to give it to this guy.
Do you guys like it facing left or right? I like left. The brown on it turned out too glossey for my taste and I will find another brown to touch up with. I have used black to fill in the cracks on his helmet and need to touch up around the black, add some brown for the goggle frame and strap. I added part of the black to his camo scheme and touched up his dirty boots with white. The nub hole on the helmet still needs to be resized and I will work on that, today. I am liking the blue on his visor and goggles and will touch them up to have a thin black outline. I may add a reflection to his goggles. I have painted the interior of his non pictured waistcape brown and planto match his undergarment camo on the inside and do weathered brown on the outside.
How is it looking so far? Any suggestions?
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A few more shots of the snow clone. I have touched up the paint on the pauldron, and head. The head fits now but a bit loosely. And I have the base color on both sides of the kama. here, I am test fitting it on the fig. It looks like it needs a trim off of the length, a bit.
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Thanks buddy. I have a pic here of just the head. yet more detail painting is required plus I think that I will add a radio antennia to the left side of his helmet.
Here are a couple of older shots. Both were for custom orders. In one, I was contracted to paint up some resin Neyo heads to look like they did in the betrayel BP which at the time, was the only place you could find a Neyo. I believe that one of the heads in this shot is of the real factory Neyo.
In this next shot, I was contracted to build 3 resin double pauldrons like the one wore by that one elite corps fig that I did that had the flip visor. I used componants from a resin cast sandtroopers pauldron and from a resin cast arc troopers pauldron. I didnt have to paint these ones. Looking at that shot, they seem a little rough looking.
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This thread needs more figures. On that note, I found some more pics of the elite corps airborne sniper fig that I did.
that gun is an elite forces item that I added a paper strap and some camo to. The headcover from the atte gunner sits upon the resin airborne head. As memory serves, this head was one of the ones cast solid and then reamed out to fit the elite corps neck nub. the fig got a paper mache waistcape painted brown on the outside and elite corps camo on the inside. the waist cape was also trimmed out with strips of typing paper.
I also made two full length capes for this guy. One is the inner cape which is paper mache and is painted brown on the inside and elite corps style camo on the outside. The second is his outer ghilie cape which is surgical gauze soaked in a water/white glue mix and painted brown inside and out and then brokenly covered with woodland scenics fine turf static grass with a few fine twig bits on the outside.
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Oh well, it's too late to worry about that one.
On to newer things.......... I have here 3 update shots of the new snow camo clone. In the first shot, I have trimmed the bottom of the waistcape to the proper length and painted the first color of the camo on the inside. In the second shot, I have painted the second color of the cape's inner camo and finished the camo on the figure as well. Also in that shot, you can see a freshly casted, partially painted ammo pouch that I plan on integrating somewhere on this fig. In the third shot, the waistcape has been mounted and glued and pretty much all of the detail painting is done on the helmet. I have drilled in and mounted an antennia wire with a small piece of wire insulation twards the bottom, where it meets the helmet. This wire will be trimmed shorter and painted black.
This figure is starting to really come together. All that is left is to trim out the waistcape and weather the backside a bit, finish the helmet antennia, finish painting and mount the ammo pouch, and I might possibly add some subtle camo to the white part of the pauldron.
I am wanting to wrap this one up as I have an idea for another custom fig that will surely keep poor Tamer up at night.
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I have a shot here of the fig with it's waistcape trim partially applied. I have a strip of cut photo paper that I am using for this although I perfer typing paper as it is easier to shape. I will try to finish this chore, today.
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I'm still not finished with the other fig but I had hinted to Tamer about my next fig and just can't keep a lid on it any longer.
You guys know that I had been working on a modded helmet in my resin casting thread (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=476.0) where an ATAT driver's helmet had the face of an AOTC clone. I have hollowed out the ATAT driver's helmet portion enough to fit in this resin Commander Fai head and shaved a little off of a resin Cody neck nub to fit the head.
About a year or more ago, I had showed tamer a pic of me cutting off the neck nub of an ATAT driver's body.
I dug out that driver's body, yesterday and trimmed a bit of his neck area so that the resin neck nub would fit on right. I then trimmed and test-fit the neck nub to the body to judge for correct height and angle. In the second shot, you see me using a pin-vise "finger drill" to drill out a hole in the body where the neck will be. I drilled a corrisponding hole in the resin neck where it will meet the body. In the second shot, I have superglued a length of thin wire into the body's hole and will trim it shorter to accept the neck nub into it's drilled hole.
In the third shot, I have glued the neck nub into place on the body. I will let the glue dry and test fit the head and helmet again to make sure that I like it for height and position on the body.
In these shots, I have tucked the hoses from the driver's airbox under his arms and out of the way.
Now Tamer, I do relize that watching this figure come together will be a sort of delightful torture for you and I want you to take it easy........ :o Try not to dwell on it too much.
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I thought that you would approve. I test fit the head and helmet on the neck nub and found that it was a bit too tall for how I wanted the helmet to sit when it was on the head. I ended up pulling off the neck nub and shaving more length off of it's bottom and may have to do it again. No more pics of this one or of the other one yet.
I did find some pics of a fig that looks similar to that airborne headed snow camo clone that I posted pics of 2-3 pages ago. This one was also based on the clone commander fig and got a resin cast Neyo helmet, a sandtroopers pauldron, and a resin cast pistol case from the airborne fig. I used a strip of painted typing paper for the pistol case strap and mounted a resin 3-pack of grenades to the end side of the case. I like how the drybrushing turned out on the back of his kama. I need to go ahead and post these pics before I loose track of em again.
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I knew this stuff had to be labor intensive. Daggone, I can't wait to see that new project you are working on!
I know buddy. And you are being so patient. I am proud of you. Well, your wait is nearly over because I finished the other one, tonight.
I cut the v-shape in the bottom and finished the trimwork on the aotc/veers snowclone's waistcape and drybrushed some slightly lighter brown on the outside to kind of enhance the wrinkles a bit. I trimmed the helmet antennia down and painted it black, I brushed some lighter brown camo onto the white part of his pauldron, and I mounted and painted the resin ammo pouch on his backside. It's a wrap folks. The first custom fig that I have finished in over a year. I am happy with how he turned out.
Now for some pics.......
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And more pics.....
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And even more pics......
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Last 4........I had to break out that chain gun to pose him with. How did he turn out guys?
Tamer, I havent got the head height problem worked out with the aotc/atat fig yet but I did start on his paint apps tonight. I will work on him some more, tomorrow.
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As promised, I have a slight pic update on the AOTC/ATAT driver fig.
After alot of trial and error on the height and fit of the one resin cody neck nub, I ditched that one and trimmed the alternate resin airborne neck nub to a slightly lower profile and mounted it on the figure's body using the same mounting wire that was installed before. Using a bit of superglue, I filled in the recieving hole in the resin Commander Fai head a bit and now, it fits almost perfect. Now that the neck nub and mounted head sit a bit lower, the helmet sits at a more appropriate position when on the head but is a bit loose twards the back of the head. To correct this, I have built up the inner back of the helmet with a bit of superglue gel.
I have started the figures paint application and have painted the cloth parts of his uniform with Floquil BRN DK earth color. This will serve as the base color for the same 3-color camo scheme that I used on the last figure. There are three straps on each of his boots which got this color as well as the soles. I have incorperated some of this color in the recessed areas of the helmet, also. The plan is to paint the rest of the figure's armored areas white with some thin black lines in the detail areas. The non-recessed areas of the helmet will also get white with black detail lines at the seams. I believe that I will leave the recessed areas of the helmet straight brown without camo.
Tamer, are you around to see this?
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I've got another painting update on our aotc driver fig. Here, I have started working with the white paint to cover the camo that I did so long ago. Also, I have givin the helmet, head, and neck nub an inital coat of white. And here, you can see the helmet mounted over his head for the first time. I have added some brown elements to the recessed areas of the helmet. I am still undicided if the hollows of his cheeks should stay brown or not. What do you guys think?
In the last shot, I have painted his visor light blue and have used black to roughly darken the detail areas which I will thin and straighten with white paint as I touch it up. This is a back and forth process untill I get those detail lines the way that I like them. I have also used the black to give the resin head eyes, eyebrows, hair, mouth and face detail which will be touched up when I mix and apply skin color. Is there any other direction you guys think that I should take with this guy?
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Yes, I always had you in mind when I started this one, buddy. Why, it would easily break your heart to be tempted by a custom using your favorite subject matter and not end up getting it, wouldn't it. Perhaps we can work out a trade when I'm done.
Now for some pics...........
In these first four shots, you can see that I have been working on the daunting task of detail painting where I have been cleaning up the areas where I intend to leave those thin detail lines where the seams are in the armor and helmet. I still need to repaint the blue visor but the helmet is cleaning up nicely.
In this last shot, I have posed his air hose where it shall be mounted to be an either permanant or removable fixture, later on.
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In this shot of the back, it almost appears that the helmet rides too high, again. I may have to risk carving out that cavity a bit more.I should probably leave well enough alone there. I'm sure that with the hoses in place, it won't be noticable. Anyway, judging from how the hoses meet their connections on the helmet, the height is just right. Now, in the next two shots, you can see that I have painted his pilot's chest to leg thingymabob darker grey and have begun to incorperate the grey part of his camo. I had thought of trying to accent the grey camo with white to see how it looked instead of the black like last time. I may try a little area with the white to see how it looks and if we don't like it, I will correct and go with the black.
Now Tamer, you really don't want this dusty old clone, do you?
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Got some more painting done on this dude.
In the first 3 shots, you see that I have finished the grey part of his camo. I tried accenting this camo with white as descussed but didn't like it so, I covered up the white and started in with the black accents. Some touchups will be required after the black is done with the other two colors.
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Looking good. Looking very good. I am loving that blue vizor. I can't wait to see how this turns out.
Waiting to see it finished won't be too much of a problem as I seemed to have shifted gears on this project ever since your sidearm request, yesterday. First, needing a break from the never ending camo application to this fig, I went to fab up a holster for the medium sized blaster that alot of clones come with. After coming up with a suitable mock up, I decided that the medium blaster was too big for this guy to wear as a sidearm as it hung down to his knees. I had remembered that Customcloner John had sent me some castings of a cut off clone commander pistol holster and I raced to the parts bin in the basement to see what I could find. While digging around, I came up with John's castings of the holster, some small ammo and utility pouch castings of his, "I need to get some more of these from John" and pieces of a clones stock belt that I had butchered when working on the purple RC figure. Also, I found a few stock cloneheads and trying different heads for a better fit, I decided to ditch the resin Fai head and replace it with this stock head that may have came from the GM body that I sent to you. You see, I still wasn't satisfied with how the Fai head sit on the body or fit in the helmet and this one was perfict for the mounted nub and fit in the helmet alot nicer.
Making that decision dropped some weight off the burdon of the project as I no longer had to paint the head or worry about how it fit in the helmet.
I went ahead and mixed a close matching skin tone and painted up the neck and then worked a little on the parts for his utility belt. The pistol holster got thinned out on the backside so that it would sit closer to the body and I had to cut out a notch for the pistols handle to hang out of. I will use a stock pistol when I equip this holster. The little resin ammo pouch also got thinned from the backside and scribed so that I could split it inbetween the pouches and glue it to conform to the radius of the waist. That stock clone belt supplied a small box with buttons and the rear mounted gas mask cylindar or whatever it is. Both of these were thinned out in the back and the cylindar got a notch cut in the back so that It would clear the vertical stock piece that goes down the figures back so that it would fit closer to the body.
First shot shows the fig with his new head and all of the equipment parts, as I found them.
second shot shows the freshly painted neck nub and some of the now trimmed parts.
third shot shows how the helmet fits on the new head.
forth shot shows how the color match inbetween the painted neck nub and the stock head looks.
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This morning, my goal was to finish this daunting camo scheme and get his belt made.
In the first shot, the camo is done for the most part. I did alot of this with uncorrected vision as my nearsightedness allows me to focus on objects closer to my eyes than a person with 20-20 vision.
In the second shot, I cut some strips of typing paper and superglued them at his waist to terminate where they hit the grey plastic vertical strip front and back.
third and fourth shots, I have glued the pouches, box, cylindar, and holster in place. I glued a small vertical strip of typing paper onto his leg to be exposed just inbetween the holster and the belt. i wanted to mount the holster slightly lower than the bottom of the belt so that the movement of the leg wouldnt be hindered and so that the holster wouldnt hit the belt as the leg moved.
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These shots of the belt equipment seem a bit fuzzy. I will take some more after these pieces are painted.
I decided to make the belt and equipment white to kind of balance out with the rest of the figure's white parts.
Tamer, this guy has equiped himself for a bit of a walkabout, it seems. Perhaps there were some zirc fittings on the outside of his walker that he had to hit with the grease gun or something.
As you can see, my to-do list on this figure is rapidly shrinking. Aside from painting the belt accessories and some clean-up detail painting, all that remains is to remount the airhoses to the helmet. That will still be a permanant or temporary fixture, we will see how it goes.
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Well, I got the belt, holster, and accessories painted white and I touched up the blue on the visor. I was wanting to give some black details to the accessories on his belt but it's looking pretty good now and I'm not sure if I should. What say you, Shawn?
I took a couple of shots front and back so you could see the belt and accessories with their new white coat.
I also took a comparrison shot with a factory stock saga ATAT driver like this one used to be. And then, I took a shot of him posed next to the AOTC/Veers clone. The camo scheme on the new one uses the same colors but is a little different than the one on the AOTC/Veers clone and although it was a bigger chore to apply, I do like it better.
For sure, I still got some touchup paint and the mounting of the hoses left......In these shots, the hoses are tucked under the back of his helmet.
Tamer, this new one is starting to pull on my heartstrings now.
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Well, I got the last of the touchup painting done and now it's time to make the airhoses connectable.
Using my trusty pin-vise, I drilled holes into the ends of the airhoses and then, into the cylinders on the back of the hlemet. After that, I superglued some lengths of fine wire into the holes in the hoses. After some touchup painting to the wires after they were trimmed shorter, Its time to see how they look when connected to the helmet. If I wanted the hoses to be connected perminantly, I would glue the wires into their receiving holes in the cylinders but as Tamer would like an easier time removing the helmet and posing the fig with the helmet off, I left them removable.
The last shot shows a front view of the hoses connected for the first time.
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3 more shots of how the hose mounts look and then a sunlight shot. It's a wrap folks!! Now it's final reveal time.....
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4 more sunlight shots. In the last one, I have posed the fig holding his helmet with the hoses attached, in the way he could be posed in Tamer's upcoming Hoth briefing dio.
I can't believe that Shawn is going to take this one from me. It will be like losing a pet, or a favorite car. :'( You are breaking my heart, buddy although I can't think of a better home to send him to. I am pretty proud of this one, my friend. I can see some progression in the paint apps since the last one. It's like I had to practice to remember some of the techneques used. I may even be forced to touch up the camo on the last fig to match this one. Tamer, this extra helmet, do you want it painted the same way but with camo on the brown parts? You did mention camo.
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TY, buddy! I knew that you would like it. It's kind of nice getting back to my other job for a change, as you said, Tamer.
Now lets get started on that extra helmet........
Using a casting of a hollow comic pack tie fighter pilot's helmet, the plan is to add accessories to make it look like an ATAT driver's helmet in shape but paint it up to work for the camo driver's body.
The casting that I chose had a couple of airbubble holes in it including one in a sensitave area on one front tip of his crest that I needed to address. As a cheat, I drilled a couple of wire lengths into these holes to fill them or, in the case of the front crest hole to make it easier to fill with paint. This one terminated where that front corner would normally be, that way, the paint build up in that negative area would be easier. These wire bits were trimmed to terminate flush with where the resin should have.
Unsurprisingly, the helmet didn't quite fit over the figure's head so some carving with the x-acto and wood chisel was required. There, the helmet fits the head how I like and it's time for the first coat of paint. See how that front corner filled in?
Now Tamer, If you are going to request little imperial symbols on his forehead, I might just pull some of my hair out.
That's not to say that I won't try it, I just don't know how good it will look. ::) I see that we have gained a couple of new members in that last few days. Don't be afraid to post here, guys.We would love to hear from you and I promise that we won't bite. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about anything that I'm doing here.
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Wanted to take a break from this subject for a moment to show some pics of a 12 inch Shocktrooper that I did one time. I told ReconSgt that I would find these pics after seeing his 12 inch 501st figure in his customs thread. I used Testors oil based paints on the figure plus I added the shockie's graphics to the box art with a red felt-tip pen and wrapped him back up in it. This was a year and a half to two years ago.
The ebayer's went wild for this one.
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6898/a22249ag1.jpg)
(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/61/a22250wf0.jpg)
(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4706/a22247iu2.jpg)
(http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6381/a22244mh7.jpg)
(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5517/a22243fl5.jpg)
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Submit my ideas to hasbro, huh? I think that they would laugh and shake their head.
Thanks for your comments, as always. Yeah, they liked the shockie. They always liked the custom carded stuff. It was around Christmas time and I had listed him to start at 99 cents. as I remember, I think the winning bid was around $80.
I can see that Tamer has been checking so I had better post an update.
After some comparrison I can see some more subtile differances than I had noticed before inbetween the ATAT helmet and the hollow comic pack tie pilot helmet. Since Tamer is such a die-hard atat driver fan, I changed my mind and decided to hollow out the factory driver helmet that was originaly on his driver. The factory plastic is softer than the resin and it didn't take much more than an hour to whittle out as much material as I dared so that this helmet fit like the other ones. Sure I had to start over again but I figured it might be quicker to paint, this way and I wouldn't have to modify it further. As for the resin pilot helmet, I might paint it up as well, that way, I could try a different paint scheme and Tamer could play musical helmets.
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Three shots of the paint work on the factory ATAT helmet, thus far. Some more detail work is required prior to applying the camo. As for the imperial symbols, to me, the red was too harsh to go with the brown so I covered them with a thin see-thru layer of paint and may try to re-do them with a black fine tip marker. If it doesn't work out, I will cover them up completley. Now the eyes are still black and I will take this helmet as close to completion as possible before asking Tamer his final decision on their color. Shawn, you had mentioned that you may perfer them black.
The pics don't do the helmet justice as I was unsure how this paint scheme would look until after I got it this far. In person,to me, it's gonna look sharper than I thought it would.
Thanks for the FP story, Tamer. you are too kind.
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I've been doing some painting on these two helmets and took a break to do another model kit review but took this one pic to show my progress.
The detail painting is done on the stock hollow atat driver helmet. All that remains is the camo on the brown parts.
Sorry Tamer, I tried the felt-tip pen thing on the imperial symbols but it was just too small. some water slide decals from a model kit would be perfict for this. The cast resin pilot helmet, I am painting pretty much with the same color scheme but opposite from the stock helmet as far as what parts are white and what parts are brown. I will leave the stock helmet's eyes black and paint the resin helmet's blue. That way, you don't have to choose. I will still have to find something to fab up the air hose receivers onto the back of the resin helmet.
More pics, later.
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Initial detail painting is complete on the two extra helmets. I gotta admit that I have reservations about camoing up these two latter ones but that is probably because I was a stickler to make their paint jobs as flawless as possible up to this point. Besides, these latter two have a bigger amount of brown and wouldn't look right on the fig unless they included the fig's camo. I have also painted the resin tie pilot helmet's eyes blue.
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Let the camo application begin......
Here are pics of the one tie pilot helmet after the camo scheme was applied. I have touched it up back and forth with the two camo colors and still need to touch it up a bit around the camo with the base brown color. That leaves one more helmet to camo, recieving holes drilled in the one's back cylindars, and air cylindars to be fabbed for the other.
How are we looking, Shawn?
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Here are a couple of shots with the resin tie pilot helmet posed on the fig for a camo comparrison. And then a couple of shots of the camoed stock ATAT driver helmet. Whew! I'm about camoed out.
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SWEETEST DAGGONE FIG I HAVE LAID EYES ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Now Tamer, take it easy there pal............
I appreciate it, my friend. I wanted to do this one to get you pumped up and fell in love with the project early on.
Wouldn't you rather I held onto this one and you take this snow camo Jar Jar that I've been working on instead???????
It was worth a try.
I didn't do any work on this project, today, but did take some pics of him wearing the third helmet, the factory hollowed out ATAT driver helmet.
Also, I thought you would like a pic of him wearing the first one and holding the other two.
Emporer's voice........"you want this, don't you?"
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Jonesing huh? I'm sorry about that. ;D Thanks you for your comments. I knew you would like the shot of him holding the helmets.
Got some shots here of the cylinder fabrication for the resin tie pilot helmet.
1st shot I have cut and cleaned up the ends of some lengths of sprue from the sprue runners from a plastic model kit to use as our cylinders.
2nd shot I have drilled holes in either end of these sprue pieces and glued wire lengths coming out of one end. These will be cut into short nubs to be a detail to the top of the mounted cylinder.
3rd shot the nubs are present on the top of the now mounted but unpainted cylinders. Here, you can see by comparing with the factory ATAT helmet that my fabbed cylinders are a bit bigger than the factory ones.
4th shot another comparrison shot.
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1st shot another comparrison shot
2nd shot showing how the figures hose ends look attached to the new helmet cylinders
3rd shot showing the attached hoses to the atat helmet for comparrison
4th shot the painting of the new cylinders is complete. this shot is a bit fuzzy but I painted the cylinders the same color grey as is used for the camo and painted the top and bottoms flat black with a ring of black extending a bit down the side from the top and bottom.
It's a wrap, folks! That's all she wrote for this custom. I may have to dig out my atst to pose him with for a pic, later.
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Needing something to work on since the Tamer project was wrapping up, I chose to dig out a ROTS AT-RT and driver that I had started to customize for another project and had abandoned, years ago.
I had started to paint this atrt and driver to have orange graphics for a group scene dio that I had planned a long time ago and had split up the componants of the planned dio for other projects.
My new plan is to possibly give this ATRT and driver a new Desert ops theme. I'm not sure how this will turn out but Iam working on it and I am hopeful. I have already planned on using a mix helmet for the driver as well as some other extra accessories.
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I've been working on this driver fig for the Desert ops AT-RT.
The combo hollow resin biker scout helmet with the nose and nozzles from the ATAT driver's face fit the neck nub of the ATRT drivers body almost perfict so I made no modifications there. I furredout part of his helmet behind where the cheek nozzles meet the bikerscout face with cut and shaped lengths of wire insulation glued in place and have painted the helmet and body a sandy yellow with dark brown detail lines and belts. The visor got the same light blue color, and the light brown part of his pauldron and one equipment bag on his belt were painted khaki. I may add another ammo pouch to him or perhaps a pair of microbinoculars on a strap.
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Got a couple of shots of the driver and his mount although the atrt doesnt look alot different. i have painted the seat brown and have detail painted his handle bars and equipment behind the seats a bit. Now, I am detailing the seams and cracks in the vehicles armor which I will soften and weather over eventually. I plan on hanging some extra equipment on the atrt including a painted gm backpack, a casted pistol holster on the cab under the handlebars on the right side, a bandolire with a grenade case and ammo pouch, possibly a strapped rifle. What else would this vehicle need?
It's obvious that I need to put together some kind of light box for taking my pics. I'm getting tired of those darker shots.
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Trying to clean out my camera's memory card, I came across these older custom fig shots.
These first four are of the first snow camo scorch that I did.
He got a large paper-mache cape, an elite forces pouch on a typing paper strap, a modified elite forces rifle, and an elite forces walkie talkie pegged to fit into his leg peg-hole.
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This first pic is another Scorch shot where you can see the strap on that elite forces rifle and the next three are of an ROTS AT-TE gunner fig with a removable AOTC helmet,paper mache waistcape and full cape, a fabbed pistol holster and a long rifle with a strap. These clones were done probably 3 years ago.
