Topic: Clonehead's Custom Figures reloaded

[Clonehead]

Three more shots of the paintjob thus far, and the same shot of Fox that Masterfett supplied, for color comparison.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

Fox is looking sweet Clint, I'm drooling at the sight of those pics!    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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

I also got the shoulder straps to his chest pieces painted dark red.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[Clonehead]

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.

[masterfett]

Looks Fabulous Clint!! 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.

[Clonehead]

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.