Topic: customsforthekid.blogspot.com 7/28/24

[darthdaddy]

Two more quick ones Elias just finished for a commission.

RECIPE
Head - Clone Wars Scuba Ahsoka Tano (Re-sculpted)
Torso, Upper & Lower Arms - "Rebels" Ahsoka Tano (Re-sculpted)
Legs & Elbows - Black Series 3.75" Ahsoka Tano (Re-sculpted)



"SIEGE OF MANDALORE"
AHSOKA TANO
created by Elias










"The Clone Wars" Season 7 -
Obi-Wan Kenobi
created by Elias







PLENTY MORE PICTURES HERE:
https://customsforthekid.blogspot.com/2020/04/siege-of-mandalore-ahsoka-tano-created.html

[Starchaser]

Fantastic update! I really like how Ahsoka and the Younglings turned out. Good to see some of the new pieces of art you two come up with. Thanks for continuing to inspire!

[Don]

That Ahsoka is fantastic!

[MandoMuggle]

So Dad was much better at posting on the forums than I am. In fact, I have been absolutely terrible about it. We have done quite a lot of custom action figures since our last post here. I will even have a few more to post up this weekend. Anyhow, here is what we have been up to.

This action figure was created for a commission. Our good friend Corey Van Dyke of Kessel Run Transmissions asked Dad if he could make him an Anakin Skywalker in time for the release of Season 7. Dad was a little worried about the deadline, but was able to finish the figure in less than a week.

Thanks for all the nice feedback on our customs!
We may have another cool Clone Wars action figure coming later in the season of the show so keep coming back for that reveal.

Look for Dad and I to appear as a recurring guests on Kessel Run Transmissions Friday evenings as they review each episode of Season 7 of The Clone Wars.

THE CLONE WARS - SEASON 7
"ANAKIN SKYWALKER"
created by Darth Daddy




CB-23 was a BB-series astromech droid with feminine programming who was a member of the Resistance in 34 ABY. She was assigned to Commander Poe Dameron while BB-8 was stationed on the Colossus with Kazuda Xiono. After Dameron took back BB-8 before going on a mission to Jakku, CB-23 replaced the droid as Kaz's sidekick while on his misson on the Colossus platform.

CB-23 was a BB-series astromech droid with a spherical chassis, feminine programming, and red-blue plating. She was initially jealous of BB-8 but came to appreciate her fellow droid better after he saved her from a marauding Kowakian monkey-lizard. The two subsequently became friends.

CB-23 is a character created for Star Wars Resistance. She first appeared in the episode "Signal from Sector Six."[2] The droid's name was BB-23 in early stages of the episode, but as it was felt that having two droids named BB would have been confusing, she was renamed CB-23 as a nod to Carrie Beck, Vice President of Development within the Lucasfilm Story Group.

This is the first custom that we made from the Star Wars Resistance TV show. We would love to do more because not enough toys were made from this show in the action figure line. We were given the 3-D print file for CB-23's head from fellow Star Wars customizer, Sandcrawler Customs. He had just made a 6" version. I scaled the head down to 3.75", printed the head and then added it to the body of the BB-8 from the Resistance action figure line and gave the figure a repaint.


STAR WARS RESISTANCE
"CB-23"
created by Darth Daddy



GOUD-4 was a box-shaped messenger droid with four wheels that was forced to work in the criminal Pyke Syndicate's spice mines on the planet Kessel during the reign of the Galactic Empire.[2] In 10 BBY,[3] GOUD-4 was freed from slavery when its restraining bolt was removed during a slave revolt in the mines started by the droid L3-37.[2]

We can't express how much we have been enjoying the 3-D print files of Isotelus. They are a blast to print and paint. We especially love how much they have added to our Kessel Playset by really filling out its droid population.


"GOUD-4"
painted by Darth Daddy




I made the action figures below on commission for one of our readers. I was able to improve upon two of the headsculpts since our last attempt at the characters. Dad was able to cut down some of the labor time for me by molding and casting a few of the original heads that we made which was great because it saved me having to re-sculpt all six heads. Ganodi and Katooni were the onlt two characters that I still had to hand sculpt, because we just didn't have the right tools and set-up to mold and cast them. I really liked the sculpt more on the second attempts. It was hard to mail them out the door.

Even now mass production from the molds we have is sketchy without a pressure chamber. Between Byph's eyes and Zatt's tentacles, getting a good cast is next to impossible. Gungi was the only cast that needed only minor fixes. We kept the recipes for the figures exactly the same as we did for our first set of Younglings. Click on the photo of our first set below for the full breakdown of how they were made.