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I found a few shots of an utapu Commander Bacura that I did with a custom card. I painted the orange parts of the card image with acrylic paint and then touched it up with a fine tip black marker.
The last shot shows a color sketch that I made when I was deciding on this guy's paintjob.
(http://imgcash5.imageshack.us/Himg10/scaled.php?server=10&filename=a22193zx4.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=480)
(http://imgcash1.imageshack.us/Himg443/scaled.php?server=443&filename=a22194my3.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=480)
(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/3337/a22206ah4.jpg)
(http://imgcash6.imageshack.us/Himg10/scaled.php?server=10&filename=a22201og1.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=480)
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I have been working on painting this atrt driver's accessories a bit and trouble-shooting a camo scheme for him, today. The color pattern on his pauldron seems too dark and I may repaint it yellow and go with a lighter brown for the camo. On the opposite shoulder, I tried a 2 color pattern with light grey outlined with the medium brown and didn't like it either.
I also took a last shot of Tamer's AOTC ATAT driver as I shipped him out, today. "sniff" :'(
I'm going to miss that one.
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I didn't get too much time to work on this project today. I repainted the pauldron and one shoulder on the fig and mixed some lighter camo and applied it to the pauldron. I'm not sure if I should camo the rest of the fig or not. What do you guys think? I added a painted ammo pouch to the strap going down his chest. I also got a bit more detail painting done on the ATRT.
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I didn't get any custom work done, today as I was getting things ready for my upcoming Florida trip.
Searching in the archives today, I came across these two close-up shots of the desert trooper that I did for Customcloner. The bronze color on the airborne helmet visor and on the Veers helmet goggles is actually from the wifey's nail polish collection. I really like how the hand-painted reflection on those Veers goggles turned out.(http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6905/a11328jp4.jpg)
(http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1333/a11332av1.jpg)
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Here are a few shots of another older one. This jet pack trooper got the utapu orange paintjob as well.
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1958/a22181aw0.jpg)
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/7866/a22183pn1.jpg)
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2229/a22178rt9.jpg)
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1203/a22182tg1.jpg)
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Here's a sneak peek at that camo jet pack clone.
I made this drawing when I was troubleshooting the color schemes that I wanted to go with for that figure. You can see that the orange one is in there. I started this with a mechanical pencil, then used colored pencils, then touched it up with fine tip ink pens. You can see next to the signature that this was done in 2006.
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2076/a22227jx4.jpg)
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Alright, you don't have to twist my arm. Here are some pics of the camo version of the Jet-pack clone.(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5156/a22220pk0.jpg)
(http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3801/a22222pw4.jpg)
Here is an image of the doctored card insert with the clone. Once again, I used the same color acrylic paints that are on the fig and then, touched it up with a fine tip ink pen.
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1606/a22223vf1.jpg)
Here is a shot of the doctored up card back.
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6467/a22226rs1.jpg)
Here is a comparison shot with the painted clone next to the factory stock one.
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7232/a22234lz1.jpg)
Here is a shot of the card's front with the figure re-packed inside.
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/199/a22237pe6.jpg)
And, finally, here is a shot of that custom carded clone with two others that I did around the same time. It was Christmas time at the Clonehead house.
(http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/6269/a22238ma2.jpg)
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Hey Clint I don't mean to take anything off track here but I heard that you sometimes do commission work? If so I was wondering if you think you could tackle Commander Fox using a realistic styled Clone from EP2 as I don't like the animated Clone look?
Thanks!
(http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y125/masterfett/CommanderFox.jpg)
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Masterfett, I found a shot of his belt on wikia that shows the ammo boxes more to the side which is what I was afraid of. Oh well, it's still possible to butcher the belt/kama combo of a clone commander to make it look close. I might have to scratchbuilt the front of it but it shouldn't be too hard. This project is becomming more of a challenge all the time. That's ok, I like a challenge plus, it will give me a break from the camo clones that I always seem to do.
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A few quick pics while the glue dries. I've thought of a way to reinforce the bond of these visor pieces. I can bend a thin piece of wire to serve as a reinforcing member to the top and side pieces to be drilled into the helmet just under where these pieces meet the helmet. Where the wire is drilled into the helmet, it will be glued and the rest of the wire, in turn will be glued to the inside of the visor. When I paint it, it wont be seen and might make the outer edge look a little thicker which is what I think that it needs.
Hey, if it doesnt work, we can always go the resin route.
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u guys just spoke some alien language? fett ddiint get nothing ill jsut wait for pics
molding and customizing the mold sound so complicted im gunna master first cloning my fig then ill try customizing them :P
Alex, I am going to convert a regular legacy fig to make him look like commander Fox from the Clone Wars.
My man, you should just start with something simple for your first custom fig. Try painting over the graphics on an existing clone's paintjob. Like,for instance, paint over a clone commander's graphics to make them a different color. If the clone commander had green markings, try to paint over them exactily to make them blue.
Ive got some pics of my first clones that I will show you, tomorrow to explain what I'm talking about.
Masterfett, believe it or not, I'm going to be able to pull this visor off after all. After trimming the glued top piece closer to the helmet to get the correct shape, I then cut pieces for the sides and glued them on. First I cut the piece the right width and angle to be a correct distance and angle from the clone's earpiece while leaving the rest long and glued it into place. After the glue dried, I cut the front angle and the bottom angle from the side piece while it was mounted. It's easier to make the cuts that way as your holding the whole figure with one hand while making the last two cuts with the other rather than trying to hold that little piece and cut it at the same time. Then I just repeated with the other side piece. I have reinforced where the pieces meet each other and the helmet 2-3 times with super glue and it is pretty strong. I still might reinforce with wire, I don't know at this point. I've also got the clone's kama cut off and have painted the primary layer of white over his old yellow graphics.
How are we looking so far?
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One more shot of this guy with his scratch built visor in place. It's the bottom shot.
clonetrooper360, Alex, this is what you should try for your first custom. Look at the two purple clonetroopers that I did, below. One is a clonecommander figure where I just painted over his existing markings with purple paint. I think on that one, I added some little black smudges to simulate carbon scoring from battle damage.
(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/9497/a22007pq9.jpg)
In the next shot, I did the same thing with an rots ATTE gunner, except I added some markings that you would see on a shocktrooper to his arms, legs, and helmet. It takes some practice to develope some basic painting skills as far as figures go and the best way to learn is to start simple like this. These two were among probably the first 10 or 15 custom clones that I ever did.
(http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5319/a22019ut2.jpg)
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Glad to help, Alex.
I have been painting on this Fox figure and have some update shots for you to see. Any touchups have yet to be done in white.
In the first shot, you can see from the glare that the mixed testors acrylic dark red is drying too glossy. I dug through the paint collection and found a bottle of Pactra red that I mixed darker which drys much more flat. I have used this mix for all of my paintwork since then as you can see by the less shine look of the dried paint in the remaining shots.
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Three more shots of the paintjob thus far, and the same shot of Fox that Masterfett supplied, for color comparison.
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Well, while the paint was drying, I started work on Fox's kama. I cut the two downword straps off of the front and removed those ammo boxes that need to be repositioned. I then shaved the next two boxes off leaving the kama above the holster so that the ammo boxes could be remounted there at a lower height to try and match our reference pic. Also, I got the other lower leg and foot painted. I have been touching up back and forth with either color so that the graphics on the two legs match. I'm getting closer to that inevitable chest design. I will paint the markings on the upper arm pieces first.
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Fox is looking sweet Clint, I'm drooling at the sight of those pics! :o He is really coming together nicely, although as you said the tough part is still yet to come!
I do know one thing when it comes time to ship him out you're going to have a rough time letting this guy go I think, of course I'm sure you'll want to do one for your self now!
Thank you, Masterfett!! Yes, I have that happy spark feeling about this one. You know what I mean? It's like a growing feeling of accomplishment and creativity that keeps me coming back for more.
Yes, I will have a hard time letting this one go, just like alot of other customs that left before him and yes, I would want to do one for myself but I always say that and yet, never get around to it because there is always some new project that appears and excites me enough to make me forget about those re-do projects.
wow sweet fox!!!!!! but i have one question in terms of all the supplie that u buy to mold and paint etc. in the end does it pay off to customize ur own or to buy it?
Thanks, Alex. Read what I told Masterfett above and you can find the answer to your question. I'm not in this for the money although I have made enough selling custom figures and casted parts over the years. It's the feeling of being able to do this yourself that makes it worth it, to me. Sure, I love seeing other people's stuff but I have never bought a custom figure of someone Else's. I would rather try to make it myself, instead. Sure, I have traded parts with Customcloner before and even traded to him to get some of my custom stuff back that I had sold to him, that I had been missing.
I have always been creative and enjoyed doing stuff like drawing, painting, and putting models together so it was a natural direction to follow to take my love of Star Wars collectibles one step further and customize some stuff. I absolutely love doing it and love the feedback that I get when I show it.
It's cool being able to make a figure that you always wanted and that has no match anywhere in the world.
Yes, Alex, it's absolutely worth it. Every penny. It's one thing to have a cool collection that you bought. But it's entirely a different level of coolness to have a cool collection that you made.
Anyway, enough of my rant. How bout some update pics?
Rather than put it off any longer, I dove right into painting the emblem on Fox's chest. Now while this task is a chore, sure, it's going better than I thought that it would. I'm taking baby steps towards this emblem as it requires alot of patience and a steady hand. I'm so glad that I had done two or three figs prior to trying this.Otherwise, I don't think that my painting skills could handle it. I haven't had to do many touchups on what I have finished of the chest emblem and there is still a lot of it to do.
The biggest challenge is getting the viscosity of the paint on the brush right as well as the amount of paint on the brush and getting the shape of the bristles when loaded with paint just right.
I'm leaving for a little 5-day vacation on Wed morning and I know that I won't be done with this project yet. I'll bet that I will be thinking about it the whole time that I'm gone.
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Damn, Masterfett, you took the words out of my mouth while I was writing that post. Plus you missed the update.
These four shots are at the same moment of completion in the chest insignia. I was just having a hard time with how the pics were showing the fine details, so I took several with different lighting.
The pics are not quite doing the fig, justice.
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Three more shots for tonight. I'm getting closer to getting the hardest part of this custom done. And oh, what a relief that will be. The body in the image that I am going by is a bit elongated due to it's cartoonish nature and I am having to take some libertys as far as the positioning of some of these graphics but I am liking it, so far.
I've posted the reference pic again so you can see what I'm talking about. See on the reference pic how the recessed part of his belly armor is so close to the raised parts of his chest area? On the actual fig, that recessed belly part is positioned lower.
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Thanks again for the Front Page props, Tamer!! Picasso, I'm not. I still have both of my ears. ::)
I'm gearing up to go on my trip tomorrow so I don't have a lot of time to work on this, today but here is a 2 pic update of the work that I did on him, this morning.
In the second shot, I have placed the reworked kama on him. This kama still requires repainting and I have to scratchbuild the front of the belt but that shouldn't be real hard. I will finish the body's markings, first.
I'm just guessing where this graphic ends above the beltline as I cant find a good shot of it. I may take it a little higher. At this point, some little touchups may be required to make everything look even.
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Excellent job on the chest markings Clint!
My attempt would have been very different, I do not have the patience for the very fine detail work and it would have wound up uneven. I'm totally excited how he's turning out, once this is finished I have another Idea for you to ponder, until then have a nice vacation!
Thanks, buddy!! I'm excited also. If it wasn't for my vacation, I would be wrapping this one up by this weekend.
I painted the stripes from the chest insignia going around to his back, tonight. I had to touch up the stripe on the left side twice so that it would look even. Also, I mixed up some dark flat grey to repaint his kama. That brush you see in the kama shot is the one that I am using for all of the detail painting on this fig. Sometimes, I am having to paint strokes that are no more than 1/32nd of an inch wide. The only body markings I have left to paint are the ones on the back of his upper arms. After that, I'll mount the kama, scratchbuild the front of his belt, built and mount the visor light and antennae, and then it should be done.
Well guys, I'm off to Florida. I'll be back on Monday.
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Got a slight pic update on Fox, here. I stayed up last night to work on him for an hour or so. I wanted to wrap up the markings on the backs of his upper arms. The best referance for these that I have found so far is in this pic from the clone wars visual companion. The one arm has a strap and square pouch that is not on the referance pics arm, so I painted around it and might paint the strap and pouch as well if masterfett wishes. I'm not satisfied with the back of the right arm even though I've done it twice. The side looks fine but the back is bugging me.I will have to try it again. The upper part of that factory paint is flawed where the black part starts so I will touch it up later. I also painted the kama a dark german tamiya grey and that part of his belt dark red.
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I also got the shoulder straps to his chest pieces painted dark red.
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Well, I worked on Fox last night and this morning and things are progressing along. I got the black undercovering areas touched up, brought the red lines in the belly areas of the front logo down to the beltline, and finially got the markings on the back of the arms how I wanted. The elbow plate on the backside of the right arm is cocked to one side and isnt straight with the other elbow plate and that was throwing me off. I wish the articulation would have been above the elbow on this fig.
Now for the kama and belt. I decided to cut the remaining area where the belt will go to the remounted holsters out of the way so that the fabricated belt would have a smoother transition where it met the factory kama. I then used the trusty pinvise to drill holes on either side of the retention ring in the inside of the kama to accept a length of craft wire that will hold the kama together on the figs body as well as provide support for the belt that we will scratchbuild next.
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In pic one, I am measuring and bending to fit the length of craft wire.
In pic two, the wire is now trimmed to length and glued into the receiving holes and the kama is now unremovable but still spins at the waist like it used to.
In pic three, I am cutting strips from a build a droid's packaging to scratchbuild the belt with.
in pic four, the first strip is measured for length, and mounted with superglue, at both ends and in the middle to either side of the kama and to the supporting wire. It may take two or three layers of these strips to bring the belt to the desired thickness. The detailed box shapes at the front of the belt will be made of clippings of the same materiel.
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Four more shots of the belt making process.
In the first shot, I am gluing on the second of three strips to make the base part of the belt. The fisrst strip was plastic and the second two were cut from the little card board pad that a recess Peanut butter cup sits on in it's package. After these three layers, I cut four identical squares from the build a droid package plastic to be the two squares on either side of the belt clasp pieces and glued them on leaving a space in between. I then cut another piece twice as long and scribed the clasp detail using a hobbie knife and glued it on. I then, reinforced all of the pieces with two drops, one top and one bottom of superglue apiece. I had trouble shot the sizes for these squares by marking the seperations on a lower layer of the belt, some of which can be seen at the box seperations. Gettiing those little squares into the right place and glued was a tedious chore and I think that it's time for a break.
All I got left to do is paint the belt and paint the two straps going down to the holsters and it's back to the helmet details for me.
We are getting close, here.
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Well, I got the belt painted with a wash of black in the cracks and touched up the grey and white paint on the kama.
I will fab and install the helmet antenna, next.
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Looks Fabulous Clint!! :o Can't wait too see him complete!
BTW you were commenting about your next project earlier and I had an extention of the Fox one, but have been unable to locate good reference shots of yet for you. Basically a couple of his troops but they are slightly different, these are all I could find.
(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/a/aa/Coruscant_Guard_1.jpg/283px-Coruscant_Guard_1.jpg)
(http://i9.ebayimg.com/04/i/001/34/55/1f7f_1.JPG)
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Well, I didn't have much left to do on the Fox figure so I finished it tonight.
I chose some fine craft wire, some bigger guage wire insulation, and the trusty pinvise and commenced to fab and mount up his helmet antenna.
I cut a length of wire and bent a 90 into it and then cut a length of wire insulation and fed it to the corner of the bend. I then drilled a hole into the helmet at the recessed part of the ear piece and trimmed the insertion end of the bent wire so that it would penetrate but not pass into the inside of the helmet. A drop of superglue to insert the wire and another drop on the outside where the insulation met the helmet and it was mounted. I actually did this twice as I did not like how far the antenna protruded horizontally. Let me tell you, we were concerned about how well the parts that were superglued would adhere to this factory flexable helmet, they adhered well as I had a bugger of a time getting the first antenna back off again. No more worries about that.
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Next, I chose a larger guage of copper insulated wire for the visor light. I trimmed a proper length of wire and insulation and then trimmed some of the insulation off of the end of the piece and bent a 90 right where the insulation ended. I then, took the pin vise and drilled a hole down through the top of the visor on the right side for the uninsulated part of the wire that bends down would insert. I trimmed that end to a length so that it would not penitrate past the bottom side of that visor and glued it into place.
After the glue dried, I painted the antenna black, and I painted the visor light black where the thin piece of wire bends down into the visor, light grey along the barrel of the light, and white on the end where the bulb is to simulate a lighted visor light.
A little touch up painting was required on the visor where the excess superglue made things glossy and to the helmet where the antenna was mounted.
In the one shot, you can see the trimmed light piece in my palm to the left of the piece of wire it came from.
In the one shot, you see the same piece in my tweezers ready to mount. When dropped on the carpet, this piece proved a challenge to find.
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One more shot of the helmet with unpainted accessories.
One shot of them with paint. It's hard to make out the detail on the visor light because of it's size. It looks better in person.
two shots of the completed figure. Remember, you can click on these shots to make them bigger.
It's a wrap, folks. Another one Done!!!!!!
I will take a few more final reveal shots, tomorrow.
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Oops, page change......
Here are a couple of Fox shots that i took last night. I will take some more final reveal shots, today including an outside shot or two. Nothing beats natural light.
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Alright, how about some brighter shots of this Fox figure?
It's final reveal time, folks!
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more Fox shots.
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These first two shots were taken outside on my deck.
The third shot shows a comparrison inbetween Fox and the 327th Star Corps fig that he was customized from.
The fourth shot shows Fox hanging with his buddies on my custom fig shelf.
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OK, it's time to move on to the next project or two.
First off, it has been requested that I do one or two of Fox's support troops, the Coruscant Guard, Legacy style, following this pic from wikia.com, for referance.
(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/a/aa/Coruscant_Guard_1.jpg/283px-Coruscant_Guard_1.jpg)
A natural starting point for this custom would be the Legacy clone trooper officer fig that I opened and reviewed (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=584.0) earlier today.
The first step is naturally to paint all of his armor with acrylic white to give the red markings that will come later something friendly to stick to.
And it has begun.
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To keep things interesting, I am starting another custom at the same time. It has also been requested that I re-do a copy of a custom that I have in my personal collection and made over a year ago.
We are going to make this Saga Jango Fett figure on the right look like my customized snow mando figure on the left.
The first step here is to paint all of his undercoverings the same Floquil dark flat brown that I used for the snow mando and the AOTC ATAT driver.
And it has begun, again.
Both these projects could go fairly quickly with the trickey part of the Coruscant Guard being the funky red graphics and belt mod and the trickey part of the Snow Mando being the fabrication of his papermache cape with simulated hood detail. The question is, which one will be done first? It's like a race in between two customs.
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Work left me too pooped to do much custom work tonight. I did get the lighter brown color painted onto the snow mando's holsters, belt , straps, and boots. I think it's wild how the same brown on the two figure's undercoverings looks so much darker next to the white armor plates of the old snow mando compared to how it looks next to the silver armor plates of the new one.
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Is there any chance you guys can help me with a backside shot?
The only image I can find is of the actual TCW figure hope that helps, I've not been able to find any CGI reference shots.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/valentin_j99/Review_05Sep08/YodaCG_BP05.jpg)
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Is there any chance you guys can help me with a backside shot?
The only image I can find is of the actual TCW figure hope that helps, I've not been able to find any CGI reference shots.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/valentin_j99/Review_05Sep08/YodaCG_BP05.jpg)
that does help, Masterfett. thanks for that. the markings on the arms don't quite resemble those shown in the actual CW movie. Interesting.
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Work still has me pooped out this week but I did manage to get a little painting done tonight.
Looks like we are going to follow the images from the actual animated character as far as the red markings go, more closely than the actual CW figure except for the areas where I can't see, like the elbow plate. That way, they will conform more closely with how I did the Rex fig. Kinda funny how Hasbro's accuracy in this figs markings could have been less flawed.
Anyway, I didn't get much done and what is here may still require some touchup. I got the markings on his head including that thin red line that wraps all the way around, did the markings on his shoulder plates, and the markings on his knee plates as well. I'll do the lower legs, next, then the arms, and then the chest.
And, yes, those are DC heroes PJ bottoms that I'm wearing.
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Finally, I get a day off where I can do some custom work.
I touched up the markings on the forehead and thickened up the markings on the shoulder pads, a bit.
Certain indiscrepencies of this body are starting to remind me of the same indiscrepencies in the Fox figure's base body. Why, for instance, is the one elbow plate molded cocked to one side while the other one is straight? Why is the one knee pad molded cocked to one angle when the other one is straight up and down? And, the most obvious, look at the back of the lower legs. Notice how the recessed area on the one side is set so much lower from the top of that armor piece than the other side? My red stripe there makes it that much more obvious. I will have to figure out a way to hide that, somehow. I had the same problem with the Fox figure.
I started on the markings at the lower leg and elbow pad areas.
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After some touch up, the lower leg markings look better but I might have to work on them some more. The markings on the back of the elbow plates look about how I want them.
That length difference from the recessed area to the top on the back of the legs still buggs me.
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I'm making some more progress with the painting of this Coroscant gaurd fig.
I went ahead and touched up the markings on the front of the lower legs and using the completed Fox figure's paint as a guide, I started work on his chest graphics.
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I carried the chest markings around to the back using the Fox figure as a guide.
Since I was working with Model Master flat white, I went ahead and got the primary layer of white paint on some of the snow mando's armor plating, also.
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Got yet more painting done on this fig.
I got the strip going down from the chest symbol but havent painted it extending down into the belly area. This figure has the ball type waist and when the figures upper body is facing forward, the lower belly area doesnt line up to the center. I might paint the lower part of the stripe off center in this area so that it lines up with the upper part.
I painted the markings on the back of the upper arm area and swept them to the sides to terminate in front of the elbow as shown in the Clone Wars visual guide. I noticed the graphics in the CW factory figure don't look like this.
I also noticed that the graphics shown on the CW factory figure's lower forearms below the elbow are not shown in the examples in the CW visual guide but I will probably add them anyway.
Notice how that one elbow plate on the right is molded turned to the side a bit.
I have a small touchup or two to make to the chest symbol that you can't see from these shots.
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This figure is starting to shape up, I think.
There are a few touchups that I still need to make on the parts that I have painted so far. And I have to touch up the factory black paint on his undercoverings.
I will wait to do the mods to his belt until I get a second matching guard this far along.
He does look pretty good posed next to Fox.
What do you guys think?
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Thanks for that,Lighuen. And you can leave out the "sir". Just call me Clint or CH. It's interesting to see so many takes on a Legacy version of Rex out there already. I noticed that none of them had altered the belt, though. I am juiced now at the prospect of doing one but it will have to wait for a bit until I finish up another project or two. For me, it's never a good thing to have too many projects going on at once as it tends to intimidate me a bit.
I painted a little more on Coroscant guard #1 and finished his belly stripe as well as painted some similar graphics on the back of his lower forearms as shown in the pics of the CW figure version's pictures. I also did some touchups to the graphics on his helmet and chest logo areas.
All that's left on this one is to touch up the factory black undercoverings and alter and paint the belt.
Now it's time to open up and start primary paintwork on Coroscant guard #2.
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Got a few more pics to post, here.
I touched up the black areas on Guard #1 and posed him next to his partner, another clone trooper sargent, from the Saga line, this time. I was interested to notice that his factory paintjob appears to be by hand where the Legacy version was all sprayed.
In pic two, you can see that I have givin Guard #2 his primary flat white paint job.
In pic three, you can see that I have started his markings on the shoulders, head, and chest but havn't touched them up, yet.
