Topic: gi-joe hip replacement tutorial (strait torso)

[Clonehead]

Hey XizorsYirago, welcome to the shipyards!
I noticed that the Rise of Cobra Heavy fig comes with a pretty good looking chain gun.

[masterfett]

That's quite an undertaking to get better articulated hips, it does allow for the figure have more poses.   I've never really been a fan of Joe articulation though, it just doesn't seem smooth and transitional as the SW joints do.

[spudafett]

in alot of ways the joe metal ball jointed hips are awkward... BUT the ease of being able to swap the legs and parts by taking out the screws is what I like most.  The worst part of the star wars figures is having to remove the pegs.  Unless you heat up the plastic they are almost impossible to remove without breaking them.  Not to mention if the part you want to swap out doesn't have the same sized male peg then it won't fit in the original hole.  With a peg that's bigger than the original it's not a problem and just a matter of drilling a bigger hole.  Of course this isn't always possible either. I've ran into several figures that the leg/arm/hand/whatever is so small or skinny that drilling a bigger peg hole is impossible.

I am please to see with the new ARF trooper a ball jointed hip style though.  That will make making super articulated animated clones easy.  BUT you still don't have a good way of making older figures and legacy figures super articulated. 

This is a very labor intensive process.  However I can have a figure completed in at least an hour or two (all except for painting).  As long as the super glue cures quickly that is...   

Masterfett I'm not trying to shoot you down, just try to explain why I take the time to do this stuff.   Unlike most collectors I am still a big kid and love playing with the figures as much as I do working on them.  Of course I play with them with my kids (i'm not some goofy 22 year old single guys playing with his toys in secret..... lol!).  From a collecting point of view a stiff unarticulated figure is no big deal because either 1) it won't even be opened, or 2) it will be opened once, examined, and then displayed on a shelf indefinately.   I try to make my customs in a way that I know that as a child I would have wanted them to be made.  More poses means more playability and more senarios which will keep the attention of a child more than something that is imposible to play with or pose.....     

anyways I'm rambling on now.

guys thanks for the responses on this.  I'm going to try and do another for the newer style figures that have a two part torso with the "ball" jointed chest/gut or whatever you want to call it.  I have done a super articulated kashyyyk trooper in this way which came out awesome.  I have been wanting to do another with the comander faie figure but I will need to collect the figures to do it so it may be a while before I post the next tutorial.  Until then I'm going to work on the parts reference/ anatomy of a figure thread I've been thinking about.

[DocOutlands]

And the more articulated, the more useful in a photonovel!!

[XizorsVirago]

Thanks, Clonehead!

Spudafett: I really love the articulation upgrade you've done on your Fetts, all they need is the little armor piece below the belt and they'll be perfect! You should see if you can salvage them off the old hips. Great work though, can't wait to try this on some of my figures! Oh also I totally am the goofy 2(4) year old who plays with his collection in secret  :X    lol oh well.

[spudafett]

Ya know, I sold one of these super articulated fetts to a collector of mando's on e-bay a while back and he said that the only thing he didn't like was the absence of the cod-piece (that little piece of armor below the belt ).  I have actually figured out a way of sculpting a pretty nice little piece to fix that problem with apoxi sculpt.  I just never bothered with this figure honestly! lol

here is a pic of my "self custom" mando gunslinger which I sculpted on all the armor to a Wild Bill 25th aniv. joe figure.  The chest armor and the cod piece are all hand sculpted directly onto the armor.



I just realized it but this is another instance of me splicing star wars figure arms into the upper torso of a gi-joe figure.  This time I had used boba fett arms and spliced them onto wild bill's body.  Of course I sculpted on the armor.

[masterfett]

I didn't take anything you said personal spudafett, and I do agree with you that Joes are the best and easiest when it comes to part swapping between  them, done it for years myself. I was just stating my opinion that I'd like them better if the joints were more aesthetically pleasing is all. I agree they should make SW more universal between the figures, but I think they do it on purpose because secretly they hate us customizers.

[spudafett]

HA! I agree with them hating us customizers... or perhaps it's that they know they can make crappy figures that we will buy 4 of just to make one custom figure?! 

Your right about the hip joints looking a little funky and definately are not aesthetic.  Some of the newer ROC figs seem to be a little better though I think.   

I've been able to get around the aesthetics of the ball joints by adding belts with holsters, pouches and dangly bits to break up the recessed area around each hip.  That seems to help a little bit. 

It's all a give and take with action figures though,  sacrifice accuracy and aesthetics for articulation or vice versa?  it's a hard choice sometimes.  Thats where we as the customizer get to make the decision on how to tackle these problems and find a nice blend of both... or try at least! 

(btw I hoped that you didn't take my comments personal, I was in a rather bad mood eirlier and thought my comment might have come off a little snappy... of course that's me trying to be politically correct and worrying too much I think!)

[XizorsVirago]

Good call. I really like your self-image mando, makes me want to try that recipe for making some characters from the Republic Commando book series. I know the commando elite pack is out there, but that has some room for improvement, and Joe articulation is definitely on the list! Your fig's colors are pretty close to Kal Skirata's, makes it easy to see the potential there, haha.

[spudafett]

xizorsvirago,  there are better pics of all these figs and many more that I've done similar splicings with in my customs thread here:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=720.0

browse through it and I'm sure you'll get some good ideas, steal all you want

[spudafett]

xisorsvirago, I read in another thread that you needed better hip articulation for a legacy sand trooper?  Have you figured that out yet? I think I have the perfect solution for you.  Using the lower half of a gi-joe figure and the upper legs of one you can splice it all together in a similar fashion as here.



Basically the way to fit a gi-joes lower torso half into a star wars figures upper torso is you have to split open both figures chests and remove the lower portions.  You then need to test fit the new bottom to the star wars figure and see if there needs to be any adjustments to the peg on the lower torso which fits up into and holds it inside the upper torso.  You may have to trim down the actual peg or dremel out a larger area for it to fit inside the chest.  I will be doing a tutorial on this with pictures to better explain like I've been saying. 

The only problem with this technique is that it will not have the correct armor details on the lower torso or the upper thighs like it should.  You might be better off using a dremel and cutting off the waists and glueing the gi-joe waist to the bottom of the lower torso of the star wars figure.  You would still have the problem of the legs not being armored though...   This could be sculpted over if you have the stuff to do it...  or you could try cutting the gi-joe leg tops and splicing them onto the existing star wars legs....   

there is probably a better way to do a legacy style clone or stormtrooper though.   This splicing technique is realy better suited for figures that a change in shirt/pants style won't affect.  Figures with full body armor makes it hard to find a suitable joe counterpart to swap parts with. 


one of the project ideas rattling around in my head is to find a ball joint torso boba fett and jango fett (same sculpts as in the evolutions pack) and do a joe hip splice with them somehow. 

[XizorsVirago]

Yeah... I was thinking maybe i could just slice off the Joe's legs at the upper thighs above where the sandtrooper's armor stops, so the Joe leg would only be where the black body suit is. Not sure how well that would work, but one of these days I'll just have to start slicing on a Joe and see what I can figure out, lol

[spudafett]

I know of someone else on the sealteamsix custom boards who spliced a joe leg exactly like that.  Here's a pic of his:

user "plastic surgery's" jedi master:

[Clonehead]

That is really cool looking and spooky at the same time.
This is a great thread, Devon!

[XizorsVirago]

Wow, that looks pretty badass! It makes me want to go buy a terminator figure and make a custom of the clone trooper Corr from the Republic Commando books. (He had prosthetic arms from trying to disarm a bomb or something)