Topic: Don's Custom Star Wars Figures

[Don]

New this morning!
Well, actually I swapped the arms and painted the maroon 10 or 12 years ago, but last night and this morning I added a bunch of greebles, the neck wrap, and some detail and weathering paint.
Fun build!

[Don]

OMG! I'm SO excited about this! Probably it's not done yet; I want to do a dais or chair of some kind, and I'm thinking a nose ring or some tattoos would look cool, but for now he's good enough to share.

I make SO many fan-fic goons I started thinking I should make a rival (or partner) fan-fic Hutt as well. Inspired by art from the Art of the Phantom Menace book (first image below) I wanted a Hutt who could still upright. I've been thinking about this for awhile, but a couple days ago I found a Clone Wars Jabba with broken arms for a dollar on local classifieds. I'll write a second post about the process.

[Don]

Here's an explanation of the work done to make this.

I got this CW Hutt with broken arms.


I tried to dremel out the arm sockets.


But there's metal in there!


So I cut the already broken pegs off the arms leaving me with these flat ends needing a mount.


This morning I used a two-part epoxy to glue magnets into the arm sockets.


And I epoxy-glued magnets to the arms.




I wanted the head to swivel around backwards giving me the seated upright look, but when turned around the head exposes this flat spot right below the "chin" that just didn't look right. (Look at where the face color ends and the darker color starts; flat spot.)


So I decided to take the head off. I could pull on it, and see into the crack, but it would not come off. I stretched the opening as far as I could and just cut some of the lip (inside the figure) by inserting a hobby knife into the neck while holding the gap open. That gave me enough space to remove the head. I trimmed the opening a bit, and now the head is relatively easy to attach and detach.






And since the neck opening was expanded in the back I can now turn the head around, and push it forward to cover the flat spot.


And one pic from the painting process with the magnet arms attached!

[RC-1136]

I've always wanted to do a custom Hutt. He looks amazing!

[Aude]

This looks like a fun concept to work with. I'm excited to see where it goes!

[Tamer]

Wow, awesome Hutt Project. I am gonna get that Assassin Droid on the front page and of course get the Hutt on there too. I like how he turned out.

[JDeck]

Awesome customs, I like the IG Droid. And the jabba. As a matter of fact my very first custom was a Kenner jabba I found at Goodwill with no arms. I was like 5 or 6 maybe? It was a deal of a lifetime.  With my mother's help I made a set of arms with sculpy, and he had a frog in his hand. It was pretty badass. I almost forgot about that. At any rate the Hutt looks great.

[Don]

Finally got around to replacing Ak Rev's stupid legs with some hoth soldier legs (painted, obviously).

[Tamer]

Nice. Back on the front pages.

[Don]

Got some new tattoos from Bad Mother and updated a few customs! (The Hutt is probably going to get more later.)

Looks like this new Hutt, and his goons are showing a Black Sun affiliation!

[Tamer]

Those sure do look great. They really add to your customs. Off to the front pages.

[Don]

Wow, occasionally I'm just going to stumble across an old custom (or two) in one of many figure-bins.

I made these easy-head-swap figures 15 years ago when the Saga Jedi youngling figures came out (2003). The first uses the old POTF2 Greedo head and hands, and the second uses the AOTC Kamino Escape Boba Fett head and hands.



Here they are pictured with the other younglings from the bin.


But actually, I kinda like the Rodian hanging out on the docks and causing some mischief with his older brother.

[Tamer]

Nice. Very nice.

off to the front pages.

Guess those two are gonna get lumps of coal for Xmas.

[Don]

Something I've been thinking about for awhile. I wanted an updated Asajj Ventress. I swapped the legs for some fully articulated legs from Luminara Unduli. I don't remember why I cut it originally, but I had to rebuild the peg on the Luminara legs (pictured below). I also glued the trimmed-down Marauders hood onto a second head in order to get the hood to sit low and correctly. And I added a Bad Mother slide-off sticker Sith symbol.

[Tamer]

Oh yeah, she looks great. Off to share.