In pic 4 you will notice that I still manage to work on the snow mando, when I get time. I have painted more of his armor white, and have started adding a wash of flat black at the outer edges of his armor, at the inside corners of his gauntlets, his holsters, and to the seams and outside edges of his ammo belt.
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I thought you guys might enjoy a couple of shots showing me working on a custom from a different perspective.
This is usually how I like to detail paint my figures. On the floor, work real close, contact lenses out, looking over the top of my glasses, with my faithful furry companion either keeping me company or in the way
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Ok folks, I don't have a lot of progress to show but I got a new camera today, and I need to experiment a bit to see how the pics turn out.
I worked on touch ups to the chest emblem of Guard#2 today as well as added that triangle piece to the bottom.
After months, my favorite detail brush crapped out on me in the middle of this detail work so things went kind of slow.
I picked up a new detail brush at Wallyworld today and I will try it out, a little later.
Now for some pics.
I have posed Gaurd#1 and #2 together so you can guage how closely these painted-on details match each other on both figures.
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These were shot in a medium light area, using a macro setting without a flash where with my old camera, I would be using a normal setting with a flash and still get darker shots. I can't wait to see how this camera preforms shooting in my light-box.
The true test of how well this camera's macro function works will become evident in the last shot, here.
My old camera would never be able to focus this close.
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I still want some snowey walker pics from you, Shawn, when you get a chance.
I took these shots, today, of the progress that I made last night on the one guard on the right. I painted his lower leg markings which still require some more touch-ups and the arrow shaped markings on his elbow plates.
After that, I still have the markings on the backs of his upper and lower arms to do. Then, we can work on modification to their belts.
Progress is coming along on the snow mando figure, slowly but surely.
And, I'm still not dialed into how the camera's settings work best, yet.
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I will tell you one thing Clint, you are the most level headed artist I have ever worked with.
LOL! Thanks buddy. Artists are usually a bit excitable or grumpy, arn't they?
After our chat, I stayed up a bit and wrapped up the painting of the red markings on Guard #2. I still need to repaint his flat black underclothing to clean up Hasbro's paint job and to cover up any of my misstrokes.
I couldn't resist taking a shot of Fox with his Guards at this point. I will try to work on their belts, tonight or tomorrow.
I also painted a bit more on the snow mando. I have some more of those thin black detail lines to add to the leg area but I did clean up and tighten the black lines that I had painted on his gauntlets to the desired effect.
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Earlier in the thread, I had told Masterfett that I had painted up a few Pre-hasbro shock troopers some years ago that were a bit rough looking. Well, I was digging around in the pic archives of my PC's hard drive yesterday, and came up with these shots of a blue shockie, and an orange shockie and his custom card.
These shots could be 3 years old.
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/6645/a22040.jpg)
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5897/a22042.jpg)
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/267/a22131.jpg)
(http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3573/a22132.jpg)
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/461/a22136.jpg)
Shawn, please dont put the blue one on the custom page as he could be more pretty. I don't know about the orange one either. Perhaps his custom card shot.
The custom clones that I do now don't appear nearly this rushed and I'm a stickler for trying to work with their paintjobs until they are as perfict as possible, to me.
Folks,It just goes to show that like with anything else, you improve with practice.
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How bout some more current pics?
I wanted to get some work on the two guard's belts done today so I started by marking on the factory stock belt where I wanted to relocate the square ammo boxes to using a mold line on either leg as a reference.
I then cut off the belt, cut off the boxes, and then cut the belt to the mark that I had made.
To rejoin the boxes to the shortened belt, I drilled receiving holes on either side of the belt into the inner ring that rides at the recessed part of the figure's waist. I also drilled receiving holes where that end of each box would meet the shortened belt and used some thin gauge craft wire and superglue to pin the boxes to the belt, being careful to position them in a straight manner.
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After repositioning the ammo boxes, I drilled one receiving hole on the new inside end of each box in the same inner ring area to receive a wire that will wrap around the rest of the recessed waist area of the figure and terminate in these drilled holes and form a frame to support the front part of the belt that we will scratchbuild, next.
I repeated all of these steps for the second guard's belt, positioned the belts back on the figures, trimmed the front waist wires to fit, and then glued them to set of receiving holes on either belt.
All that remains is to scratchbuild the front parts of the belts, and do some painting there.
It's coming along, Tamer, thanks.
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Ok, cutting strips of the build a droid plastic packing, once again, I decided on two layers of the plastic to make up the missing length and thickness of the belt. I superglued the first layer on and then measured and marked where the separations in the belt would be with fine tip pen. I then used the trusty hobby knife and scribed in the cracks to the top layer of belt. I glued the top layer in place and then added a wash of flat black to the cracks to add definition. Afterwords some touch up in flat white brings us to the almost complete look in the last pic. All that remains there, is to paint the dark red onto the square ammo packs and that one will be done.
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Well, I got the belts done and detail painted and I painted the dark red ammo boxes plus, I touched up the factory black paint on the one Guard.
I think I'm done with these, finally.
I'm still figuring out my light settings on the camera but I sure do love it's macro setting. There is no way that my old camera would ever be able to focus on something this close.
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Two more pics of the guards. I will take some final reveal pics of these guys with Fox, tomorrow.
One more pic of the more refined snow mando. He got touchup paint on his white armor plates today as well as some more black detail lines at the cracks. I have a little more white touchup to do on his left leg and still have to do touchups with the two brown colors. Notice that helmet that he is holding. It is a mix of resin helmets of Hollow JangoFett and Galactic Marine. I made that one for my snow mando but never use it and plan to include it as a pack-in with this fig. I haven't done any more painting on this fig's regular mando helmet and will work on it, tomorrow.
I picked up some new detail brushes at hobby lobby yesterday and wanted to show you one of them.
This is a Atlas brand 10/0 red sable brush and boy is it a tight one! I could have used this when I started the Fox figure, for sure.
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OK, time for some final reveal shots of Fox and his support troopers...................
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More final reveal pics.
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I wish that i could have taken some of these gunship shots outside but the weather is kind of crappy, today.
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more shots.
Wow, I'm glad to be done with these and I'm ready to move onto something else.
How bout you guys?
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I told you about those plastic astromech inserts that I used to customize the other day. Well, I was digging around in some old picture files tonight and found some pics of two of them. This was a candy topper in the shape of R2 that was the perfict length to fit into the droid hole on a ROTS jedi star fighter or in this case, the arc-170 and not stick out too far like a real r2 figure would. I had painted up this one and cut off his dome but engineered it so that it could be held together and turn but be removable by a scratchbuilt peg system. I then filled both the body and the dome with wiring and other details so that it could be posed in a battle damaged state.
In the first two pics, I was simulating battle damage caused by a laser blast by incorperating aluminum foil strips and the light from a laser pointer to create the effect. Man, the ebayers loved it.
the last pic shows a different one that I am searching for more pics of.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7397/feb011.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4825/feb013.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3025/feb015.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9320/feb016.jpg)
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I have several things to show you tonight.
First up, I swapped out kamas on the legacy arc trooper with the one on the arc commander and painted the piping red so that it would go with the commander's red paintjob.
I did this because I am using the trooper to make a Captain Rex figure but needed the commander's holstered kama also for the Rex figure.
The last shot shows the arc trooper, stripped of his kama, and pauldron, with flat white paint covering his yellow markings. here, his removable helmet looks a little large for the body but I'm confident that the bulk of the Kama and the yet to be made pauldron will take away from this.
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I started painting the blue markings on Rex's body using some testors glossy blue that I had handy but couldnt stand the shine so I dug around in the paint stores, downstairs, and came up with some Pactra flat royal blue and painted over the glossy stuff. "I found some flat yellow also, Fett"
The first shot shows the glossy, the second shows the flat prior to touchups in white and the last two show after touchups in white.
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Ofcourse your eye is sharper than mine, but I think the helmet looks pretty good, not too big at all. Course I have regular vision, not supervision like you have Clint!
Supervision is what I do at work, or what I have after drinking too much. It looks a little bloated to me but wont after we get his accessories on, trust me. yes that was a clone commander pauldron that you seen in the lower left of that shot in the last post. The plan is to keep the right side shoulderpads and possibly scratchbuild the rest. I might leave the ring around the neck for support. We will see. Also, I might extend that optical device because as you will see in this photo from the CW visual guide that Rex's seems to protrude taller from his head than this fig's does.
In the last two shots, a couple of posts ago, I shared some pics of a couple of those R2 inserts that I told you about. Well I dug one of those out and was painting on it, today. See that marked and notched area onthe lower left of the body? That area needs to be cut out to clear a piece of framework that is in the droid hole in the ROTS JSF body so that this droid will fit down to the correct looking height.
After I cut this notch, I will dig out my JSF and take a pic to show you.
Thanks for the front page story on the Fox team, Shawn. I still want to take an outside shot of em in that gunship.
Does anyone have a pic of Rex with his helmet off? I want to get his hair color right.
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Well, so much for the droids, I guess.
I worked on Rex, a little, tonight. I touched up the blue markings to his arms especially in the forearm control area.
I also took my first stab at his helmet's jeg's eyes. I have touchups in white to complete around the eyes and on the entire left side of the helmet so this is not what it will look like, Per-se.I will touch up those eyes and try to make them identical to each other and then take another look at it.
Some of these pics are dark, I was in a hurry.
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That optical device on Rex's helmet is bugging the hell out of me. After I get this helmet painting squared away, I am going to modify that thing.
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Does anyone have a pic of Rex with his helmet off? I want to get his hair color right.
It's basically the same color as the Animated figure, he has blond hair.
(http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/1/15317/504452-rex_unmasked_super.jpg)
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Ahh, another early day.
Here are the pics of his Jeg eyes after I touched em up, a bit. I need to re-do the eyebrows and alter one of the eyes so that it more closely matches the other.
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I'm not sure I understood your meaning, there, Lighuen.
Well, in an attempt to match the right jeg's eye, I have repainted the left one at least two or three times. Wow! that was more tedius of a chore than i thought it was going to be. The eyebrows/wrinkles may need to be reworked again but I tire of working on that part right now so I moved on to giving this clone a harcut. I had to shave off some of the plastic to emulate Rex's close cropped style of hair cut and he is starting to remind me of Proffesor x, now
I will have to mix some paint to get his blond hair color and more than likely will have to mix some matching skin tone to touch up around the hair.
I've been thinking some more about the pauldron which will take some scratchbuilding and some modification to the clone commander's pauldron. I think that I will modify the helmet optical devicee after I get the hair looking right and then move on to the pauldron.
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OK, if at first you don't succede, try try again, right? Tamer always said that I was a stickler for details.
first pic shows helmet with old and new jeg eyes over each other. I just matched what I had and scooted them in.
Second shot shows new inboard eyes with old outboard eyes covered up.
In the third shot, I have thrown some blond hair color onto the head but havent touched it up yet.
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Let's get away from those darn jeg's eyes for a bit, shall we?
I had been putting off working on his pauldron as I knew that it might be a trickey chore but I need to get it out of the way. Let's try something new, shall we?
In the first shot, you can see that I have touched up Rex's hairline with some paint mixed to match his skintone. In that shot, he is wearing the trimmed down clone commander pauldron. I wasn't sure which side I wanted to face forward and hadn't cut off the angled left shoulder pads as of yet.
In the second shot, I have trimmed off the left pads, and have marked where I want to cut the right side pads to more match the length and angle as shown in shot 3 The existing plate seperation cracks will be filled in later.
I will also have to cut a new notch at the end of each angle where the new plate length ends and drops to the lower material of the pauldron.
How come every time I find a Rex picture, his Jeg eyes look different?
In shot 4, I have chose an angled area of the plastic packaging of a titanium to cut for the remaining front and back pieces of his pauldron.
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Prior to cutting the titanium plastic, I had held the trimmed remaining pauldron piece next to the plastic and kind of traced the shape that I needed with a fine tip pen. I then, cut it out large, trimmed it to fit the corrisponding side of the pauldron and then superglued it into place. This plastic is stiff but semi moldable which helps matters as you can kind of shape it to fit. After the glue dries, I will trim the outside of this new plastic to look right and then start to fab the individual plates to wrap around and sit on top of this plastic.
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After the glue dried, I tried the piece onto the fig's body, marked where I needed to trim some more on the outside edge, and marked where I wanted the separate pieces of armor to lay.
I marked and cut some paper using adds from my paper, to serve as the individual armor pieces for the scratchbuilt part of the pauldron. I felt that paper would be thick enough and would still easily conform to the curved pauldron piece.
Sizing and cutting these pieces was a tedious chore. I glued these paper pieces to the pauldron using a mix of water and white glue. That way, the wet paper would more easily conform to the curvature of the pauldron.
Last two shots, time for a final test-fit before I paint anything on the pauldron.
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One more shot of the final fit, and two shots of the new pauldron with the stock seperations in the plates of the shoulder area filled in with paper strips and white glue. I have painted the cracks in-between armor plates and around the outside edge, flat black.
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Here are some shots of the complete pauldron with paint.
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A couple more shots. Don't mind that grey paint in the recessed cheek areas or on the figure's belly area. That was an idea that wasn't going to pan out and I will repaint those areas white.
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Got one last update for tonight on this fig.
First, here's a pauldron shot with out his helmet on.
Now, I have been telling you that the helmet's optical device has been bugging me. I intend to replace it using a thin guage piece of wire and part of a resin-cast Jango Fett rangefinder that I had in the basement, part of a ruined Mando helmet.
Cutting off the stock flexable rangefinder was easy enough but thinning down it's square shaped base was a little more challenging. Working with resin is so much easier.
After I got the mount thinned, I drilled a hole down into it with the trusty pinvise, trimmed and cleaned up the optical end of the resin rangefinder from that partial helmet, which also got a hole drilled up into it.
I cut me a length of wire, glued the bottom part, first, then trimmed the top part to a taller height before gluing that resin optical part onto it.
There, that's the height I was looking for. The optic part is closer to the right shape, and the stock is now the right thickness and shape. a round rod rather than a square tube.
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Darn! I changed the page again. Make sure and look back a page or two to see how I made that pauldron.
Four more shots of the new rangefinder after some grey paint and some white touchups to the helmet. I had painted over the grey color that I had painted in the recessed areas of the helmet's cheeks, leaving a thin line of grey twards the top of the recessed area emulating a shadow and forcing the look of more depth.
I also added some thin yellow hashmarks above the clone's right eye like Rex has.
He is shaping up, folks. It's time to move onto modding his kama, next.
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Not much of an update today, folks. Work has been too much of a bear.
It's time to work on Rex's kama.
In the first shot, here is the stock kama with some of the red piping painted over with a primer coat of flat white.
In the second shot, I have taken the sprue cutters and trimmed the lower front straps of the belt off and cut the square ammo boxes off. I also trimmed the belt back to the sides to accommodate the relocation of the square ammo boxes.
If all works out, I should be able to wrap up this fig, this weekend.
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Well, I got up early this morning and started working on Rex's kama.
I broke out the Tamya dark grey acrylic and repainted the outside of the kama and finished primer coating the belts and piping with flat white.
I trimmed out the sides where the ammo boxes were to be repositioned and drilled and glued some fine craft wire to serve as pins to hold the ammo boxes in place. After drilling and gluing the ammo boxes home, I broke out the blue and painted the kama's piping.
I need to touch up the grey and white a bit and then it will be time to put it back on Rex and start the scratchbuilding process of the belt.
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Got time for a quick update before my trip to Wallyworld.
I touched up the grey paint on the inside and outside of the kama and touched up the white paint on the belts.
I drilled a couple of holes into the mounting ring just inside of the relocated ammo boxes and cut a piece of craft wire to glue the kama back around his waist tightly. As before, this wire will become a support for the scratchbuilt belt assembly and the whole kama will be able to spin around his waist like from the factory.
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I found this, my favorite pic of the desert camo heavy gunner in my ebay picture manager and didnt think that I had ever posted it before, so I threw it in, tonight.
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I hear you on rereleasing the GM, buddy. Yeah, the heavy gunner fig was always one of the favorites that I shouldn't have let go. I may have to do another one like him, one of these days.
I got some update pics for the Rex fig, here.
In the first shot, I have built the belt using three layers of plastic strip cut from a build a droid parts container, and have measured and marked where the seperation lines in the belt are to be using a fine tip mechanical pencil.
Where I cut the ammo boxes from their stock position, I was left with a gap on either side where the top of the kama should meet the belt. I have patched these areas using paper clippings and strips of the same plastic glued into place.
In shots 2-4 you can see that I have painted these patch areas, etched the seperation lines and painted the belt, and I even painted that one arm strap that Lighuen had pointed out. I decided to leave the outer part of the boxes hung on that strap white but painted the recessed inner part of those two boxes for details sake.
There is a correction I should probably make to the bottom of his two jeg eyes that I havent gotten around to yet where the bottom line on each side starts from the outside aiming in but dies out before reaching the inside lines that stretch up.
Should I do this? Yes or no?
As with a lot of other projects, twards the end, I am ready to work on something new.
I am ready to work the Snow Mando a little closer twards completion, have a CW skinny clone to paint up for ebay fodder, and need to get started on that contest prize mando that I had mentioned.
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Looks like I'm pretty close to a final reveal on the Rex fig but first, I had made a pre production troubleshooting sketch last night on the upcoming ATAT walker project and I promised Tamer that I would show them when I drew em.
I still have several sketches to do just to work out some engineering questions on this project and probably need to ink this one so that it will be easier to see but here is a basic top view of our walker with a rear mounted gun mounted in an area that used to be enclosed but will now be open.
I will work out how and what to do with the existing part of the walkers body panels so that it can be posed either open like this, or enclosed like a stock walker.
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Here you go, Shawn. I inked that one and did another of a side view. Once I get more familiar with the walker's shape and these crazy things called pencils that I never use anymore, I will work up some sketches of the side panels in their down positions.
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Wow, awesome ideas guys. And yes Clint, I want those hen scratchings! I think they are great!
Well, I have got more to make as I havent even approached the opening sides, yet.
here are some final reveal pics of Rex. I'm glad he's done even though I seen a couple of touchups that he still needs.Now just wait a minute, Tamer is the one guys that seems to wrangle everyone into his hairbrain ideas ans schemes. I'm just a follower. LOL
Oh, I am just giving you a hard time, Chad. I'm sure that it's possible just like anything but that's another in a long list of modifications that Tamer hadn't requested yet. "so keep it on the down low." ::)
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More Rex pics.
Tamer, this walker project isn't going to be able to just sit as you suggest and come together at whatever pace I choose. If the world gets wind of me doing this thing, I'm likely to wake up one day with about half a dozen Tamers camped out in my front yard. ;D
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4 more shots of Rex
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Here you go, Tamer. As promised, an inked rear view of the original proto walker.
In the next sketches in the series, I will figure out what position the not yet pictured side panels will open to.
It's funny, these light box shots almost seem darker. I'm still figuring out this camera.
Shawn, remind me to dust off my scanner, this week.
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same shots, different settings. The light sensitivity settings on this camera are bugging me out.
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Last night, I mixed some flat orange paint and threw some graphics on that skinny ATTE clone that I had to make him look like the Boil figure. I need to slap some white paint on em and put those red kill hash marks on his helmet.
I will sacrifice this one to Ebay and see how much traffic he makes.
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Got a few update pics of the Boil fig.
I touched up his factory dirty white armor to brighten him up a bit and added some red kill marks on either side of his helmet. Other than this, probably all I will do is choose a gun for him and perhaps detail paint it up a bit and then he will be ready for the Bay.
Like I said, nothing special for this one other than a repaint.
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Two more Boil shots.
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I broke out the good ole Geonosis dio to pose the Boil fig for some ebay auction pics, tonight.
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Yes, I'm painting on another skinny clone, tonight.
I am going to paint up this 212th CW trooper to look like Waxer. I have started by painting all of his stock graphics over in the appropriate places in flat white as well as the rest of the white on his armor. I will probably do the red triangle on his forehead, next, and then it's time to mix some reddish orange up.
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I take it that you are able to see some episodes then, Alex. Thanks again.
I finally got done with my skinny Clone Wars Waxer fig. Tell me what you guys think about that bird symbol on his helmet.
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Another close up of the helmet and then its on to some obligatory Geonosis diorama shots.
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Another two Waxer dio shots, one of Waxer and boil and then, several with the two clones on the dio. Notice how the two clone's helmets are shaped slightly differently. I hadn't expected this.
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More shots of Waxer and boil on the dio.
I've listed Waxer on the bay for 10 days and am happy to take a break from the ebay clones for a bit. Let's paint up a Mando next, shall we?
I'll post a link to Waxer's auction in my store and auctions (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=631.0) thread.
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Time for a new project.
I am going to take this cartoon mando, and paint him up to be a desert camo mando. I plan on making a resin mix head and an extra accessory to be swapped out, when wanted. I have the basic color scheme of the armor and camo in my head, and am going to start out by painting all of his cloth undercoverings in a lighter brown than the snowcamo atat driver. These under coverings will get the camo, later. The armor, boots, and helmet are going to be kind of a desert storm sand color. I am sure that I will use a couple different shades of brown for various details on the helmets.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Thanks fellers.
I have started a little diorama for him in my diorama thread. (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=139.120)
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.
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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.
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More desert mando pics.
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And a couple more shots.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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hey so hows the at-ic project coming out?
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Well, I got the detail painting done on the Pond's figure and all that remained was to mix up some flesh tone to make the Rex head that I used, to look bald. Funny thing, all the time I spent mixing the dark red color for Pond's, Fox's, and the two Coruacant guard's graphics and all the time, I had a bottle of model master rust in my paint inventory that matched it perfectly. I didn't discover it until I started painting the ground work for Pond's Ryloth diorama. Figures.
Well I mixed a skin tone one shade lighter than the Pond figure's skin tone. That way, I could leave the negative parts of the face" inner ear, laugh lines, etc" unpainted leaving the slightly darker stock color and adding more depth to those areas.
I will be ready to show some final reveal pics of Ponds as soon as I get the border of his Ryloth diorama stained.
After that, I will move back to the contest mando and see what I can do to bring him more twards completion. Remember folks, as soon as I wrap up that contest mando, I will reveal the details of the contest so If you are not a registered shipyards member and wish to compete for the mando, you had better register now.
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I Have some final reveal shots of the Ponds figure and his diorama, here. There are more shots of this project in my diorama thread.
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Gotta love shooting pic in the sunlight.
See the cat behind the storm door, wondering why I won't let her out?
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More outside shots. I am posting more shots over in my diorama thread.
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Well, I touched up the spots I missed on the Ponds figure and replaced the applicable shots in his auction. "sheesh, I guess I am a perfectionist as accused"
Now, back to the contest mando figure...............
In the first two shots, I have started some of the detail painting to his alternate helmet but have a ways to go, there and I also have to make the two planned additions to that helmet that I had mentioned earlier in this thread.
In the second two shots, I am working on his time consuming camo scheme and like the look of the yellow camo by itself but feel that the dark brown outline brings the camo to a more realistic looking scale and adds more detail which is an attribute that Tamer knows that I strive for.
I will work on this figure thoughout the day but I don't know if I will finish him, today.
Remember, as soon as I finish this guy, I will reveal the details to the upcoming contest where registered members can compete to win him and his diorama. If all goes well, I plan on starting this contest in the next day or two.
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Is a LAAT bigger than the standard gunship or about the same size?
What was your idea about using the standard size gunship, Alex?
I've got a few update shots on the contest mando's half done camo scheme, here. As I mentioned, I am throwing some camo details on his jet-pack, as well. I still need to paint the little cape the same color as his undercoverings and then, camo that, also.
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I had told Tamer that I had done a few sketches while on break in the car, the other day, of conceptual designs of some of the interior elements that I might create for our Heavy gun platform walker project that is looming in the near future.
