Topic: Clonehead's Custom Figures reloaded

[Clonehead]

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!

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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?

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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 auctionsthread.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

some shots of the in-progress gunner fig.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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?