He is about as curious as usual about these sketches and I told him that I would post them, tonight.
Keep in mind that these are just thumbnail sketches and arn't as refined as the sketches that I posted back on page 32.
In usual artists fashion, my handwriting is less than pretty so good luck reading the captions.
If we are to go ahead with the walker that opens up to reveal the gun-plan, I wanted to mount some simulated hydraulic rams to open and close the panels with and their pumps with conduit leading to a control panel somewhere. This pump control panel may serve double duty as a fire control panel, as well. I'm assuming that I will have room for these details as I haven't gotten around to taking Tamer's walker apart to see first hand.
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I have been hard at work on the never ending camo scheme on our contest mando, this morning.
First shot shows that I painted his little cloth cape intermittently with the lighter brown color. I will camo that cape, later.
Second and third shot, Man, this dark outline to the camo takes forever! Keep in mind that I will touch up the corresponding other two colors after I finish this outline. "the lighter brown and the yellow"
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Nice shot there, Alex. Thanks for the compliment. I've been told that I have patience.
Time for some more contest mando update shots...........
Well, I think that I am at a complete looking point as far as his camo goes. Whew! What a chore that was!
I have carried the one color camo scheme onto this little shoulder cape and I think I will leave it with just the yellow camo to make it appear a little different.
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I got the dark brown on the jet pack's camo scheme, also.
I did some more detail painting done on the extra helmet but still need to touch up the yellow some more. I haven't started any of the helmet's extra additions, yet. That's next on the list.
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Needing a little break from the contest mando, I went ahead with my idea of putting an Incinerator trooper's paint scheme on a skinny Clone Wars style figure.
The first two shots show the skinny clone next to the 3-pack's Incinerator trooper for comparison.
In the third shot, I have started putting the graphics on and so far, they don't look too bad considering I haven't touched anything up, yet. I'm using that same rust color which doesn't quite match the factory trooper's color but I think that it will turn out cool. I'll make this one next week's ebay sacrificial clone.
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Trying to finish up that contest mando's extra helmet, I brought it's detail painting alot closer to completion. I still have some touchups to do in the dark brown color around the visor and on a couple of the exterior detail lines. I may throw some paint on the one large side vent.
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Now for the first and easiest of the two planned mods for this helmet.
Using the pin-vise, I drilled a hole in the top of the left side vent about 1/8th of an inch deep.
Then, I chose a length of fine gauge craft wire and cut a piece of hollow wire insulation and slipped it over the end of the wire to serve as a grommet. Finally, I glued the piece in place allowing some length of wire to be exposed under the grommet to penetrate the drilled hole in the helmet. I will trim the new antenna shorter and paint it, later.
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Feeling some momentum with this part of the project, I went ahead and worked on the second mod for the contest mando's extra helmet.
Using an extra resin-cast rangefinder that I had set aside for this project, I drilled a small hole sideways towards the bottom of the rangefinder's mounting extension drilling completely through the piece.
I then switched to a bigger bit "1mm" and drilled a hole almost but not quite through the side of the helmet where the grommet to hold the swing-mounting wire will be located at. "alot of piece to piece comparison was made prior to this to decide on a good location for appearance and clearance of the visor shade of the helmet as the rangefinder traveled through it's swinging arc"
I then test fit the wire insulation by poking it into the hole in the helmet's side. After doing this, I decided to make the hole a bit deeper. Then, I cut a length of the wire insulation to stick out a bit, and placed it into the hole and precision glued around the outside of the grommet where it met and recessed into the helmet. Some care was taken during this step as I want to leave the hollow part of the little grommet to accept the wire that will be attached to the rangefinder stawk.
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Well, that part worked out ok. Next, I mounted a piece of craft wire into the hole drilled into the rangefinder's stawk to penetrate all the way through but not to pass the back side of the resin stawk. More precision gluing was performed to the backside of the stawk where the wire ended and to the frontside, around where the shaft of the wire penetrated the resin stawk. After the glue on both pieces had dried, I then trimmed the mounting wire shorter and poked it into it's receiving grommet for the first time.
We are talking about some precision work on some small parts here' folks. I'm glad that the cat decided to leave me alone, this morning.
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In these first four shots, Here is that original version of that mount in various positions.
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Looking at it from the front, I decided that the whole rangefinder assy needed to be taken in closer to the helmet which is a simple process of trimming the grommet and the mounting wire both a bit shorter.
These four shots show it after I trimmed it closer. I may yet do it again but think that it looks ok, now.
"this is the first time that I have ever made a multi position rangefinder mod to a helmet" I may have to thicken up the mounting wire a bit with paint so that it's swing movement is tighter within the grommet.I love the eyes on this helmet. I don't know how you drill those small holes, but seeing is believing.
I am just now believing it myself, buddy!
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A few more pics of the modded helmet, three with it mounted on our figure. I trimmed the antennia shorter and still need to perform the remainder of the touch up painting to the extra helmet and a bit to the armor plates of the figure.
The sun is shining here so you can expect some nice final reveal pics real soon and after that, I will reveal the details of the contest and initiate it.Looks good to me. I love how that is mounted with the antennea on one side and the flippy rangefinder on the other.
That was the whole look that I had envisioned when I first decided to use that resin helmet.
I think that it's turning out just fine. And yes, I am liking the look of the reflective copper visor, as well.
Thanks for your comments, Shawn, but do you really think anyone is gonna want this dusty old mando? ::)
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this mando makes cad bane look like a baby!
LOL!!Shawn, but do you really think anyone is gonna want this dusty old mando? ::)
Wish I could get my hands on him!
Oh, Tamer, this guy is for display, not play. If your daughter needs a bounty hunter to go with her little people, she will just have to wait until I send you your snow mando.
I just wrapped up all of the last min touch ups and he is really looking pretty dapper, as far as Desert Camo Mandos go.
This is a special project for a special site and I put alot of heart into this one "and possibly a small bit of frustration but not much" I hope you guys like it because, "sniff" I have to give him away, now.
I shaved the rangefinder's mounting grommet a bit more, pulling it even closer to the helmet, I touched up black paint on the mando helmet visor, painted the antenna, and the soles of his boots black. I touched up that lighter color on his holster and corresponding belt, I painted the one belt buckle in the front and the two in the back flat grey, and I touched up the dark brown on those belts, the biker scout visor parameter,that one side vent that I mentioned and the yellow on both helmets, and the rangefinder which got a touch of dk brown detail, also. Oh, and I thickened the rangefinder's mounting wire with paint and it's motion is as resistant as I wanted, now.
Here are a few teaser pics prior to the final reveal.
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OK, it's final reveal time folks!! It's sunny out so I took the cat and the mando out to my deck and took some nice bright outside shots of our mando and his dio.
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Four more shots including his diorama, this time.
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Some more shots of the desert mando including some with his extra helmet.
I will post some different pics of this project in my diorama thread.
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Trying to supplement my income, I hopped back onto the Clone Wars skinny incinerator trooper. I have worked on it for several hours, this morning and have his graphics squared away as well as the complete repaint of his white armor and the touchups to his black visor and body undercoverings.
Time to work on his dio.
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Here are some final reveal pics of the Incinerator trooper and his dio before I made a little touchup on the red to the left of his visor that was bugging me. There are some different shots that I posted in my diorama thread.
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More pics of the incinerator trooper on the dark planet.
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My two favorite pics are in this posting.
Plus, here's a shot of the incinerator trooper posed with Ponds on his dio.For the life of me, I can't see what is bugging you about this one, looks daggone perfect to me.
The red stripe looked too wide twards the top on the left side of his visor. you know how I am, buddy.
Thanks for the compliment, though.
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Time for another project. The plan is to use this modified resin RC helmet to make a desert ops RC trooper.
I am going to use a color scheme similar to the desert mando's but using some different colors and using the paint scheme layout from a stock Scorch. The dark undercoverings are going to be the darker brown that I used for the mando and I will apply the camo to the lighter brown areas. The plan is to use the same copper foil for this guy's visor as I used for the contest mando's extra helmet.
Speaking of contest mando, you registered members have less than two weeks to get your entry into the contest (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=656.0).
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I've been working on straightening up my hoard in my basement the last couple of days, and came across this sketch I made while planning details for that Pre-hasbro clone general Obi Wan that I made, so long ago.
This was apparently made prior to me using the flexable plastic vader cape as a cape mold as I have a pattern drawn there, for a cape to be made from.
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Got a couple of update shots, here, on the desert ops RC fig.
I am still working out some peg fit problems on the modded RC head so I haven't put any more paint on that one.
I thought it might be fun to make another head for him and found this old stock plastic atrt driver head laying around. I have the primary app of the three body colors done and now, I am doing detail washes in the cracks and seams in his armor and helmet. The obligatory touch ups in the corresponding surrounding colors will follow.
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And here they are. As stated, I massaged the modded mix of resin helmets so that they fit the peg and now the chore is to apply the bare metal foil, again. What makes this a chore is that apparantly this stuff has a shelf life as far as how long the adhesive on the back of it stays good. Normally one would only have to brandish a piece over the area, and then trim to fit with a knife and peel away the excess. This adhesive isn't sticking so I had to superglue it in 3-4 places so that the foil would stick, and then, trim away the excess.
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Now that I have a primary coat of paint on the helmet, It's time to throw a flat black outline around the visor. I still need to touch up the yellow to make things neater. For the heck of it, I threw the copper foil onto the atrt driver's visor, as well. Alot of painting is still refquired on both helmets and I need to add the lighter brown to the rc helmet and then some details in dark brown or black.
About this dude's paintjob................which way should I go? Should I detail and tighten it up as is? Should I add more graphics, such as a different shade around the parimeter of the exsisting color sheme? Camo on the light brown? camo on both colors to transition in color but not pattern as the pattern moves from the yellow to the brown background?
decisions, decisions. I would like your guys input.
Also, what about extra helmet mods for either or both helmets?
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Now, you can see, that I have started to carry over the light brown areas to the RC mod helmet and that I have refined some of the armor crack detail lines. Still more painting to do.
Don't forget, there's still time to get your entry in for the Win a custom Mando contest (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=656.0).
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Now that I have refined some of the details for this dude's armor, that much more, I have decided that it's a no go for the planned camo scheme. I painted the leg straps and two arm straps for his elbow pads, the old concrete color and may add some detail lines to those leg straps, as well. I have added detail lines to the back of his helmet, the armor cracks on his arms,hands, and on his legs. I still need to touch those up. I must decide where to add these lines to the front of his helmet as it needs something. I need to work on filling in that helmet seem line, on the left side, with paint some more.
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After catching up enough on some other duties, I finally found the time to start working on a commisioned figure.
this is to be another commander Ponds fig. Like before, I started with a CW Rex fig, Chose and altered a cast resin Rex helmet, and completely covered all white areas of the figures body with flat white. The helmet might take another coat or two before I start on the Ponds graphics.
While I haven't done any more work on the actual figure, I have chosen some accessories for our desert ops RC figure and did some painting on two or three of them. I have here, a painted cast resin GM backpack that I removed the peg from and will mount another one to work with this fig. I also have a cast resin sandtrooper ammo pouch that I have painted up, a cast resin clonecommnader pistol holster which is partially painted that I will fit a peg onto to fit and be removable from that strapped leg location. And, I have this remnant of the clone commander pauldron that I butchered to make the legacy Rex pauldron. I may do some trimming and save that small belt with the small pouches to incorperate in some way. Also, I have mounted some copper foil to the visor of that atrt head but havent painted on it anymore.
Some days, I just wake up with that custom itch. If I wern't working today, I would be all about working on this stuff.
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As you can see here, I havent forgotten about Tamer's snow mando, and extracted his papermache cape from the cape mold, last night. I had already pretrimmed around the edges and will trim off some more excess, next.
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I got up early enough, this morning, to work on some detail painting for the desert ops RC fig. While more touchups are still coming, I refined those dark detail lines at the back of his helmet, and added some more to the side and front.
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Here, I have trimmed the excess material off of that clone commander's pauldron and now have an ammo pouch belt that's ready for sizing to his waist, in the front.
Also, I worked on adding some detail lines to the atrt helmet which will be touched up, later.
I still need to hack off that turkey baster of an antenna that he has got.
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Thanks, buddy!
I had time, this morning to refine his detail painting a little more. I added the dark lines around and on the leg straps. I'm not sure how I like them but touched up the surrounding colors and moved on to that cast-resin pistol holster. I found a piece of hollow wire insulation the proper diameter to fit his leg hole, measured and cut it to length, and then superglued it to the back side of the holster. Some detail painting is still required on the holster but now, it is interchangable with the stock accessory that comes with Scorch and is mounted there.
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After that, I moved on to the GM backpack. It's factory peg was too big for the hole on the Scorch fig's back, so I cut it off, drilled a pilot hole where the peg was and reamed out the hole enough for a length of coated tie wire to fit. I then trimmed the wire to length, Glued it into the hole in the backpack and now, I have an interchangeable backpack as well.
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Two more shots. Now, I have two more accessories to engineer and mount and then, it will be time to see what I can come up with for a primary weapon for this dude.
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looking good Clint.
Thanks buddy. I got rained out, today, so you know what that means..........................customs time!!
I started, this morning by doing a little touch up painting to the Desert Commando's pistol holster and then I sized that little ammo pouch belt so that it would terminate at the proper points when I mount it to his waist. I gave a thin coat of the same color as the holster to this. I will now, mount it, and paint it. I cut some notches into the back of the belt so that it would conform to the curvature of his waist a bit easier.
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While the primary coat of paint was drying on that little ammo belt, I trimmed the length of the snow mando cape and painted the inside of it, Flat white. I used the original snow mando cape as a guide as to where to cut the length at.
I will probably paint the back, next, and then work on mounting the coller wire and the wire framework that will form the shape of the capes simulated thrown-back hood.
Just a reminder, folks..............There is less than a week left to get your entry in for the Win a custom mando contest!
You can find that thread, here (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=656.0).
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I got sidetracked, yesterday and didn't get as much stuff done as I had hoped.
I started off, today, by working on the cape for the snow mando.
I have painted a primary layer of dark brown on the backside of the cape. I then cut and bent a length of craft wire and superglued it to the inside of the cape's coller area. This will aid in mounting, when the cape is complete.
I then bent and mounted the first of two lengths of wire that will serve as a framework for the capes thrown-back hood to the back of the cape.
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some shots of the second hood frame wire which will make the shape of the transition point inbetween the inside and outside parts of the hood.
I need to paint the backside of the cape darker to match the other one after I do some papermache work to cover the inner coller mouning wire and the outer hood frame wires.
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Moving along, I did some work to the desert ops RC fig, this morning. I mounted the modded ammo belt piece to his waist and hung the bigger ammo pouch on his waist to the oppisite side of the holster.Some touchup painting is required, here. This guy is getting close.
I shot these shots with the old camera. Now I remember why I upgraded...........these shots kinda stink.
As I told Tamer, I am also working on a Legacy version of an AOTC incinerator trooper.
Here is a shot of the three incinerator troopers in my posession, today. That skinny clone wars one is getting shipped to the UK, today.
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Yep, the next shots will be taken with the newer camera.
Here are some more shots of the legacy aotc incinerator trooper. Primary application of his markings is done and now it's time for touchups and general painting in white.
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I just like the look of legacy better.
I thought that you might. Here are a couple of pics of that clone and of the RC with some more detail painting done.
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And here are 4 shots of the final bit of papermache work on the snowmando's cape. I used tissue with a mixture of water and white glue to cover the coller mounting wire on the inside of the cape and to cover the hood framework on the back of the cape. I paid special attention to making the hood by actually tucking in the hood around the sides of the wire so that it appears that the cloth actually wraps around on the underside of the hood. I rendered a depression area in the inside of the hood where it hangs at its lowest point, and also rendered some wrinkles where i wanted them. After this dries and I paint it, I think that this one might turn out better than the first one.
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I got another coat of paint onto the back of the cape. I was out of that darker brown color that I had used before so I ended up mixing some up. I will let this coat dry and will go to drybrush the back before I repaint the white areas and then tackle the camo scheme on the inside of the cape and the hood.
While I was working on the mando, I figured that I would do some paint work on the helmet as well. This figure isn't far from completion, itself.
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Last post for the night.
I did some drybrushing on the back of the snow mando cape and then painted the white parts again. I also, bent his protruding coller mounting wires in twards each other. I will glue these together and paint them, later.
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A couple more shots of the cape and one update shot of the incinerator trooper with some more detail painting done and more yet, to do.
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Looks good Clint. Very nice. That incenerator trooper is looking good too. Nice detail.
Thanks, buddy. Yes, I am working on customs this morning, as usual. After sleeping in today "5:00am" I hopped into some more detail painting to the incinerator trooper. I have all of the white done except for his head, that arm with the keypad, and most of the backside. I may add some black detail lines to the molded details on his boots. As this guy is coming along, I am really liking how he is turning out. I'm almost afraid to list him.........................
My plan today, is to finish the paintwork on this fig, do the camo to the snow mando's cape, and to get some paint onto the desert ops RC's dio. "I had one unpainted dio left and realizing how much I'm going to miss the contest mando's dio, I decided to do one for my desert RC." Pics of these other projects are, of course, forthcoming.
UPDATE: I added a pic to this post of the detail work to the incinerator trooper's boots. That took longer than I thought that it would.
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OK, after working on him, refining the detail paint some more, I am ready to call him done. Here are some final reveal pics. I gotta say, guys, I am kind of taken by this one. I know that it's just a repaint but, there's just something about him. Just the right amount of detail, I guess. I was grumbling when I did the details on his feet but now, I really like how he turned out. I'm suffering some inner turmoil here, should I list him or not? He would go well, after all, with Fox and Co.
Oh by the way, when I call the desert ops RC done, remind me to take some pics of him with the rest of my custom RCs. There are 4 of em, now. I will even post pics of the purple one, Shawn.
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4 more pics of the incinerator trooper. AOTC legacy style. I forgot to mention how happy I am to get back on some legacy figures for a change. You gotta love that more realistic style.
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Moving along, I figured I should start to apply the camo to the inside of the cape and its hood. Starting with the hooc, I decided to go with a tighter camo pattern of a slightly lighter color of brown than last time. Shawn, I would ask if you approve of this before I continue, although I suspect that you have already went to bed for the night. I do have another thing or two i can work on while I wait for your opinion.
What do you think, guys? Guys?
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Got a comparison shot here, in between the factory stock FU incinerator trooper, my legacy aotc version, and a blank aotc clone. Why is the whitey clone there? I was worried about not listing that aotc incinerator trooper because he looked to pretty to want to give up so, I'm going to paint up another one to sell.
Oh, Tamer, the snow mando is almost done. Don't go changing the rules on me now. ;) Keep in mind that while this mando may be employed by the empire, he might provide his own equipment and therefore needs to look a bit off from what uniforms the impirial guys are wearing. "it sounded like a good excuse anyway" You will get enough imperial figures wearing that same style of camo as your ATAT driver to satisfy your itch "and to probably turn me off of camo apps for a month" what, with the ATAT drivers that you sent me and the Veers fig that I had mentioned.
You are right in that Hasbro needs to tighten up as far as the legacy figs are concerned. With the increased price should come increased quality. NO MORE SEMI ARTY FIGURES! unless it's like a Jabba fig or something.
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Just a small update on two of the three current projects. Both deserve the caption,"it has begun"
I have begun to camo the inside of the snow mando's cape, and I have begun painting the graphics on the 2nd incinerator trooper. I already painted all of the white parts of his body in flat white which should make things go a little faster. I will still need to do touchups in white but they will go easier with the undercoat there.
LIGHUEN55 , I see that you have been in here, what do you think about all of this crazy stuff?
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Your eyes will be bugging out by the time that camo job is done! Looks great though. The incinerator trooper is shaping up fine too.
Not much of an update, thus far, today. I slept in till a blissfull 6:00. "that's the latest in two weeks"
Today is the wifey's day off so it might be a honey do day for me.
I put aside the cape and worked some more on incinerator trooper #2. I still need to throw some detail black accents on him and then it will be time for a complete touchup in white.
That second fig, I bought loose from Chad. Thanks again, Darth c!
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Well, as suspected, yesterday was a honey-do day so I didn't get alot done till the wifey went to bed, last night.
I did finish the camo on the mando's cape and do not like how it turned out, at all.
Shawn, you were right about it making my eyes bug out as it is way too busy looking for me. My plan is to cover it back up with white and start over making it more like the original snow mando's cape, as far as color and pattern.
You live and you learn, eh?
I did some dio work on the desert ops RCs dio, also. You can follow my progress, here (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=139.180), in my dio thread.
There isnt much left to do on that RC figure. I need to throw some paint on his wrist guns, find a gun for him, and I was tossing around the idea of throwing some camo onto his backpack, just to make it look a bit different from his matching armor color.
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Here are some shots of the backpack paint app mod that we had kind of discussed.
What say you to this, Shawn?
This just goes to show that when you guys chime in on this thread, you can actually have an influance over what I'm doing here. So chime on in and see what happens.
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One more shot of the backpack and then, a shot of my progress on the 2nd incinerator trooper. I have applied his detail lines in black but still need touch up Hasbro's paint apps to his black undercoverings and I need to do touchups to the whole clone, in white.
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And you guys didn't think that I was going to post anything, today.
I have alot of shots to show so let's get to it.
I didnt get Greg's prize shipped today because I had forgotten that I had run out of packing tape and while I do feel bad about holding onto this beauty for another day "not really" I was excited to see that the sun had come out and I had a last chance to take some more outside shots of him.
Since it is a similar theme, I threw in my yet, incomplete desert ops ATRT and driver to bath in the sun for some pics.
How bout some bigger hosted pics, today?
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5160/imperialshipyards2040.jpg)
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5328/imperialshipyards2041.jpg)
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2167/imperialshipyards2042.jpg)
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4025/imperialshipyards2043.jpg)
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3999/imperialshipyards2044.jpg)
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/9485/imperialshipyards2045.jpg)
Keep scrolling, I have got dual incinerator trooper shots coming up next.
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seriously now folks, are you liking the bigger pics? I need to know.
I got all of the touchups done on the second aotc incinerator trooper, today, and wanted to take some pics of the two posed together on my Geonosis dio.
These are the inside shots in my lightbox.
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6167/imperialshipyards2007.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7259/imperialshipyards2006.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9117/imperialshipyards2005.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/5643/imperialshipyards2004.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1354/imperialshipyards2003.jpg)
Got some outdoors shots of these figures coming up.
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thanks buddy! I think so too. I do notice that there is the occasional pixelation glitch on my moniter that makes some of the straight lines in the paint apps look a little squiggley. I can assure you thats not the case.
Anyway, here is one inside shot that I missed and a string of outside shots.
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7190/imperialshipyards2028.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3153/imperialshipyards2027.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/550/imperialshipyards2033.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5941/imperialshipyards2032.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/401/imperialshipyards2031.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3386/imperialshipyards2030.jpg)
(http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1684/imperialshipyards2029.jpg)
Wow! break time. Desert ops RC shots coming up next..............
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I actually have a couple more things to do to this project like do some touch ups to his body paint, touch up the base where the stain meets the groundwork, and possibly jazz up a gun for him. I didnt think that the sun would come out again soon so I went ahead and took some sunny shots, this afternoon but wouldn't quite call this the final reveal.
Notice the paint on his forearm devices.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2579/imperialshipyards2011.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4426/imperialshipyards2039.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5435/imperialshipyards2038.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5903/imperialshipyards2037.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2361/imperialshipyards2036.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/166/imperialshipyards2035.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8971/imperialshipyards2034.jpg)
That's all for tonight. I'll post a FP story of this update tomorrow unless Tamer beats me to it.
do they look alright to you Lighuen?
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Here are those other Custom Republic Commandos that I have here, at the house. All originated as a Saga Collection Scorch figure. Keep in mind that these three were done years ago so, in my eye, they don't seem as refined or precise as the stuff that I have been doing here, lately. Don't get me wrong as they are still special to me and seem like stepping stones that helped me to progress to this point.
These first two, I have posted pics of in this thread before but not this big. The sunshine was intermittent, today, so I would take a couple of shots and then, would have to wait for a min or two until the sun peeked back out for more shots.
First off, we have that Jungle Camo Scorch that I did on his green foilage dio.
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1354/imperialshipyards2003.jpg)
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8707/imperialshipyards2002.jpg)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/360/imperialshipyards2001.jpg)
Next, here is a snow camo Scorch with a paper mache cape that I did years ago. The camo on his cape seems busy to me now but at the time, I really liked it.
I need to mention that both of these customs and the green dio were shipped around the world to an ebay buyer in Malaysia who didn't pick up the parcel at his post office soon enough and they were returned to the sender, me. I ended up giving him a refund. It's like fate that I was supposed to have them.
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5643/imperialshipyards2004.jpg)
(http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7259/imperialshipyards2006.jpg)
next up, pictures of the elusive purple Republic Commando.
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This next custom RC takes a little explaining. this one was to be a commission for a friend on another site that I had started but did not finish before our paths took different directions and we lost contact with each other. He emailed me, once and I told him that I still had it and where I was and that was the last time that I have ever heard from him.
Still, to this day, I haven't finished it and up till now, I felt bad enough about it that I never posted pics of it, here.
This was to be the bruiser of Mace Windu's battalion and features a mixed head made from a resin RC head with the mouthpiece from a resin Airborne helmet. I recessed two sleeves made of wire insulation, into his lower face to receive posts protruding from the airhoses of a scratchbuilt/kit bashed pilot's air box so that it was removable. He has a removable pegged scratchbuilt holster for a medium blaster on his leg. I added part of an AOTC clone's belt to his waist. He also got this papermache cape which is the part that isn't done yet. It still needs some collar mounting wires attached, some white piping on the outside paramiter fabbed, mounted and painted, and the republic army symbol on the cape's back needs a little more paint. I may go ahead and complete this one next and hold onto it in case he ever contacts me again.
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5739/imperialshipyards2015.jpg)
imageshack is acting a little goofy. Here are some smaller versions for now.
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4 more.
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One more shot. with this guy's paint scheme, I was going for a cross in between Scorche's markings and a shocktrooper's.
I seen in those pics of the airbox that I need to throw some more paint on it.
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Here are the two projects that got some attention from me, today.
I did some refining to the detail painting on the Snow mando's helmet and I believe that it's almost done. It is now very hard to discern Tamer's snow mando from mine. Yes, i did cover that noisy camo on his cape over again with white but no, I havent started on the new camo scheme therin, yet.
Dan, I just read your post. Why thank you very much on that, kind sir! I am happy that I finially decided to show that purple one off. He will look sharper when I get the work on his cape done. I can see it in my head, right now.
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It's always more exciting to show off something that I haven't done before but my other project, today, was to do some paint work on this Ponds fig which might become an ebay item. I want to wrap up these two projects so I can get to that purple Commando's cape and then, beyond.................
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I had found an old memory card, the other day and digging around on it last night, I found some old pics that were related to what I have been posting here, lately.
Just by coincidence, apparently I was working on the original snow mando and the purple RC at the same time as I found their in-production shots grouped together on the card and even have some shots of the pre-purple rc wearing the snow mando's cape before it was finished.
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These shots are of the pretty much finished snow mando 1. That helmet is a mix of a mando "back half" and of a Galactic Marine "front Half" and will be enjoyed by Tamer because as I have said I am going to give it to him for his snow mando.
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More early shots of the purple RC. As memory serves, I scrapped that white cape and made another for him. I didn't like the first one for some reason.
In that last shot, I am starting the process of scratchbuilding a holster for him using the white packing insert of one of the Saga little hologram figures.
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More shots of the holster fab. It was all about finding the right shape in that plastic holo insert to use and cutting it in the right places to make the two sides and front. I then cut a strip for the back and glued it on. I cut a notch for the blaster handle to recess into, and then, cut a proper diameter piece of wire insulation and glued it to one side of the holster to be a peg for the RC's leg hole and, Poof! You now have a removable blaster holster.
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One shot of him showing off his new holster and then some shots of the airbox construction. I started using a 1/35th scale German WW2 MG ammo box and drilled some holes into it for where the hoses would protrude from. I also drilled a couple of holes into the RC's modded face for receiving peg holes for the hoses. Using a proper guage of insulated electrical wire, I coiled much thinner guage copper wire around the two hose lengths to give it a ribbed effect.
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Here are the last 4 shots that I found of the in-production purple RC.
I used some wire insulating "sleeves" mounted into the holes that I drilled into the RC's face to be receiving holes for the protruding wires of the now hosed airbox assembly. Plus, I mounted a german gas mask cannister to the top of the airbox. I also used two turned aluminum fittings from a model car aftermarket detailing kit and fitted them to the helmet ends of the airbox hoses to give it more of an official plumbed feel. I like that unpainted shot with the airbox mounted. This piece was engineered to remain removable as I'm sure you guys realize.
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Thanks Lighuen!!
Let's get back to some current projects, shall we?
I didn't work on any of my projects while I was at the lake but awoke early, this morning, missing my custom activities. I went ahead and pretty much wrapped up the paint apps on the skinny Ponds figure which I will list, tonight and, I re-started the camo scheme on the snow mando's cape. This is a slight variation of a camo pattern that I have used before and is a bit tighter than the pattern i used on the original snow mando's cape as well as lighter and redder in color. I think that this one will turn out more satisfying for me and hope to wrap it up, today.
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Doc, I found the kit and will post about it in my non star wars customs (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=492.new#new) thread in the customs topic.
With a proper color application, Commnader Pond's bald head was the last thing I had to do to the fig and after a post or two, I'm off to take some pics for the bay and risk his existence to the bay to try to stir up some traffic.
I finished the camo scheme on the snow mando's cape and am ready for a test-fit of the cape on the figure.
There are a few touchups to do to the cape and then he is finally done.
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And here is the test-fit
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It seems that I have too much time, as of late. Today was a busy day, though.
I hosted a couple of the pics I took for the Ponds figure's auction. Once again, I used the Geonosis dio with these shots.
(http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/8328/may10011.jpg)
(http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/5981/may10008.jpg)
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Thank you buddy but I think that you will find this subject material more interesting.
In-between sessions of casting and cleaning parts for this weeks resin orders, I broke out the body of your walker and one of the deathstar guns with a chair for the purpose of doing some troubleshooting. I was curious about how much room we were actually going to have with this large piece of weaponry.
For those of you who don't know what I am talking about. It was agreed that I should butcher one of Tamer's beloved walkers into a version of the unused prototype ion cannon atat design as seen in a pic in a folder that is documented in the unproduced toy section of the SWCA.com site. "see the pic"
Ok, shawn, I have removed the 8 screws that hold the walker's armored shell to the floor of the troop transport area and have placed the gun on it's chair mount kind of where on the floor I think it should set. Obviously, the chair isn't going to work, even in the shaved version of it that I had envisioned. I will have to keep the mount but scrap the chair. Other than that, I dont see any clearance issues other than a nub that is receiving a screw from the bottom side that serves to hold the floor in place. The plan is to have the gun stowable in its barreless form, like this, and have the barrel stowed on the inside of the walls, somewhere, either in the remaining part of the static walls or the parts that open out. As I had hinted, I want to build a little crane that the crew members use to mount the barrel with, to be mounted on one of the swing open walls, I think.
(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7288/tamersdreamzp2.png)
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Looking at that picture, it appears that I need to move the gun further towards the aft of the walker and kill the lower barrel. Tamer wants it stowable, right?
Getting excited, yet?
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Anymore ideas on the chair Clint? Ofcourse it could be a crew served weapon, kind of like the 155s I dealt with in the Army. I can't wait to see this come together. You know I thioiught I would get upset when I saw my little walker all torn apart, but it didn't bother me a bit. Put that bad boy under the knife or the saw I guess. I know one thing, with all the great ideas you keep coming up with, this is easily gonna be the most time consuming custom you ever created. I could see this one taking a long time.
Oh, i don't know, buddy. My guess is that after the panels get sawed, the thing might take off on us.
I do like your idea of relocating the chair. perhaps further back and closer to the gun on the same side?? I was going to have to do some work to the chair anyway, as it was made when figures had no knee articulation and the seat part of the chair is too long for a figure to lean back and put his feet down, I was going to make the seat part shorter so the figure could bend at the knees. I'm going to cut the chair off of the mount and alter the chair to make it shorter in length and possibly less wide. Then, I will mount it to the gun, instead, probably. It will move in elevation with the gun, that way. I will have to troubleshoot with any clearance issues when I go to remount the chair and may have to fab up some kind of connecting framework. I will get that together, and figure out a peg for the mount to sit on and rotate around that will possibly be fixed to the battery door so that the door can be opened with the mounting peg still attached. That way, you can still get batteries in the beast. I will do that and then either finish fabbing the barrels for the gun or go ahead and start the cutting on those panels. Once I get the panels cut, I will figure out a hinge system for them and some kind of securing system for when it's together so that it will stay. I will also have to incorperate a physical stop for the panels as I don't want them to hang straight down but want them to hang level to the sides. I have this one german ww2 model tank called the Mobelwagon which was a panzer 3 tank chassis that, instead of a turret, had an anti aircraft gun mounted on the chassis. around this gun was a box of movable armor plates that could be lowered into an open position with the plates layed out to the sides providing the greatest mobility for the gun and it's crew. I am basing the open position of the walker's sides and top on this design.. I will dig out the kit and get you a pic of what I am talking about.
First comes the general fabrication and engineering of the beast. When we get that working, I will start in on the dreaded details. There isnt going to be as much room as I had hoped for, but I am planning on cramming as much detail as possible while still being tasteful.
It would have been nice if the t-handle wasnt so far back in the cab but I decided that you would like to retain the functionality of the t-handles ability to control the head movement in the way it was designed to.
What do you guys think?
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Buddy, are you sure about the t-handle?? The function that I was worried about was the t-handle's ability to manuver the head up and down.
If you are going to let me gut the thing than it would deffinatily open some doors as to what I could do, here.
If you want it to look realistic, that is what we need to do, my friend. Boy you are really letting go of a loved one on this one. I am proud of you.
I have decided that I like Shawn and Micheal's idea of a rear mounted gunner's chair better than the relocated side mount chair idea that I had. That way, the troops will have more room to walk back and forth beside the gun and there will be less side clearance issues with any equipment that I plan on installing on the gun deck.
To give us some more swing room with the gun, I am going to have to make a couple of alterations to the butt end of the gun that I had planned on earlier. Since we are now talking about putting a mounted chair at the butt end. I need to kill that long nipple at the end of the gun and then cut the shaft that supports the mushroom shaped piece, twice, so that I can relocate the mushroom further forward, but still at the butt end.
Easy, Tamer, we are breaking the saw out, this morning, but we won't be cutting on the walker, just yet. Instead, we will make a cut or 4 to the gun and its mount.
I await your answer on the t-handle and need to snap some referance pics of that Mobelwagon tank that Doc and I were referring to.
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I'm talking about the H.A.L. - Heavy Artillery Laser. It looks a bit more like the ATAT gun in that the gunner's seat is located at the rear.
Went back and re-eyeballed the thing today - the HAL has the gunner's seat on the side. The FLAK, however, has the seat at the back and is a single barrel.
In the Kenner pic, tho, I don't see a seat (or the mushroom, for that matter). Is that something you just want to preserve for playability? I'm wondering if having a seat on it will adversely affect the range of motion. I do like the use of the DS cannon, as it looks like Kenner used something like it in their pic, modified a bit, of course.
Here's pics I grabbed off ebay of the to Joe cannon:
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Thanks for those pics, Doc! They are very nastalgic to me as I used to own both of those guns as a boy.
I deffinatly like the flak seat better for our purpose and if i had one here, I would start cutting it off, right now.
I believe that the mushroom is there, in the kenner pic, but cant be made out as there is a stormie and part of the side walls in the way. I had thought before that the seat was there because of the head sticking up where the seat should be but it must not be or there is a different version. I will still troubleshoot clearance issues when deciding on the seat but plan on nixing the nipple and moving the mushroom anyway. And yes, the mushroom is nastalgic to me. "no, not for that reason O0"
I like your triangle brace idea and wish that you could draw it out for me so I can get a clear pic of how you are seeing it. I have some mechanical atachments for the inner walls to mount that I had discussed in a previous post.
My plan was to start cutting this morning but another duty or two has reared it's ugly head and I have to run for a bit, to wally world as the wifey says the deck sealer is on sale and that they have restocked their star wars isle.
I have taken some shots of the mobilewagon box and instructions to post but it will have to wait.
Tamer, if you get a chance, could you find and post some of the concept sketches that I drew up for the walker, here? If not, I will dig around and find them later.
Lots to do.
I also have just received confirmation on a commission deal to Australia that will require me to paint up and alter 3 Rex helmets to work for a Gree, a Bly, and a Thire figure which I will document the work for, here.
Also, I have finished assembling the parts set that will be the prize in this months contest. Two of the parts are Modded helmets. I have pics of all but will have to post about it in the resin casting thread a little later and will probably kick off the contest, later today.
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Here are your scetches Clint.
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/concept1.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/concept4.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/concept3.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/concept2.jpg)
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Well that stinks on the reset. I was hoping the ESB wave hit you. Guess not.
Nope, plus now, all the pegs are full, darn them stockmen!
Here are the pics of that mobelwagon kit box and instructions. The tank's side armor plating can be lowered into two different positions to allow for greater gun positioining and crew mobility, kind of like our walker will be.
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One more Mobelwagon shot.
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As usual, I have several projects going, today. First off, I have started paintwork on the three commissioned Clone Wars helmets. I only had two on hand and had to run downstairs and cast another one first thing.
Also, I have another skinny clone here, that I have primered white with a brush which I will probably paint up as a Waxer or Boil fig for ebay. That is, if we are quite certain that hasbro isnt producing them, right now.
And, I started hacking on the Walker project's death star gun, this morning. Here is my new Zona brand flush cutting razorsaw.
This thing cuts like a dream and one has to be careful how the blade is pointed as you will run into an unwanted bit of material when you are cutting with out even noticing it.
First on the chopping block............off with the rear mounted nipple!
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Then, I cut off the mushroom and after that, I worked on the chair mount, some.
I cut off the leg of the mount that holds the chair flush with where it meets the base of the mount as it starts to make the turn around the circle of the base. I cut the other side of the base to match. I will cut a sheet of something to cover these side holes and pretty up the mount, later.
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And here, I have temporarily glued the mushroom back onto the now shorter gun to see how it looks. some cleanup of the two parts will be required to make it pretty but I am ready to do another test fit and estimate how much swing clearance we will have with the mounted gun, now.
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Thanks, Doc. I'm sure that Tamer would be excited about it too, were he here.
Got a small update, this morning. I have been working on the paint apps to the three commissioned helmets from the Aussie buyer and am nearly done with the Gree one. I ended up painting the green on it, twice, as I didn't like the color that I had mixed, the first time and ended up finding a bottle of Floquil paint that matched his color pretty well. Some touchups are still required to him and the Thire helmet. I can't get my bottles of grey open for the recessed area in the back. I need a workbench vise or something as the channel locks arn't helping. I need to ask the buyer if he would prefer me to wait to fab up the visor mounts to the Thire and Bly helmets until I receive the Droidbait figure that I bought from the assembly line pirate in Malaysia that I bought him from. That way, I'll have a factory visor to use for referance rather than just winging it.
I got a little paint work done on the CW Boil figure and while I don't like the orange that I had mixed for him, I decided to add some black detail lines to the cracks in his armor and belt to jazz him up a little bit.
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I hosted some bigger pics of the snow mando that I took out in the sun, yesterday and thought that you guys might like to see em. This is snow mando 1, BTW.
This is a figure that I had done for an ebay auction where, like the Geonosis dio, I had become attached to by auction's end and ended up trading the buyer out of it so I could hang onto it. Every once and a while, you get one like that, that really tugs at your heartstrings, you know?
Anyway, I believe that this is the Geonoses arena Jango Fett who's armor plates I painted white with dark brown and black detail lines in the cracks and around the equipment. The undercoverings got a dark brown color and a black detail line around the outside parimeter of all of the armor plates and belts. I detailed up his holsters and cartridge belt, as well. I painted up the stock helmet and jet pack for him and also made a resin mixed helmet where the front half was Galactic Marine and the back half was a hollow Fett.
Now that cape was the capper, for me, on how much I really liked this fig. Like ones that I had made in the past, this cape is paper mache made from tissure soaked in white glue and water mixed. To get the shape, I wetted and built it up inside a POTF flexable plastic Vader cape, and let it dry for a day or two.After peeling it out of this handy mold, I trimmed it up for length and around the rough edges. for the first time on a cape that I had made,this time, I built a faux thown-back hood using a couple of lengths of craft wire as a framework for the hood to be built upon with more tissue. The wire lenths Were superglued to the capes sholder area and shaped to create the draping hood effect, I also shaped and superglued a coller mounting wire that wraps around the inside of the coller area and wraps around the front of the neck. The part under the coller was covered with tissue after it was glued. I pained the outside of the cape dark brown and drybrushed two lighter shades to provide a weathered effect. The interior of the cape and the iinside of the thrown back hood were first painted flat white and then, a simple one color camo scheme was applied using a lighter greyish brown.
I did this one over two years ago. What do you think about that mixed helmet, Doc?
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/3375/may10010.jpg)
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8328/may10011.jpg)
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/4679/may10012.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1412/may10013.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/433/may10014.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7516/may10015.jpg)
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4329/may10016.jpg)
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2343/may10017.jpg)
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/5782/may10018.jpg)
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/8585/may10019.jpg)
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7946/may10021.jpg)
(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1381/may10020.jpg)
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I usually rip a piece or two to cover the interior of the cape and poke it into the cape dry with some wetness in the cape mold to help hold it there.Use your glue and just glo b it into piles on the tissue. Not a lot, and use water on a brush to spread the glue out. Just keep dipping the brush into the water and spreading the glue. If you need more glue, pour some out and spread it with the wet brush. The military modelers used to soak it and then drape it but I think that this is easier and works better for the capes.
you wouldnt know what to think of the ghillie capes that I have made using this same tecnique and gauze instead of tissue. There is a pic of one of them in the thread, somewhere. Slightly see thru, leafy, quite camo. you would love it.
you had better do a tissue one first and work your way up, like the armor piece.
that commission buyer is asking about the capes now. I may have to write him up a tutorial. I'm going to see if I can get him to register.
Here is a small pic update on the progress to this, the second Boil figure that I have done. With the added details, this one may turn out better than the first.
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Well, before going out to work on staining that dreaded deck, today, I wanted to wrap up the paint apps on those 3 helmets that the aussie buyer wanted. He didnt like the black detail lines on the helmets so I covered em up.
I have directed him to this site so, I imagine that he will be monitoring my progress "and your comments"
After that, it occurred to me how much fun it is to tease my good buddy, Tamer, and decided to throw some brown paint onto this Saga Veers figure that I had laying around and post a pic of it.
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Got the paint apps pretty much done to this Waxer, fig. "this is Waxer, right?"" I will list him for traffic on Ebay, this weekend. And started on the first color of the camo on the Veers fig. That one's going to be a bugger. I can tell, right now.
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I went ahead and took some pics of that new Clone Wars Boil figure and listed him on the bay, last night.
I will post a link to his auction in my ebay store and auctions (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=631.60)thread.
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This will be my last picture update for a few days as I will be out of town.
In the first shot, here is my little travel caddy for customs when I am abroad. You can see that there are several jars of paint, 2-3 brushes, channellock pliers for getting those peskey paint jars open, hobby knife, superglue and accellerator, 2-4 figures, sprue cutters and other items that should keep me busy should I get the itch.
I started on another skinny clone repaint that will be the 2nd Waxer figure that I have done that will become next week's ebay custom figure auction.
And, here are a couple of shots of the Veers figure who now wears all of the first and easiest layer of his camo. That tedious black outline to the grey is coming soon.
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Thanks, buddy. I did get a chance to work on the veers fig some while I was in Branson. I gave his gloves, belt, holster, and boots a coat of white which will go well with the helmet and chest armor which I will also paint white.
I also got started on the tedious black accent lines of his camo. That part could take a while.
As I sometimes do when I am away from home I had an idea for another figure and picked up the base fig for it at a store where I was at and got started on him, also. I decided that perhaps the walker project might require a gunner figure as well. What better base figure for this than the legacy clone engineer figure which is pretty much a death star gunner. I will paint him up the same way as Veers to match Tamer's driver figure that I did months ago.
These two will be basically repaints with some sort of special visor/goggles color app probably using one of the foils. I might try the silver, this time and if we dont like it, I could paint a clear blue over the silver foil to give it an anodized alluminum look.
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some shots of the in-progress gunner fig.
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After all of the mold making work that I did today, I did have a chance to work on the Veers and Gunner figures some.
I continued the camo task on Veers and started painting his chest piece and helmet white. I am using a resin helmet for this guy as the good stock veers helmet that I have is tied up in a curing mold, right now.
I also started painting that gunner's helmet white and will leave his imperial symbol in a circle of black.
Some detail painting of the helmet and armor details will come later as will the visor and goggle apps.
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I know that I have the Veers and his gunner figs going now but since that camo is so daunting, I figure that I will set the gunner to the side until Veers is done. Anyways, inspired by the new availability of my veers/gm mixed helmet, I decided to do a figure using it. What better figure to use for this than one of my favorites to base a custom on. The removable helmet Clone Commander fig,
Since I felt some other mods were needed on this one, I decided to cut his kama away from his belt and holsters. I was first inspired to do this by seeing that proto clone which is to be the rider in the upcoming Gelligrub battle pack but then, the other day, I seen one of Jay's videos where he did the same thing and thought that it looked pretty cool.
Using my sprue cutters and an exacto knife, I began whittling away at the kama. I decided to leave the little front straps and a strip of the kama in front of the hanging holster belts for some stability and ease of the cutting job. I carefully thinned down the back of the holsters being careful not to get into the inner cavity where the pistol is held.
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And here it is loosely worn by the fig.
Since I wasn't going to use the figs pauldron, I went ahead and cut the bandoleer from it and thinned the back of it down, also. I can sling it across his chest diagonally if it doesn't cause helmet clearance issues or I can wrap it around his lower chest above the belt line.
I was thinking about using the desert ops colors that I used on that last RC figure for his color pallet.
Sound good?
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Well, I got some painting done on my desert ops commander fig. I was playing on the visual cues of the desert ops RC figures paint job and for the most part, transferring them to this figure.I started by painting all of his black undergarments dark brown. So far, I have most of the yellow done. I think when I get started on that light brown, things will start to look cool. I havent painted any more on the helmet yet, other than some trial detail lines to get a feel for it, but have an idea what I am going to do.
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Just for fun, I threw this pegless mando jetpack on the back just to see what it would look like although I dont know if it will make it to the final product. The wifey likes it, though.
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I had some time, this morning, to work on the desert ops commander's paint job, a bit.
I have most of the body colors applied and now only need the obligatory touchups and those testy little detail lines that I live to apply. As stated before, My plan was to match the colors used in my desert ops RC figure and get close to the markings that I used for him as far as where the color transitions occur on his armor. The RC is in the first pic, for comparison.
I still haven't painted anymore on his mixed helmet, I want to chisel out a little more head room on the inside, first, so that It will fit a bit lower on his head, first.
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OK, I've got time for another round of update pics or two but then, I have to go mow.
I got a little further along in that I started the detail painting process on his body, his belt/holster combo/ the extra ammo belt, and on the jetpack which I have opted to paint on the detail line color prior to putting on the pack's paint.
All of these dark detail lines will be cleaned up using the corresponding colors on either side of said lines, where they occur. details, Details, gotta love them details.
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4 more shots.
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After wrapping those new molds up and getting the pour done, I found some time to work on that clone commander some more. I got the detail painting done on his belt and holsters and am working on touching up his body colors around those detail lines. digging through the parts box, I came up with this headset from a Fett figure that I though looked pretty cool on him.
I will take some pics in a better lit area, later tonight.
Also, I picked up a new bottle of flat black at HL, the other day. Now, I can resume the camo work on Tamer's Veers fig.
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How bout a bigger custom update, today, fellers?
first up, I broke out the black paint and started in on Veers never ending camo scheme. I believe that his whole upper body now has the two camo colors applied and all that remains for it is the obligitory touchups. Still got to do the lower body and then it's time for some detail painting on his belt, gloves, and boots.
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Also, I pretty much wrapped up the touch ups to the Desert ops commander figure, glued his belt together, and even painted on his jet pack, some. I like how this guy looks with that headset.
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more pics of him
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4 more pics
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Here is something that I have done in the past.
Here is a normal looking Vader fig.
Now, when we dim the lights, you will notice that the implementation of the black light that I have nearby activates the flourecent qualities of this oil based testors neon paint that I have had for years. I applied it to his saber and some of the buttons on the breathing device on his chest. I have some green that I will add to a couple of the buttons.
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lets take the lights a little darker, shall we?
The effect is as I remembered. I wonder how this paint would look on force lightening? I do have some blue.
How about Spudafett's hot glue fireball? That could look cool.
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Thanks buddy. I need to get that commander's helmet going. since I had fun with the neon, I added green to Vader's chest breather buttons
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I figured that Vader needed a lightsaber dueling buddy so, I pianted up Darth Nihilus' saber, also.
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Now I figured that I could stage a light saber duel in between Sith entities.
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Got a new little project going that I worked on yesterday and some, this morning.
I have been working to massage this resin RC head and a resin droidbait visor together. The RC head is a bit larger than the droidbait head and some shaping of the visor to conform more to the head's shape was required.
For a looser fit of the visor, I would built some receiving lugs for this straight pen to use as a mount but in this case, the visor fit tightly enough that I went on without the lugs and drilled holes into the helmet to receive the straight pens as mounting posts. The visor will swing up to the above head position and channels were cut so that the visor could ride lower, closer to his head while up.
These pics represent a test fit of the visor operation with the pens and the pens will be cut shorter prior to gluing sometime after some painting is done and the head is mounted on the body.
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And here is the body that will receive that head. This will be a shadow squad republic commando. This is his primary phase of paint and no touch-ups are done, yet.
I think that I will paint up an old painless gun for him to tote around, also.
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See you went through with the idea. Great Job!
TY, Dan! I got some painting done on this guy, this weekend as well as some on his Ole Painless gun but havent shot pics of it, Yet. I picked up this Clone Wars Magnaguard, this weekend for some more Blacklight fun. I mixed a purple color for the plasma effect on either end of his staff.
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TY, buddy. Yeah, I like those eyes, also. I am going to list this magnaguard, tonight, to see how he does.
Well today was to be my first day back to work but as could be expected, I woke up to rain and work was called off, today. I took the extra time and finished work on that shadow RC figure, this morning. I got the head and visor painted and together cutting the ends off of two straight pins and using them as mounting posts. The visor has good movement and stays in position better than I had hoped. I got the mini gun painted and thought that it looked better than I thought that it would. Fully equipped and toting his big gun, I thought that this guy turned out pretty good. Naturally, I used the neon red to give both visors the bright glowing look, especially in the blacklight shots.
I will list this guy on ebay, tomorrow, to see how he does.
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more pics
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more pics
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some more shots
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two more
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TY, buddy.
Here's what I have been working on, this morning. I finished the painting on that modified helmet for the Desert Ops commander figure and added an antennae to it. I used the same colors used on the fig and got a smoother application of that copper foil for his goggles, this time.
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Here's how it looks on the figure. I still need to paint the exahust on his jetpack and get it mounted. Also, I need to find that little belt with the pouches and glue it into place upon his lower chest.
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Two more shots.
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Here is my latest project. Inspired by Jay's shadow clone wars clone, I wanted to do one using one of the clones that came from that Christopsis Battle Pack. I still need to put his gray graphics on him. I went ahead and cast and painted up a mini gun, for him. He has a darker version of the neon paint for his visor. And, as a latest addition, I decided to shape a resin droidbait flip-visor up for him. I will have to throw some matching neon paint on it and paint the visor either the grey or the black.
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I did a write up of that first Shadow RC with bigger pics and figured that I should post it here.
Here is a Republic Commando figure that I have painted up with the markings of a Shadow Clone Trooper. He features a Resin-cast head with a resin-cast Clone Wars flip visor that is pinned to his head using cut-off straight pins as posts. The Chain-gun is also a resin-cast item.
I used enamel neon red paint on both visors that have a reddish glowing effect when introduced to a black light.
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8997/june14006.jpg)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2251/june14009.jpg)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/622/june14004.jpg)
(http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7324/june14011.jpg)
(http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/415/june14012.jpg)
(http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4642/june14013.jpg)
(http://)http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/2444/june14017.jpg
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Got some of the grey graphic work done on the Clone Wars Shadow Trooper, this morning. I still need to touch it up and do the paintwork and mounting of the flip-visor.
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clint, i've got a mission for you. I wanted to be the first to do this figure but now I've seen one I don't have the desire to do it... but I know that if you did it it'd probably sell as this one is. Zero the hutt, from the star wars clone wars movie, needs to be done in your flourescent paint and done over the clone wars jaba sculpt... this is a pic of the one I found on e-bay, I know you can do better detailings than they did.
(http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/0/1/2/2/8/2/webimg/280861578_o.jpg)
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I have been real busy with work, the last two weeks so the custom time hasn't been happening much, lately.
I did get a chance to finish my Clone Wars Shadow trooper, this weekend. As before, I added a resin "droid bait" flip-visor using stick pins as mounting posts and applied the neon paint to use in some of these shots with the black light. I gave him one of the resin chain guns, also.
I am planning on listing this one on ebay tomorrow night unless one of you wants him.
That little dio is the one that I made for my desert ops RC figure. Since now I am working on a 3 man desert ops recon team, I am in need of a bigger desert dio to pose them in. For this reason, I have decided to make this dio the one to give away as part of the prize in our next contest, the details of which I plan on posting here, shortly.
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more pics
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more pics
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Clint sent me these...
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/a11.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/a12.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/a13.jpg)
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/a14.jpg)
Looking good to me Clint.
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slowly i am making progress on this new figure. Remember, I am making him to go with the other two desert ops troopers that I have done here in the last two months. I still need to finish the paint on that jet pack and mount it to that one commander fig.
I got done carving on this new commander's belt and started off by painting his under coverings the dark brown.
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another shot of the belt and now the undercoverings..........
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Playing around with details on the helmet and some of the yellow color on the body.
thanks Dan.
Feels weird to be painting on a figure for the first time in 3 weeks.
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I got a little more done on this fig. I got the rest of the body base coated and will start his light brown markings next.
The helmet still has a long way to go but I got the base coat most of the way on it, also.
Here are the parts that I intend to serve as the main equipment on that bandolier that I had mentioned. A cast shoulder pad from the apartment Fett armor, the short bandolier cut from a clone commander's pauldron, and a cast resin ammo pouch. I am going to make an assembly of strap or straps to hold it together but am having a hard time finding my pack of styrene strip that I bought for just this sort of occasion. I will find it or cut strips out of a BAD insert.
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Spudafett had asked about a hollow ARF trooper helmet so, just fiddling around, I labored through hollowing a resin casting of one out, tonight. Here is a $4.50 wood chisel set that I picked up in the craft section at walmart. Using one that is slightly curvy, the one on the right side of the package, I chiseled shavings out until the hole was wide enough and deep enough to house the head on this cw Gree fig. Total chiseling time might have been going on an hour. I plan on using another figure to make a removable helmet camo arf trooper as seen in the cw movie. I will post a pic of that one as I work on it.
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More shots of the helmet on Gree. Goofing around, I posed Gree to be painting on the desert ops sniper fig in that last shot.
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Progress is occurring rather slowly for the arf-headed desert ops sniper but it is happening. Got a chance to work on his light brown markings this morning and put some color on his molded on straps and modified belt with holsters. I will get done with his light brown and then the touchups and detail painting will start.
Havent done any more to the helmet yet as I want to do the copper foil visor thing before I continue there.
Here is a shot with the other two complete figures in this three man squad so you can gauge my progress.
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Here is a bigger pic of those first two desert ops troopers. I still need to make a larger desert dio for them which will replace the one that will be part of the contest prize.
(http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/4063/aug12002.jpg)
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Got some painting done on the color apps to the arf desert sniper and then started to add the detail lines in dark brown. Lots of touch up painting is required at this point to the fig, the belt/holster combo, and to the helmet.
These pics seem a bit dark and I will take some more in my lightbox.
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Yep, they are too dark alright. In that last shot, you can see the progress on the belts paintjob and the resin optical rangefinder which I will mount to the helmet in a multi-pose fashion like I did for the contest prize desert camo mando fig that Darth Aussie won.
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thanks Jay and Dan! Sorry about those dark shots earlier. Here are some lighter ones.
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I still got a ways to go with the arf sniper. In the last shot, you can see how the touch up painting will clean up the feet on the left to make them like the feet on the right. I have to do this to this whole figure.
I did get a couple of steps closer today, though.
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After getting the copper foil onto the visor how I liked and much much much detail and touchup painting, I finially got the hardest part of the desert ops ARF sniper done. Now, it's time to get that multi-position optical rangefinder onto that helmet.
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more shots
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More shots: Dont forget to check the 4 shots on the previous page.
Optical rangefinder install coming up next.
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Thank you all very much!! It feels good to be working on a figure again and although I may have had my doubts, this one is turning out about how I had envisioned him to.
Dawn, I haven't yet made the bigger desert dio for these guys but will get around to it soon. The ground work for it will look almost exactly like the desert dio offered in our build off contest but it will be bigger. I have chosen another craft wooden plaque for this bigger version, this time, from walmart. I too am looking forward to seeing your figure and contest entry. You and Devon have some real talent and you should keep doing what you are doing. I'm sure that Devon has told you that the more you do, the easier it gets and the more stunning things look.
Now for more pics:
I went ahead and focused on getting the mounting of that optical rangefinder out of the way. Starting out with a resin casting of the rangefinder and the trusty pin-vise, I drilled a hole where the mounting point would be in the stalk of the rangefinder. With it still on the drill bit, I held the rangefinder in place next to the helmet where I wanted its final position and used the drill bit to mark and drill a pilot hole into the helmet. I chose a slightly larger bit to bore the hole wider to receive a rubber sleeve to hold the post that I will glue into the hole I drilled through the stawk. If the wire fits tightly enough in the sleeve, the rangefinder will hold it's pose but allow it to swing down or up to either position. Some fine guage craft wire was used for the post and a length of wire insulation was used for the sleeve. If the post wire is too thin for it to fit tightly enough within the sleeve, the wire can always be made thicker with paint or superglue allowing it to dry before poking the wire into the sleeve.
The sleeve was cut and mounted into the helmet hole glued carefully and then trimmed a little closer to make the rangefinder sit closer. After test fitting, the post on the rangefinder was trimmed shorter and here you have it.
I have to throw some paint onto the rangefinder and touch up where I glued around the sleeve and then it's time to tackle that bandolier I had mentioned to give this guy a more equipped look.
I appreciate all of your comments and am glad to have gotten these tedious steps out of the way for this one.
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pics: Thats my roll of fine craft wire in the first shot.
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Here is the sleeve length mounted in the first shot. I ended up trimming it closer to the helmet after test fitting the rangefinder and deciding that I wanted it to sit closer to the helmet.
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More pics; the first shot is before I trimmed the receiving sleeve shorter and the last shot is after. I just wanted the rangefinder to fit a bit closer to the helmet and not poke out so much.
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4 more pics. I will visit the lightbox again for lighter shots after I get some paint on the rangefinder and perhaps after I get the bandolier made.
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Got some time today, to work on the arf trooper's bandolier. I used the small partial bandolier cut from a stock clone commander's pauldron, a resin shoulder pad armor piece casted from the apartment Fett slip-on armor, a resin-cast sandtrooper ammo pouch, and some styrene strips. I got most of the painting done to the parts prior to assembly to make touchups afterward, easier. I started by gluing the cc bandolier piece to the shoulder pad and holding it to the position I liked till the glue dried. Then it was a matter of cutting a thin strip of styrene to flow along the inside of the shoulder pad over the curve of the shoulder, and then cut a couple of wider strips, one for the front, to extend from the end of the cc bandolier and to tuck behind his front stock belt ammo pouch, and then one for the back to extend from the back of the shoulder pad down the back, to the stock belt. I glued that resin ammo pouch onto a little box on his stock belt and it kinda looks like it's hanging from that back side strap.
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pics
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pics
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I am a day late and a dollar short with this one that Clint sent yesterday, but he is busy!
(http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f115/CTtamer/clintcamoarfer.jpg)
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TY, Dan. Thanks for posting that pic, Tamer. That is to be a removable helmet version of the arf trooper like we seen recently in kri's photo comic. Looking at the pic in our referance pics thread, I thought that his camo looked more field grey to me which is more of a greenish grey. In the brighter light, it almost looks too green to me now but I think that I will leave it. After I get the main greenish part of the camo done, I may touch it up with white to try to get closer to the pattern seen in the clone wars movie.
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One more shot of the arf trooper. I have gotten alot of resin orders over the weekend so I may not get any more work done on this figure until this coming weekend.
Also, I had mentioned that I wanted to try a future project where I cobbled together componants from a couple different figures to try to come up with a decent looking scuba mando. In the next few shots, I am just mixing and matching parts to get ideas for how I want to do it.
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more scuba mando ideas pics. that last one was just a goofy mix of parts on that joe EEL figure.
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And, in an attempt to make the less popular two figures in the droid factory packs a little more enticing for an ebay auction, I painted the lightsabers of these Anakin and Darth Maul figures with neon paint and shot them here exposed to a black light.
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4 more black light shots.
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One of our members has requested a commission of a cw bly figure from me. Here, I am starting off with a cw Rex as a base. A complete repaint of the body was needed to give a good base for the golden markings to stick too and for the new kama color to stick too. I was also afraid that the dark stock color of his kama might take the dark tan color that I had chosen a shade darker than I liked. I have just cast the flip visor for him but havent brought it upstairs yet. I do, however, have quite a bit of the paintwork done on his resin-cast rex helmet.
At this point, I have a couple of coats of the dark tan applied to his kama and need to apply another one inside and out. I have used the same color to the three plates on his pauldron and will have to touch that piece up.
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Shots of the resin helmet.
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Got some more paintwork done on the Bly body. I put another coat of white on him and got a couple of coats of his gold markings on the armor and on the piping of his kama. There are alot of touchups required at this point to get all of theedges of the markings straight. So far, this one is going right on track.
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Two more shots for now
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Yep, I just pretty much finished the touchups to the white and gold paint on him. Now I need to do the touchups to the brown and black. I will save the flip-visor work for last.
These shots are probably a bit dark. I will take some brighter ones in the lightbox, tomorrow.
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Some more bly shots
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I did a write up of that first Shadow RC with bigger pics and figured that I should post it here.
Here is a Republic Commando figure that I have painted up with the markings of a Shadow Clone Trooper. He features a Resin-cast head with a resin-cast Clone Wars flip visor that is pinned to his head using cut-off straight pins as posts. The Chain-gun is also a resin-cast item.
I used enamel neon red paint on both visors that have a reddish glowing effect when introduced to a black light.
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8997/june14006.jpg)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2251/june14009.jpg)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/622/june14004.jpg)
Hi again mate i just finished going thru all your customs which took awhile...days if i read everything lol... WOW awesome mate fantastic work and great attention to detail you are a master, i love how you do your own resin casts, just a quick Question.... I am after Battlefront 2 , 501st jet packs and i was wondering if they are too tricky to cast? as i would really love to get a few of them like 10/15 to start off with, i have looked at your ebay store a few times now hoping they would pop up and then just now seeing your resin mando jet back i thought i would ask
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Got a chance to work on the Bly figure's visor, last night and a bit this morning. I got the resin cast visor cleaned up and test fit it with bly's helmet some to make sure it had the room it needed in all the right places. I then located and drilled the holes in the side of the helmet which will receive the cut-off straight pins that will serve as the posts for the flip-visor. I got a coat of white paint on the resin piece and need to coat it again prior to painting the black on the visor and then mount the piece.
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(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/3942560361_0b4bd55c7b_b.jpg)
Clonehead..You've been hangarbay'd
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(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/3942560361_0b4bd55c7b_b.jpg)
Clonehead..You've been hangarbay'd
Awww, so I am your first victim, eh, you old dog, LOL? I just love it, Jules and I am honored! Consider it on the front page.
Feel free to scrounge for photo fodder in my customs or diorama threads anytime.
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got some update shots of the Bly project here. I cut the ends off of two straight pins and preformed the tedious chore of gluing them into the holes that I drilled into the helmet, through the visor ears. Now, the visor is in place and positionable. Now, I have to do some touch up painting to the visor and the helmet and need to paint the black part of the visor. I also have the requested mini gun cast, cleaned up, and assembled for this figure, I will get it painted tomorrow.
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more pics
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Got some update pics on the bly figure. I'm taking baby steps here but I touched up the white on his flip-visor and added some black for the visor itself. I also touched up the black on his undercoverings. I got his hair painted on also. I need to touch up his kama and perhaps the gold in a spot or two and all that remains is to dirty him up a bit.
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I also got some black paint on the pieces of his chain gun. I still haven't dug out a fat rifle for him, Logan. I will do that tomorrow.
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I believe that Bly is finished. I added some suttle weathering to him by drybrushing some dark brown onto his boots, legs, arms, torso, and just a hint on his helmet. I wasn't going for the muddy look here or anything and just made him less shiny like Logan had suggested.
I dug out a large legacy rifle for him and drilled out the barrel, painted the stock dark brown, and then drybrushed the rifle with light ghost grey paint.
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more pics
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Well I didn't have as much free time on my vacation as I had hoped for as most of it was spent cobbling together a staircase down a hillside. I did manage to get some paint work done on that removable helmet ARF trooper that I had started on some time ago. Looking at the Clone Wars Movie scene, I decided that my field grey camo needed to be a dark gull grey instead so I repainted the whole thing and lack some work on his legs and visor. I had decided on the grey for his belt with black where the cracks are. I still need to detail paint this one badly. I should have more time to work on this stuff now as It looks like I am layed off this week.
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Well I got the grey part of the camo done on the arf trooper all except for the helmet and decided to come back over it with touch ups in white. this white I am using is pretty bright and I like the contrast from the grey so i will continue the tedious camo touch up until I am done with the entire body. The helmet still needs some fine tuning paint wise as does his belt.
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Yes I am still plinking on the touch ups to this dude's camo. My lighting could be better in these shots.
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After much time spend tweaking and touching up the camo, I am ready to start working on the final details of this arf trooper. Some more detail and touch up painting are needed in the belt and helmet area at least.
this one is getting close to completion though and I am ready to move on.
I will take some brighter shots of him tomorrow.
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And for my next contracted project,"sigh" I am to paint up this Galactic Marine fig to wear the colors of this 501st trooper. It is just requested as a straight repaint but I might whip up an extra mixed helmet just to spice things up.
All I have done to this battlefront 2 fig, thus far, is to get a primer coat of white on his armor and boots.
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Ahem! I have a small announcement to make....YOUV'E BEEN HANGARBAY'D
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/4013796837_024e3339cb_b.jpg)
Clonehead, I have to say that your customs are beyond awesome!, this little work of art really does nothing to show off your amazing talent. I would have loved to have done something with more troops in...but time is fairly limited right now!
I recommend to anyone looking at this post, go back to page 1 and have a browse through, here lieth some of the most awesome customs on the net...
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Tamer, that one isn't the one I actually wanted to start working on. I will preview the one that I wish to start with soon.
here are some more pics of the one I did with the cody/veers helmet which I believe resides in John's collection now.
brilliant camo work with a Low-Light style red visor, he one ass kicking name taking clonetrooper. I'd hate to be witness to the nasty deeds he committed when he was ordered to carry out Order 66
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=627;image)
And I came to find a couple of pics of the Teaser that I made for Tamer some time ago. It was a custom painted GM with a custom resin helmet and a resin chain gun that stood apon a little snow dio with a dead battle droid partially buried in the snow.
boy's got a cigarette in his mouth, that's an incredible touch of realism that makes him seem very human, and remniscent of a soldiers life in the field as told in countless stories from actual veterans and shows like Band of Brothers. Awesome design on this guy, he's akin to the bad boy Marines that Bacara would have commanded instead of those strange magenta guys in the movie.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=475;image)
You are too kind my friend. I have wondered before if some of my paint jobs had any influance over some of the figs that they have produced. covert ops trooper, atrt assault squad. I really have no idea.
Here is a pic of that fig under a black light so you can see the glowing quality of his visor.
that's one of the most unique and surreal looking clone troopers I've ever seen I think and I love it. Now I've never made or even considered making a blacklight reactive custom before but I might want to someday now.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=206;image)
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I chopped off a couple of the super battle droid's limbs, drilled in some wire and wire insulation, painted the center of the hacked off limbs black and painted the edges and the ends of the wire and insulation detail neon orange to simulate the hot metal of a fresh light sabre cut.
YES!!! Yes, I love this! Hasbro likes to fake battle damage on a toy sometimes but it lacks the paint and detail to show that is DAMAGED. Nonfunctional beyond repair SBD there is genius! :o
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=754;image)
As promised, I have some more pics of the ATTE gunner fig with the hollow Bacura helmet.
"Mr Skirata says Kaminoans shouldn't touch us in certain ways!"
LOL sorry, I couldn't resist
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=919;image)
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And even more pics......
"I ain't got time to bleed, Commander Keller, we got us some tinnies to dismantle!"
HELL YES! I love the design and the whole look of that one. Fantastic!
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=1270;image)
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I love to look at those former customs. Thanks again, NFC, for your continuing review. You have gotten quite a ways through it, I see.
I didn't get much painting done on this GM figure but since I was casting most of the day, I worked up some parts for him. I was thinking of mounting a flip-visor to his helmet and thought a resin helmet would be better for mounting it. I may have to shave some of the inside of the visor off so that It will fit better for the viewing position but it looks good up like this. The buyer wants a big rifle so, I casted one up for him.
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I love to look at those former customs. Thanks again, NFC, for your continuing review. You have gotten quite a ways through it, I see.
plenty more is forthcoming :)
I didn't get much painting done on this GM figure but since I was casting most of the day, I worked up some parts for him. I was thinking of mounting a flip-visor to his helmet and thought a resin helmet would be better for mounting it. I may have to shave some of the inside of the visor off so that It will fit better for the viewing position but it looks good up like this. The buyer wants a big rifle so, I casted one up for him.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=9112;image)
that's pretty dang cool
can you make one of those castings for me?
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I will show you the pieces I used to make that figure's helmet here shortly,L E.
I have started the task of detail painting on this GM figure. Here, I have outlined several details on his body in black and will come back to cut in white around these lines to make them thinner and neater. It will take a while but its worth it in the end. This whole figure needs another coat of white anyway.
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Those pics are in my resin casting thread, NFC.
I haven't gotten far with my touch up detail painting but I did make a little progress on the 501st gm figure. I am about happy with how the touchups on the belt, pouches and armband turned out but might hit on em some more. I will probably move on to his boots and then get all of his undercoverings painted black.
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I do see a spot on the back and on the arm band that will require additional attention.
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now that I have some time finally, back to going through your posts and commenting on more of your fine work!
Oops, page change......
Here are a couple of Fox shots that i took last night. I will take some more final reveal shots, today including an outside shot or two. Nothing beats natural light.
the movie realistic Legacy style Fox is PERFECT. I mean it's truly gorgeous, clonehead, I've been drooling over it for 3 days now. I'm very tempted to ask if I can comission you to make one for me.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=2177;image)
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In the first two pics, I was simulating battle damage caused by a laser blast by incorperating aluminum foil strips and the light from a laser pointer to create the effect. Man, the ebayers loved it.
the last pic shows a different one that I am searching for more pics of.
I LOVE this! That's seriously an awesome spin on on an astromech custom I've NEVER seen before. Seriously, that's customizing its intricate best.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7397/feb011.jpg)
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I will show you the pieces I used to make that figure's helmet here shortly,L E.
I have started the task of detail painting on this GM figure. Here, I have outlined several details on his body in black and will come back to cut in white around these lines to make them thinner and neater. It will take a while but its worth it in the end. This whole figure needs another coat of white anyway.
I have never actually thought of detailing a trooper of any sort like this but it really makes sense because Hasbro sculpting is well done on the GMs but the production paint work sucks. I'm really looking forward to the finished piece.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=9124;image)
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(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=2855;image)
HELL
YES
!!!!
Damn it, Hasbro, WHY can't you morons just make a realistic style Rex for us already so we can ALL have one?? No it won't be as nice as Clonehead's is but this custom proves it could a SHOULD happen in the Legacy line! The cut up PVC plastic used for the pauldron is bloody genius
Some more shots of the desert mando including some with his extra helmet.
I will post some different pics of this project in my diorama thread.
This is a really unique take on a Mando with the camo and the interchangeable heads plus the modifactions to the scout helmet, totally rad
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=3652;image)
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(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=6922;image)
CH, that clone is sinister looking in that very neutral looking color scheme, I really really dig that custom.
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Yes, here recently, I have been looking for certain images and info that I had posted and found it time consuming that I could only skip two pages at a time. Thank you again, for your praise.
Here are some update shots of the never ending touch ups on this GM figure.
I have gotten to where I am pretty much happy with all of those detail lines around his belt and arm areas and even like the shoulder straps on the back but the front ones of those still need some work. I plan on using his stock pauldron which will cover these areas anyway. I will repaint the pauldron possibly blue and white to go with the 501st color theme. probably blue with white piping.
I have started to touch up the relationship in between the white and black on his boots. I will be glad to finish this task and start his blue markings. I have gotten a coat of white on his resin-cast helmet but need to detail it in the same way before I will start on it's blue markings. I have also worked on painting all of his undercoverings black but am not satisfied with how glossy that black is looking in some areas. I may have to dig around for a flatter black to touch up the shiny areas.
geez....touchups galore.
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got some work done on his helmet today.
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Well I was sick today and didnt get much done but i did get further along on this GM's paintjob.
As you remember, this was to bea gm wearing the deco of the 501st legion. I finially got far enough into that tedious detail line touchup to get tired of it and I started applying the blue markings today.
We will start with shots of the helmet worn here but a 501st trooper. It appears that the blue that I am using is a bit dark and I may have to come back and mix some lighter to match the 501st blue. I carried the traditional triangle shaped marking on his face and over the top of his head. The top recessed part of the back gm helmet was painted dark gull grey and the lower recessed part that wraps around to under his eyes I painted blue.
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from that rear shot, it appears that the blue mark needs to crawl a bit to the right towards the top of the helmet. there are always some touch ups that await me, it seems.
Next, we have the pauldron which I primered white and painted the recessed areas the same color blue and touched up the white trim. The little bandolier, I detail painted with flat black, dark gull grey, and light ghost grey.
Next we have the backpack which I detail painted also using the same colors as the bandolier.
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A couple more shots of the back pack and then it's on to the base figure.
On the figure, I put two horizontal lines of blue down low on his knee pads. I don't really like them and plan to repaint the pads white and then paint on some blue v-shaped marks. I put the traditional blue on his shoulderpads, a ring around each wrist, and on the piping of his kama. Now the original plan was to paint that chest marking onto this figure as well. I still plan to but havent gotten there yet.
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A couple more shots of just the body and then it's time to put his freshly painted goodies on. I took a close up shot of the feet to show the detail paint. I still need to paint the soles of his boots dark grey and allow that color to creep up the side a bit.
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Some more pics. What do you guys think about that chest emblem. Should I put it on there?
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Thanks, Spud. I appreciate your comments.
Here is how I match paint for hue and brightness when trying to match colors on existing figures paint apps.
this first shot is slightly blurred. Most paints darken slightly when they dry so, to match the level of brightness in this royal blue on the 501sr trooper, I mixed a bit of white in until I get a hue that is one step brighter than the paint that I am trying to match. A couple of darker trial blobs were dotted on to this shoulderpad and the one up high is sightly brighter. In the next shot, the paint is dry and it is a perfect match.
I went ahead and mixed the brighter blue to repaint the body markings, the helmet, and his pauldron, and now I am going for that chest marking. I tried the checks on his kneepads but they looked funny so I ended up setteling for this upside down v pattern.Now the first shot of the chest markings is a wip. Heck, all of em are a wip as I have been looking at this fig so much for the last two days that I am about bug eyed. The following shots are the symbol a little more refined. I think I will set it aside at this point and come back to it with a fresh perspective.
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more pics. Some more touchups may still be required. due to the different shaped chest piece, I had to take some libertys with the symbol.
I've got some kind of bug and dont feel too peachy. I think that this is all I'm going to work on today. "sorry Pat, I will work on your mixed helmets, this weekend."
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Wow, R1b1t, thank you sir. this is, after all, just a repaint, but I do appreciate your praise. At first, this fig just seemed like a pain in the butt but once he got some color on him, He started to really come together. I'm actually pretty proud of him.
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I managed to get some detail painting done on the nearly finished arf trooper and to the neglected camo Veers figure this weekend. On the arf, mostly what remains is some touchups to his helmet. On the veers, I still have work to do on his camo and have started adding detail lines to his boots, belt, and holster area. Those still require alot of cleanup.
The sun is out today so I might get some outdoor shots of that 501st GM figure.
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a couple of more Veers wip shots
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I haven't taken those outside shots yet but I did blow up a couple of the earlier GM shots. This middle one looks a bit fuzzy.
(http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/9189/oct19026.jpg)
(http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/200/oct19027.jpg)
(http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/536/oct19028.jpg)
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I took a few outdoor shots of the 501st Galactic Marine on my Geonosis dio.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/641/oct19044.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7369/oct19042.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2280/oct19041.jpg)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9905/oct19040.jpg)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7638/oct19039t.jpg)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3013/oct19038.jpg)
(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7987/oct19037.jpg)
(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/798/oct19036.jpg)
(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5639/oct19035.jpg)
Your hands arn't too shaky to do those very straight paint apps on your figures, Jay. Thanks for your comments. I'll pm you.
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I painted on the Veers and ARF figures a little more tonight but have a bit more on the arf and alot more on the Veers to go.
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Thank you fellers. Tamer, if I am working on the Veers again then that means I am thinking about that walker project he was supposed to oversee.
I refined the detail painting on the camo arf trooper's helmet and belt and I am about ready to call him done.
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One more shot of the arf and then on to the Veers. I have finished primary paintwork on veers' camo scheme, finially, and have pretty much finished up detail painting on his white elements. I painted that belt buckle light ghostgrey and need to touch up on the brown around the camo on his legs. I need to dig out this figure's snap on chest armor piece and start detail painting on it.
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One more shot of Veers.
Since my docket is starting to empty itself out, I think I might start on that pilot fig I was wanting to do.
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Well thank you Jules! The camo on the Veers figure was a tedious chore and took hours to complete and it isnt even done yet and still requires touchups in brown.
Moving on, I broke out the stock helmet and snap on chest armor piece for him. As you can see, I already have one coat of white paint on the chest armor piece.
Since you like the camo scheme so much, I took a couple of close up shots also.
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Now for the helmet, I wanted to use a combonation of the same colors that are used on the figure's body with the main body of the helmet being white. I have begun the task of adding those detail lines again and this helmet is at the ugly stage of detailing prior to the touch ups. I decided I want to change that goggle strap wrapped around the back of the helmet to the brown color and the lenses of the goggles I had wanted to do another metal foil app to, this time in kind of a brushed chrome.
The chest armor has also got some detail lines going on it and at this stage, it also looks a bit ugly. It will all get touched up.
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As some of you will remember, this camo scheme in these colors was rendered once before by me on this ATAT driver that I did for Tamer, some time ago. This Veers is meant to be posed with that atat driver.
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Here are a couple more shots of that atat driver
I also found this shot again of the scene in the Clone Wars movie with the camo arf trooper.
Yes, LE, the white helmet and chest armor were always part of the plan, which was to tease poor Tamer.
You still take these to school to show your students, Shawn. I am touched.
thanks for your comments, gentlemen. Looking back at those atat driver shots. I think the camo on Veers is a bit more refined.
I used the same camo pattern for that desert ops mando that Greg won as a contest prize but used different colors.
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Here is what I have been working on as far as the details on this slip-on armor.
You seen how I put the piece color on first and then put the paint on for the detail lines. Now, I am touching those lines up using the piece color to straighten and thin out those black detail lines. See how the first applied black lines are thicker and more messy on the left shoulder. Now look at the right shoulder. Here, I have touched up those details by using white to refine them. In a couple of places, I fudged and covered up part of the black where I intended to keep it. In those areas, I must come back with the black to recolor the places I covered up by accident and then, more than likely come back with the white again and touch up around the new applied black lines.
It goes like this back and forth until I am satisfied. In that first shot, you see the brush that I am working with which is alright but cant paint as fine a line as the one I used when working on the Legacy Fox figure."alas, that one wore out on me and I can no longer find it"
It's not all about having a small brush or a steady hand but paying attention to the viscosity of paint on your brush is also important. Too thick and you get blobs of paint or brush strokes which must be covered up. to thin and the paint has a tendency to run into the cracks where I put the dark colors at.
I have been working on the details of his helmet also but have gotten further on that chest plate. I will be glad when this figure's detailing is done.
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Good news! I found a detail brush brand new in the package here at the house that works better than that other one.
Here, I have refined the detail painting on the Veers helmet and need to get the foil on the goggles before I proceed.
I also have refined the details on the chest armor even more and lack just a few touchups on it.
Perhaps I can wrap this guy up tomorrow and move on to another figure.
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more slip on armor pics
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Thank you, L E!
Now I had mentioned that I wanted to apply some bare metal foil to the face of Veers' goggles and I got around to digging out the color that I wanted to use this time, Chrome.
For those of you who don't know, Bare Metal Foil is a thin adhesive backed metal foil used for detailing models, primarily for applying a more realistic chrome trim to car models than silver paint can offer.
To use this stuff, a fresh exacto blade is needed as it is so thin that a dull blade will rip the foil rather than cut it cleanly. Use your knife and cut out a shape of the foil larger than the area that you are going to cover and gently peel it from the sheet back being careful not to cause any bends or wrinkles in the piece.
Place the cut piece over the area to foil, making sure to overlap the edges of your area. Burnish the foil down to conform to the area that you are foiling paying attention to any raised areas or edges. Here, I payed special attention to the outer edge of the goggle lens as that is where I am going to cut the foil. I burnished the foil using a paint brush and a piece of scrap resin. A tooth pick works pretty well for this but I needed to be careful not to make any scratch marks in the middle of the foiled surface. Now is where the fresh knife blade comes in. I carefully cut around the outer edge of the goggle lens and then picked and pulled the excess away from the foiled area. I burnished the goggles againwith the piantbrush smoothing the cut edges of the foil as I went.
Now what remains is to add a fine black line around the edge of the goggles, straightening my cut line and sealing the edges of the foil in, so to say. I will then touch up around this black line with the grey color that is the color of body of the goggles and can hopefully call it good.
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One shot of my cutting around the edge of the goggles and a shot of the foiled lens prior to touch up painting.
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Here are some shots of the goggles now that I have had some time to get that border outline on and touched up with the goggle body color. I have changed that grey to a dark gull grey which is a shade darker for the goggles and the trim around the helmet. Just a couple of more touch ups on the helmet and one on the chest armor and I think I can call this one finished. These pics don't quite do the goggles justice as it's neat to see it reflect whatever color is in front of em. Oh, if only the sun would come out one of these days. I want to see this in the sunlight reflecting some sky color. Now, if I could just remember where I stashed this guy's gun. I can't believe that I started this figure back in June, was it. That's what happens sometimes. I will start one and then put it on the back burner for a while.
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Darn, I switched the page again. take a look at the previous page for the goggle foil application, guys. Those shots lose a bit of the real definition and I need some brighter light. Ah well, here is another shot. I'm glad that this one is almost wrapped up.
thank you very much Dan. this chrome foil went on easier than the copper stuff. I think it's a bit thinner.
I want to thank everybody for all their support and kind comments. It's nice to be able to do something and be proud of it and then get praised by all of the wonderful people here. You guys are the best and all of the wonderful customizing going on around here makes me so proud to be a part of it.
guys, our Imperial Shipyards is one great place to be.
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Thanks guys. Today was honey do day so i didn't get to wrap up the Veers fig and as it was cloudy, i didn't get to take the outside shots I wanted to.
I did get some painting done on a couple of more figures though. The clone engineer "death star gunner" is to match the colors of the Veers figure and will have a chrome foil visor, also. The other is the biggs tie pilot body from the first imperial pilot evo set. My plan is to make him into some kind of transitional shadow imperial pilot fig perhaps existing inbetween the time of the clone wars and the more traditional looking imperial tie pilot. The plan is to use a modded helmet for the fig, possibly the a-wing/airborne mix that I cobbled together a couple of weeks ago. i might throw some kind of grey and black camo on his undercoverings, we will see. I havent decided on a head for this guy yet but wanted to use something other than the stock Biggs head on him.
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Ok, lets start that camo on the gunner figure. My brown base color is on and I will start off with the same light ghost grey from a Testors aircraft colors piant set. Sometimes, I will set the paint jar upside down so that the thicker, flatter paint will settle to the top and when I take the cap off, some of that flatter paint is on the inside of the lid for me to dip into. Using my fine brush, I am making some natural shapes while trying to make the coverage of the grey thick enough that you can't see the brown through it. I try to space the shapes apart some while not putting two of the same shapes next to each other. Now, I come back to it using some flat black, thin enough that I can apply it with a very light stroke but thick enough that it wont run all over the place. Using the black, I make a thin outline around the grey shapes and slightly overlapping into them rendering the outside edge of the black color squared and spikey. I also dab some spike shapes into the grey area. I then come back with the grey again, and touch up anywhere that I got too carried away with the black also putting some of the spikey shapes into the black with the grey. next, I come back with the brown and touch up the outside, cleaning up any areas where the black ran too wide over the brown. I have tried just applying the darker color, in this case, black on first and then coming back with the lighter color on the inside but it didn't turn out spikey enough for me which kind of reminds me of a leaf pattern. This camo, by the way, isn't representitave of any pattern that I have seen before but I kind of like it. I have tried to emulate actual patterns before with varied results. Doing it this way takes a while but it seems less intimidating if I take it in small chunks like I did here.
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this shot is after I have touched up with the brown.
On the pilot figure's chest armor, I threw on some markings that are similar to the ones on this shadow trooper's chest armor using a lighter grey. I wanted it to be lighter than the grey I used on his undercoverings. I dont know that I will put any markings on his boots but I do plan on painting the soles of his boots to carry up slightly on the boot sides.
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Shawn, I never got the camo on that atrt. She is still sitting wearing her base color. On a bigger vehicle like that, I would almost attempt it with an airbrush but need to experiment to be sure. Yes, Devin, an actionfleet scale vehicle would be perfect for that. You guys are too kind.
The sun did peek out today so I grabbed the still not quite finished Veers and the once thought of as finished but seen as needing a couple of touchups snow mando and took them out to the deck to get a couple of shots of em in the sunlight.
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One more shot. I should get him with the sky behind him.
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One more shot. I should get him with the sky behind him.
(http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=189.0;attach=10199;image)
g--damn, CH, he is fantastic looking.
Best Veers custom EVER
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Oops, I forgot to post the pics of the work that i got done on the death star gunner/clone engineer, last night. I got more of the camo done but also, got some detail painting done on the gunner's gloves, holster, belt, slip-on armor, and on one of his boots. some touchups in black are still required but That means that I'm that much closer. I havent done any more painting to his helmet and might wait till I get the visor foiled.
I haven't worked any more on that shadow pilot figure and am still letting the ideas for that one gestate.
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more detail painting pics
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lol you need your own webpage clint, with galleries....
He has one, check out the front page on the left hand side there is a customs category and it will take you to his custom's gallery. I want to do one for every one of you. I just need you to send me the pics in the right side.
www.imperialshipyards.net/Customs/index.html
www.imperialshipyards.net/Customs/customsclonehead.html
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or you could browse the clone wars homepage for the episode guides and pic galleries....:
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img15.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img16.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img19.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img25.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img31.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img41.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img46.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/img50.jpg)
the camo doesn't look too hard
the earphonies have a very irregular color pattern....
the flamethrower clones are intersting for sure.... must be an "all purpose" suit for all extreme temperatures....
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found some concept sketches that you guys might like as well..
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/bts05.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/bts06.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/bts10.jpg)
(http://www.starwars.com/img/sws/theclonewars/guide/episode204/illo2_img.jpg)
some interesting shots...
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Nice pics, Spud! Thanks for finding those. i especially like the concept renderings and the way that they show the shoulder and helmet markings seperately. All three of these are doable with that flamethrower trooper being the most difficult. I still want to try to tackle a legacy version of one of these one day. Here is a shot of the snow ops deco on this same armor style that I had posted over in the reference pictures section.
(http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6950/webtcw15tr8.jpg)
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I snapped a few more pics of these new clone wars clones.
These images are property of lucasfilm ltd.
First here are a couple of shots of that flight deck clone That Tamer had mentioned.
then, I have some more shots of the arf troopers
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Here are some more arf shots including shots of waxer and boil and a closeup of what looks like a cartoon twielek graphic on the side of one of their visors
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another Waxer shot, a shot of an interesting hull deco on a gunship and a back shot of a tank gunner. Also, here is an interesting shot of some troops on the back of an atte
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And here are 4 shots of the earmuff clone
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I havent gotten any more painting done on the two figs that I started but as I was carving on resin helmets for the last three days, I figured I might hollow out this spacetrooper's helmet. The plan is to render the hole big enough for this resin rex head to fit and then use a casted neck nub to mount it on a stock spacetrooper body. To hollow out this helmet, I am using an exacto knife and two small wood chisels. One has a curved head and the other has a flat scalloped blade. I don't quite have the head able to fit in the helmet yet but I'm getting close.
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TY buddy. I figured that there was a reason why I took those and here it is. My plan is to take this clone wars LT Thire figure and paint him up to be the Camo Arf Boil that we seen in those shots, with a removable helmet, of course. Boil is the one with the twilek graphic on his helmet, right? I still need to cast up and hollow out an ARF helmet for him but I started off by giving him a thin coating of flat model master white over all of his armor for his base color of the camo to stick to and to help cover up his red markings so that they wouldn't show through. I then picked a polly s brown color that was close and mixed these three hues looking for something close to paint the body that base color and slapped em on the figures leg for a comparrison. Looking at those concept sketches that Spud showed us, The darker hue might work as a base but comparing the screen shots to that color, it seems that the base color under the camo is a lighter version of that darkest color, perhaps a mix of that color and a light grey. The test swipes of color over and under the dark one are what I came up with for a base color with the top one being my favorite. That darker color in the middle can then be the second layer where the actual camo scheme comes into play.
I may need to take that base color even a shade lighter.
What do you guys think?
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Also, I dove into the tedious camo scheme on that gunner figure again and got a bit further. I still need to touch up the newest parts of the camo but I did make some more progress on him.
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TY buddy. Here is that Thire figure almost entirely pianted the greyish brown color we had decided would be the base undercolor of that desert camo arf trooper. Now take a closer look. does it still seem too dark to anyone?
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I will go with that lighter grey, when I get around to it. Seems like I am trying to juggle about 23 different things that I have to get done today.
I had a chance to take some comparison pics showing the stock clone wars versions of the Clone Commander Fox and Couroscant Guard figures next to my custom Legacy versions. I do thank Trevor for providing me with that cw Fox figure. Any more of those in your stores, Mate?
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Here are those pics I mentioned. I can take some more of him and his guards, as time allots.
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8051/fox1a.png)
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/3693/fox2w.png)
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/9799/fox3.png)
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/1018/fox4.png)
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/5766/fox5.png)
This shot was taken prior to the modifications to the Guards belts.
(http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/392/fox6.png)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6971/fox7.png)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7822/fox8.png)
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I know it's been a bit since I posted anything new but I actually did some painting on a figure today, believe it or not.
These are wip pics of that pilot that I had started using the Evo Imperial tie Pilot Biggs as a base figure. My idea was to make it kind of a shadow pilot but make it exist in the timeline in-between the Clone Wars and the OT. I figure he would be a good pilot for my shadow imperial v-wing. Not being able to resist some kind of camo on this guy, I brushed some light brown marks on his recolored dark grey flight suit today. The effect is pretty suttle so I might accent the brown with either a light or dark color. I still haven't chosen a head for this guy but I didnt want to use the big-hair Biggs and I was going to steer away from a clone's head, this time. What do they call that set of straps that leads from the waist to encircle his lower legs? Anyway, I scrounged that from another figure and need to shorten those lower leg loops so they don't look so floppy. I will cast up an airbix for this guy and then steal some paraviper airhoses to attach to his removable helmet.
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I have shown you before this helmet combo that I intend to use for this pilot. It is the face of a Galactic Marine grafted to the Evo Pilot set B-wing pilot's helmet. I still need to make an adjustment to one side of where the two pieces meet to make things completely square but I think it will be nifty looking with some paint on it.
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Much thanks dudes! It's nice to be posting some custom work again.
Helix, like yourself, I enjoy doing the helmet mods and have for some years now. I find it easier and less taxing on the fodder pile to make em from the resin parts that I cast. I hardly ever make a modded helmet using stock Hasbro parts unless I plan to use the piece as a master to make a mold from as the detail is better from stock pieces or a combo of em than it would be from a mold made using a resin part as the master.
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Thanks for your comments, kind shipyarders.
Clint is that helmet on your list of parts?
Nope, CAA, that one is not on the list. While I do have some modified helmet molds made to cast parts that are on the list, The helmets that you have seen me make by cutting apart and meshing together components of 2 or more helmets from existing resin casts are not on the list. It simply takes too much time to make those modified helmets cost effective. This helmet was made by cutting apart and fitting together portions of two different helmets that are on the list and you could sure try this yourself using those same two parts. This particular helmet has probably seen over two hours worth of work to get it together and looking right. In fact, I put about 20-30 more min into it yesterday as I didn't like how the left side was meshed together compared to the right side and ended up cutting the left sides apart from each other and shaving a couple of areas prior to refitting and gluing them back together in a fashion where both sides were more square fitting to each other. Also, in the cast used from the B-wing pilot helmet, the forward corners of that upper plate above the visor didn't form out to a point and I rebuilt either point using resin and superglue.
Also yesterday, Ii spent some time looking for a head to use for this pilot's body. At first, I snatched up this paraviper head casting that I had on hand and bored out its mounting socket so that it would fit on this figure's neck nub. I like how it looks but almost think that it could be slightly small in proportion to the figure's body. Also, when mounting the helmet onto that head, the helmet rides a bit higher than I would like which can be remedied by shaving out the inside top of the helmet with wood chisels. Were I to remove a little material from that inside top, the head could sit deeper into the helmet and the helmet would sit lower towards the body when worn.
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One more shot of the helmet fitted upon the resin paraviper head and then as I was still experimenting with the head idea a bit, I tried this Gen Veers head on for size. While, i had always loved the Veers head sculpt, to me, it appears that the head sits a bit high on the figure's neck peg which could be easily fixed by reaming the heads hole a bit deeper but more importantly, this head seems a bit large in proportion to the figure's body. I do really like seeing that officer hat on this fig, though. Prehaps the pilot could be an officer who wears the hat when he isnt wearing the helmet.
That's what I did yesterday. Next, I will show what I have been doing to this fig, this morning.
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When I started working on this figure, I had wanted kind of a shadow theme as far as the paint apps on the helmet and armor which would primarily be black and grey like a shadow stormtrooper. I knew that I wanted to make his flightsuit a darker grey with some kind of camo on it. I started thinking that a grey toned camo might suit a shadow pilot better but wanted to give this guy's camo more flare than that. That's why I started with a pattern over the dark grey using the medium brown color. When applied, that brown seemed a bit more subdued than I wanted this camo to be so I decided to choose a ighter color and outline the brown pattern that I had already applied. for this, I chose polly-s old concrete which is a dirty light grey color, almost tannish in tone. I have started with my outline and like the effect and the way the two colors look over the dark grey. I will more than likely come back to touch up with the brown inner color to give it some more presence but for now, I am going with this. I am not sure yet how I will integrate these colors into the helmet or even if I will. I do want to use the black and grey armor shadow colors for the Airborne face plate for sure but haven't decided on a color for the airborne visor yet. I had thought about the chrome foil that I used for the Veers figure's goggles and had considered a shadow trooper's red and even a light Republic Commando blue. We will see.
Still thinking about how that Officer's cap looked I dug out my Captain Needa figure and snatched off his head and tried it on our pilot's body. The head fits loosely on the neck nub but at the correct height and the proportions look right also. I can thicken the body's neck nub to make it fit tighter easily enough with superglue. More importantly, the officer's hat on the Needa head is removable and the Modded pilot helmet fits perfect and at a height in relation to the body that I like better.
I think that I am going with the Needa head. I just like how the officer's hat looks on the suited up fig and think he might look cool wearing the hat and holding his helmet when things are done.
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Here's a couple of test fitting shots with the hemet over the Needa head and a couple more shots without the helmet. Check the previous page to see how I got to this point.
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loving the look of this Camo mate cant wait to see how the helmet looks painted up...oh yeah!!!
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Thank you gentlemen and, Merry Christmas!
I did get a little painting done on that helmet,this morning. Now I have a ways to go with it and some obligitory touchup painting is required here and there but you guys can see the general direction that I am trying to take. I wanted to go with a kind of light blue color for the visor rather than the typical shadow trooper red. I do like how the blue goes with the black and grey. Those lower side vents below the cheeks of the airborne face will be a dark grey color and I might incorporate the same dark grey on the nose piece as well. Now for the backside of the helmet, I was thinking about using some earthy tones kind of like the camo colors to help draw the helmet and body together visually.
The black on the helmet does seem a bit shiney in those shots. I may have to tone it down some.
I notice that those shots are a bit out of focus, as well.
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Thanks guys! Like your new banner, Jay.
I did a little more painting on this today. I got some earthy tones on the back of the helmet and wrapped them around the earmuffs. There are some wires/fine hoses that start at either earmuff and wrap around upper and lower parts of the back of the helmet that I plan on painting black and dark grey to bring the colors together with the rest of it. I got some more of the camo worked on as well and other than touchups, the upper body camo scheme is done. That assembly of straps that wraps around the waist and goes down to the calves has been removed for painting and will wear the darker brown color that I used for the detail lines on the back of the helmet.
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Clint were did you get the stuff to make resin parts?
Hobby Lobby. Go to page 1 (http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=476.0) of my resin casting corner thread and you will see pics of the stuff that I use.
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OK, time for an update on this figure's progress. One of the fixes that I needed to make was to narrow the leg loops on that assembly of straps that goes from his waist down to his calves that I borrowed from another pilot figure." I still don't know what this is called or what it's purpose is" Anyway, the leg loops were to big and to narrow them, I started by using my spru-cutters to cut the straps going around the legs where they meet the vertical straps and then sizing the loop around the figure's leg so that I could cut a comfortable length from the loop. I then used my trusty pin-vise to drill a hole in the center of each end of the loops so that I could glue a fine piece of craft wire into one of the holes in each loop's end. After that glue dried, I cut the protruding wires shorter while test fitting for tightness and when I was satisfied, I used the remaining receiving holes to glue the shortened loops back together and painted the assembly the rest of the way with that darker brown color.
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A couple more shots of the wire pins cut to length and then the glued together re-sized loops.
I also used super glue to thicken the neck post of the pilot body and the Needa head fits tightly now with a full range of motion.
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I have been working on his camo some more and now have it on his upper legs. I also have casted a chest air-box for him and need to paint it up. I got some more paint-work done on the helmet and have painted the wire-hose details that wrap around the back from the earmuffs in two tones of grey and black. Also, I painted those lower cheek vents and highlighted his nose area details in dark grey.
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Some more shots of the helmet details. I now need to drill some holes in the airbox and the back of the helmet to receive some airhoses. Go back one page and you can see how I shortened those leg loops.
I don't have very far to go on this one and as always around this point, I am looking forward to moving onto another one.
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wow... ok I completely missed the bit about shortening the leg loops! Briliant! That is the type of microdetailing I love about your figures clint. you don't skimp on any of the details.
thanks again, Devin. You know me, I like the sweatin the little stuff.
Wow is all I can say on that camo and helmet. Camo is really hard to do but you are the Jedi of Camo!
LOL, well thank you very much, JonCC. I try but think that I could do better.
one more shot tonight and then I'm hitting the sack.
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Sounds like Fox is everyone's favorite except perhaps, my buddy, Tamer.
Well I took some new shots of Fox, today, to celebrate his being the favorite of my 2009 customs but before I show those, here are a few shots of the runner up, the camo AOTC atat driver figure that I made for Tamer.
This first shot is to compare the fig to a saga atat driver like it used to be.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4245191581_3fb74ddef2_o.gif)
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2705/4245965506_ab284a715d_o.gif)(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2722/4245965604_6d8dd0343a_o.gif)
And, like I had mentioned, here are some shots of Fox and one of his Guards, first by themselves and then, posed on a jungle dio that I made years ago.
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more shots of Fox and his guard.
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More Fox and Guard shots
Can you tell which one I used a flash with? Better go back a page and see the other Fox pics that I took.
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Two more shots
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Sounds like Fox is everyone's favorite except perhaps, my buddy, Tamer.
Well I took some new shots of Fox, today, to celebrate his being the favorite of my 2009 customs but before I show those, here are a few shots of the runner up, the camo AOTC atat driver figure that I made for Tamer.
This first shot is to compare the fig to a saga atat driver like it used to be.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4245191581_3fb74ddef2_o.gif)
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2705/4245965506_ab284a715d_o.gif)(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2722/4245965604_6d8dd0343a_o.gif)
And, like I had mentioned, here are some shots of Fox and one of his Guards, first by themselves and then, posed on a jungle dio that I made years ago.
Tamer, I guess you didn't notice on page 110 where I mentioned where that dio was an older one. I don't suppose that you have any shots of your ATAT driver that you could show us?
Thanks guys, for all of your comments.wow I can't get enough of your Fox mate, really awesome
What about a Phase II Fox?
for a Phase II Fox, Fila, I would go with a commander Cody helmet on the same 327th clone commander body without the belt mods.
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man i wish i could maint that good but all i can do is this crappy thing! :'( xwing
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Well I did get some more work done on that pilot figure and I hope to finish him up tomorrow.
I decided to use the stock airbox that came from this figure which already had the shorter airhoses cut off. My plan is to use these longer airhoses that I cut from the accessories on that ROC paraviper fig and I want to pin them to the airbox and helmet so that they will remain removable on either end and be able to pivot on the pin for added pose options while the helmet is on and off. Using a 16GA drill bit, I bored holes in the receiving positions of the airbox and on one end of the hoses. I still have to bore some holes in the back of the helmet, do some length troubleshooting and cut the hoses to length and bore holes in the other ends. I will then use some 16GA tie wire lengths for the pins and mount them into the ends of the hoses, more than likely. After that, a little touch-up painting will be needed and I should be done.
As you can see in the last shot, I have found the stock pistol that the figure came with and I finished the camo paint apps on his lower legs. More pics, tomorrow.
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looks great clint.
why did you decide on pinning the hoses instead of drilling a hole big enough for the hose itself to fit into the box? I know those hoses are thick, is the box not as thick as the hose?
how are you planning on attaching the hoses to the helmet?
thanks buddy. That was my original plan and isn't quite off table yet. I just didn't have a drill bit the perfect size for that on hand although chances are good that I might be able to get deep enough with the ex-acto to ream it wider. For the back of the helmet, I may have to fab up some kind of sleeve that will swallow the hose but hold onto it. Perhaps part of a length of sprue runner from a model kit could work.
Thank you, clonemedic and L.E.
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Well thank you, NFC. I hadn't gotten the idea that this was to be an officer pilot until I had decided to use the Needa head for him. Once I had the head, I had to try on the hat and after that, I was hooked on the look. I took some shots of him for my parts for sale thread, where he is modeling a cast-resin version of this same cap, and figured I might as well post em here. I did do some more touch up to his camo, earlier today, but still need to get his airbox and helmet plumbed for airhoses.
I hear you on that Sigil that you are trying to paint. That's why I never tried a Commander Stone figure. I was afraid that the emblem on his shoulder would be too tedious to promote not pulling my hair out. Good luck on your project and I for sure want to see shots of your progress. Yes, something like that would be a back and forth process.
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I hear you on that Sigil that you are trying to paint. That's why I never tried a Commander Stone figure. I was afraid that the emblem on his shoulder would be too tedious to promote not pulling my hair out. Good luck on your project and I for sure want to see shots of your progress. Yes, something like that would be a back and forth process.
okay!! :) here's a WIP shot of it... trust me when I say it looks far shittier in this picture than it does in real life.
or at least I thought (or hoped) it looked better than it actually does, as evidenced by the camera.
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Spud, an easy alternative would be to alter the atat driver helmet to make it look like a tie pilot helmet. Just cut the air cylinders off of the back and attach air hoses in the front.
I was digging around in the archives of my old custom figure pics and came accross these that I had never posted here before of a custom that started as a saga clone engineer that I converted into an armored sniper fig. Some of his accessories are from elite forces figs and I added extra plating to his legs using the rubber grip from a ball point pin with typing paper strips for thinner plates. I also made a strap for his rifle with a rubber band and made some mods to the gun's barrel. Now, this was made years ago so the paint apps might be a bit shoddy to the eye but it's interesting to see some of the things I have made that have been forgotten over time.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4303197294_0162893029.jpg)
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Since I was in a nostalgic mood, I dug out some more old custom pics. first up is another couple of figs from my first year of customizing. I did a scout trooper using the same colors I used on that death star gunner fig.
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(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4305709720_a8ee769311.jpg)
Next up is an atrt driver that I also did a camo theme on. I added accessories from an elite forces fig and made those night vision goggles so that they could be positioned either over his eyes or up on his forehead.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2755/4305710512_5ffd992389.jpg)
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2713/4305710860_93fa23fd86.jpg)
I did a Saga Cody around the same time using the same colors.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4304968957_04cb7abd49.jpg)
And, this one is from a couple years later that I have posted a pic of here, before, of a modern sculpt snowtrooper that I modded up a helmet for with the face of a galactic marine. I removed the cloth kama and made one out of paper mache and typing paper and painted his eyes and lightsaber with neon paint. It's kind of cool to look at some of this past stuff, post some pics that I hadn't before, and look for some progression as far as how I would do things and possibly improve on techniques.
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LOL, I figured that you would say that, Spud. I have no doubt that the page will change in the middle of this but here goes.
I found some 16ga tiewire and it fit quite snug in the holes that I drilled in the airbox and airhoses so I went with that.
I mounted two small lengths protruding from the airbox and then drilled a couple of holes in the back bottom of that ridge at the back of the helmet and mounted two lengths there. There was some debate over weather or not I wanted to shorten the hoses that I had but I ended up leaving them full length. I believe after I took these pics that I actually reversed the ends on the hoses and felt that they looked better that way. I will get pics up of them the other way, tomorrow. That out of the way, all that remains is some detail painting on the box, hoses, pistol, and a touch up or two on the helmet.
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Now with the hoses connected, here are some shots of how they look.
I remember in the navy, when we were wearing a fire fighting oxygen breathing mask and were in a relaxed mode, we would throw the mask over our head and let it hang on our back by the hoses like I have our pilot doing in this first shot.
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I was considering applying some heat to the hoses to reshape them so that they would drape to his shoulders in a more real weighty fashion but since I turned the hoses around, it does look better. I have not turned them around yet in these shots.
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pics
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This last shot shows how another relaxed pose might look, with the helmet disconnected from the hoses and the hoses allowed to drape down from the airbox.
That's all for this fig tonight. I have already completed my touchups since these shots including applying a dark grey wash to the hoses to bring out the ringed surface. I will post some final reveal pics tomorrow.
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And, here are the shots that I pulled out of the archives today, of a figure that I had posted a shot of early in this thread . This is a figure that I did either late in the first year of my customizing or early in the second year, I don't know. "how long have I been doing this, Shawn?"
This figure was an elite corps clone that I had fitted a solid cast airborne trooper head onto and used the helmet topper from an ATTE gunner to dress it up. I had painted the airborne helmet to match the elite corps camo and gave him a neon green visor. I made for him a paper mache kama with typing paper trim and painted that up.
I made two full-length capes for him. The inner cape was a paper mache item and the outer cape was my first ever ghillie cape that I had made from gauze soaked in white glue, painted, and then dressed up with the same groundwork effects from Woodland Scenics that I use on my little dioramas. The rifle is an elite corps "another line" item that I painted up and added a strap and a bipod to. That little diorama started as layers of craft foam covered with tissue soaked in white glue, pre painted, and then dressed up with woodland scenics groundwork products. I believe that I listed and sold the diorama with the fig.
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2795/4308248694_95ac78323d.jpg)
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Thanks guys, yeah, I was really proud of that ghillie cape. I have only made one more like it, since. and it went to custom cloner.
I took a few final shots of that shadow imperial pilot in the light box and then, outside in the sunshine so you could get a final look at the touchups and paint on the hoses and pistol before I move onto something else.
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Since I had thought about a transitional pilot figure to fly my imperial deco v-wing, I broke it out to take some pics with.
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pIcs
Darn, I had meant to take some high res shots so I could host and post em bigger but I forgot and left the camara on VGA
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Pics
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Pics
Alright, lets move onto something else, shall we?
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TY guys! I might have done a couple things differently but there's always a next time. I do think that he turned out better than I had planned and that is always a good thing.
Those of you who follow this thread remember what else I was working on when I got going on this pilot "a month ago, or was it two?" I was working on the camo paintjob on Tamers gunner repaint that will go with his Veers repaint. Today, I finished all the camo on his upper body, including touchups, and put the grey part of his camo on his legs. I touched up a bit on the black detail lines on his white parts but didn't find my white paint to bring those pieces closer to completion. Oh, and I did paint the little radio receiver on the side of his helmet. There really isn't far to go on this figure and once I do the black part of thecamo on his legs, I will kind of be on the home stretch.
Also, I had decided to paint up this CW Thire to look like either Waxer or Boil from the landing at point rain episode,"whichever one has the twilek graphic on his helmet" and had stalled because I couldn't decide what color to make the base coat of his camo scheme. I had tried a couple of different variations of a dirty grey but looking at this cropped pic from Starwars.com, I am needing to go lighter and less brown for the very bottom armor color. I altered that shot from the show to make it a touch lighter to match my paint to as normally paints darken a bit as they dry. I don't think this is Waxer or Boil in this shot but the basic colors used are the same. Anyway, I did go ahead and make the detail lines where the cracks are in his armor using a dark grey Floquil color and when I decide what hue of light grey the armor base color is supposed to be, I will tighten up those detail lines and apply that base color at the same time.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4308919671_67a3257bd1_o.jpg)
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Thanks fellers. I did not get any more done on Tamer's gunner since yesterday but threw his unfinished accessories on him for a couple of shots so you could remember. I did, however, mix up this lighter grey color to become the base color for my Landing at Point Rain Boil figure and got some of it on. Comparing it to the shot I posted above, I think it is close enough and I will try to get the rest of the figure wearing this color, tonight.
A little help here, Jay. It is boil who wears that little twilek graphic, right?
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boil is on the right
(http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn93/nosaj37/800px-Arf_waxer_boil.jpg)
i'd say yes they are the same
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Thanks again guys. No new progress pics on the two figs that are currently on my workbench. Time for another dive into the custom archives as the wife had me checking memory cards for some pics for her and I came across these old pics of another one of the favorites that I did a few years ago. Somewhere near the beginning of this thread, I posted one or two pics of this one but had lost the rest of these pics until today.
This one, I called the desert ops heavy gunner and he started as a standard biker scout or elite corps body. I merged a resin-cast Republic Commando helmet with the face from a resin Galactic Marine helmet for him and modified the mounting hole so that it fit on the body's neck peg. I gave him a resin-cast sandtrooper's pauldron, a resin-cast mini gun, and made a paper mache kama for him. I was looking for a less busy paint job on this one and only added camo to the pauldron and the inside of his kama. I remember, looking at these pics, that I used paper towels for the kama instead of the normal tissue that I use and I kind of like the rougher texture that the paper towel had to it. It was fun to drybrush on that texture. That last shot shows this fig with the first snow mando fig that I did.
This is one of the ones that I let go in a past ebay auction and I have missed this one, ever since. To date, I have never made this helmet mod again and would not mind making an updated version of this one.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4328789337_e72523d568.jpg)
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Thanks again guys. No new progress pics on the two figs that are currently on my workbench. Time for another dive into the custom archives as the wife had me checking memory cards for some pics for her and I came across these old pics of another one of the favorites that I did a few years ago. Somewhere near the beginning of this thread, I posted one or two pics of this one but had lost the rest of these pics until today.
This one, I called the desert ops heavy gunner and he started as a standard biker scout or elite corps body. I merged a resin-cast Republic Commando helmet with the face from a resin Galactic Marine helmet for him and modified the mounting hole so that it fit on the body's neck peg. I gave him a resin-cast sandtrooper's pauldron, a resin-cast mini gun, and made a paper mache kama for him. I was looking for a less busy paint job on this one and only added camo to the pauldron and the inside of his kama. I remember, looking at these pics, that I used paper towels for the kama instead of the normal tissue that I use and I kind of like the rougher texture that the paper towel had to it. It was fun to drybrush on that texture. That last shot shows this fig with the first snow mando fig that I did.
This is one of the ones that I let go in a past ebay auction and I have missed this one, ever since. To date, I have never made this helmet mod again and would not mind making an updated version of this one.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4328789337_e72523d568.jpg)
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2705/4328789579_32a0754ee8.jpg)
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Well after seeing these awesome bad boys on the bay, I finally know who did them.
Your paint apps are really really nicely done.
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thanks, Squirepec!
I got a package in the mail today from Forum member Spudafett that contained my new super arty snowtrooper that he did up for me. This constitutes the first ever custom figure from someone else that I have ever taken steps to obtain for my own collection and it is just as impressive in person as it appears in his custom figure thread. I took it down to the light box in the basement and snapped a few shots to show off its super arty nature. I have chose one of the guns from the extra gear packs found in the saga legends figures and for some shots, I used the master part for the mold I use to cast the Veers/Galactic Marine mixed helmet. My thinking was that, were I ever to re-customize this figure, perhaps he could be some kind of snowtrooper commander. My plan is still to take pics of this guy repelling out of the new ATAT walker when I get one but it is always nice to visualize.
Devin, I love that stretchy material you used for the straps connected to the knee pads. That works perfect for this.
And now for some pics of Spud's super arty snowtrooper....
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4336686662_bcca7ac532.jpg)
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(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4335942057_7e9de64214.jpg)
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DArthxux, as I recall, all I had to do was ream out the cavity in the bottom of the arf trooper head so that it would fit onto the mounting peg on the clone commander's body. Looking at this one shot, I remember that I had shortened the clone commander body neck peg a bit to make the arf head sit at the correct height but could have reamed the hole in the head deeper to get the same effect. It was pretty easy to do and I used a wood chisel and an exacto knife to do it.
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Man how do you make your paint jobs look like factory made those are great liking the arf head on that trooper body!! Oh yeah im still working on that part list might be a biggie.
Thanks for your comment, Kreeper2! I guess it's more time and patience than anything. Make it as big as you want. I could use a big order right about now.
i realy want to see you cast a full figure body clint can you have a try
This sounds like it would be more trouble than it would be worth, Poucher. Unless it was a figure of my own sculpting, of course.
Here are some shots of a figure's paint job from the past that I am proud of.
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(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4379556553_e46d871437_o.jpg)
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(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4379556553_e46d871437_o.jpg)
Jules that's just amazing. I love it.
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And, here are the shots that I pulled out of the archives today, of a figure that I had posted a shot of early in this thread . This is a figure that I did either late in the first year of my customizing or early in the second year, I don't know. "how long have I been doing this, Shawn?"
This figure was an elite corps clone that I had fitted a solid cast airborne trooper head onto and used the helmet topper from an ATTE gunner to dress it up. I had painted the airborne helmet to match the elite corps camo and gave him a neon green visor. I made for him a paper mache kama with typing paper trim and painted that up.
I made two full-length capes for him. The inner cape was a paper mache item and the outer cape was my first ever ghillie cape that I had made from gauze soaked in white glue, painted, and then dressed up with the same groundwork effects from Woodland Scenics that I use on my little dioramas. The rifle is an elite corps "another line" item that I painted up and added a strap and a bipod to. That little diorama started as layers of craft foam covered with tissue soaked in white glue, pre painted, and then dressed up with woodland scenics groundwork products. I believe that I listed and sold the diorama with the fig.
lucky customer, but too bad for me that you sold this one, he is just AWESOME and I would have loved to feature him in a combat pose/desert action scene...
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Thank you very much, Art! That was one of my favorite custom figures from the early days.
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wow outstanding job dude . i like all of your custom. Im still new to this site (yard) but i got to say Im so likeing the postive of other people and there custom looks . I do a few custom my self with Wraithnine , and learning from this guy . hope to one day be as good as him .
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Impressive work clint, awesome!
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Thanks fellers. I am in the process of trimming this thread down so that I can lock it and sticky it and will then concentrate on my second custom figure thread.
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That ARF helmet trooper on this page is totally awesome. Clonehead I hope to be as good a painter as you someday.
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Nice work mate. I have enjoyed looking through your customs.
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Thank you, Mungo!
Guys, I am locking up this thread and making it sticky and will continue any further custom figure projects in my 2nd custom figure thread. Although it pained me to do so, I have deleted all comments from you glorious members in this thread and ones of my own that didn't have any pics or detailed explanations for anything. In doing so, I have shrunk this thread from 124 pages to 35 which will make it alot easier to look through. As I was deleting, I re-read all comments made by you wonderful people and want to give a big thank you for all of your praise and comments.