"JEDI YOUNGLINGS"
created by Elias



This is the second version of Fives in his Coruscant Club disguise. We recently redid the action figure at the request of Corey Van Dyke from Kessel Run Transmissions. I had already made an Ahsoka Tano in her Seige of Mandalore armor and a Season 7 version of Obi-Wan Kenobi when this figure was added to the list. It was a quick and easy custom to make. I just used the body of a Phase II Clone Trooper action figure with a Clone headcast we made. A while back Dad made this enormous mold of every Clone Wars clone head ever produced. It always comes in handy for projects like these. After making the cast, I painted it so it had Fives head tattoo, scar and goatee. Then we painted a modified Imperial Officer cap from the Juno Eclipse action figure to finish the figure. You need to make a pizza wedge slice into the back of her cap and re-glue the edges back together to make it fit Fives head nice and tight. Before painting, feel free to sculpt a thin layer over the cut to hide it once the glue dries.


"THE LOST MISSIONS"
FIVES
(CORUSCANT CLUB DISGUISE)
VERSION 2
created by Elias

These are all amazing! I especially love the younglings set!

No one starts off being great at anything but you still did a fine job with these customs and posting them!

Been a long time fan of you and you’re dads customs, especially the Bo-Katan you two made! Keep it up!

[Tamer]

I always thought that the Scuba Ahsoka was the best younger looking version of her face sculpt that Hasbro pulled off. I see Elias kicked it up a few notches. Great custom.

Off to the front pages.

[Aude]

I'm loving this Ahsoka, Elias. Your client must be absolutely thrilled with her! Those jedi younglings are also adorably well done. Great stuff!

[Michiico]

That Ahsoka looks stunning and so do the jedi younglings. Keep up the amazing work!

[Elias]

Just want to come on and update everyone on some of our latest projects, and let everyone know that for reasons outside my dad's control Darth Daddy will be stepping down from his role at the blog and will be taking an indefinite break from making custom figures. He sends his thanks to all of you who have appreciated his figures and to those who let him share their work with our audience.

This week the blog hit our 10 year anniversary and we want to thank all the people who contributed or took time to spread the word and help make our blog a success.

Without further delay, here's what we have been up to lately.

"STAR WARS REBELS" MORAI painted by Darth Daddy
Morai was a female convor with spiritual ties to the Daughter, a Force wielder from Mortis. She appeared in various depictions of the Force wielders alongside the Daughter. It was believed by some that the convor in these depictions was a servant of the Daughter or even a manifestation of the Daughter herself in another form. Morai became a friend of former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano,whom the Daughter transferred her life essence into prior to her death.

Morai accompanied and watched over Tano throughout her life. Tano claimed that she owed the convor her life. When Ezra Bridger entered the world between worlds, Morai was present and encouraged him to save Tano by pulling her out of a portal. After reuniting with Tano, she was present when Tano and Bridger fought against Emperor Palpatine. Morai accompanied Tano when she returned through the portal to the ruined Malachor Sith Temple. As Tano returned to the temple interior, Morai overlooked an injured Darth Vader as he limped away from the temple.

This year, Customs for the Kid has been showcasing several 3-D printed customs that can be found on the internet. Not only have these print files been great for adding unique pieces to our own collection, but by sharing these files with all of you, we provide our readers the ability to replicate the customs we post here in their own homes. Sandcrawler Customs messaged us and made us aware of this particular file of Morai created by itisnotadoll.

The print painted up beautifully, and we are already getting ready to modify the print to portray Morai when she is in flight as well. Morai looks great posed with the Super-Articulated "Rebels" Ahsoka Tano that we purchased from Star Wars customizer, SWK Kustoms back in 2016.



"STAR WARS REBELS"
MORAI
painted by Darth Daddy



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"THE CLONE WARS" LUX BONTERI (ONDERON) created by Elias
"Lux Bonteri was a human male senator and rebel fighter from Onderon during the Clone Wars. He was the son of the Separatist senator Mina Bonteri. During the Clone Wars, he allied with Saw and Steela Gerrera to lead the Onderon rebels during the Onderonian Civil War. After the conflict, he followed in his mother's footsteps and became a senator, this time representing Onderon in the Republic.

During the Clone Wars, Bonteri was present when the Republic Senator Padmé Amidala and Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano traveled to Raxus to speak with his mother about negotiating a peace treaty between the Confederacy and the Republic. While his mother and Amidala negotiated, Bonteri and Tano conversed outside in the garden. Both spoke of their biased perspectives of the war; Bonteri confessed his distrust of the Jedi and the Republic, and Tano spoke of her distrust of the Separatists. Bonteri had never met a Jedi before while Ahsoka had never met a Separatist civilian, and they mutually agreed that they were in fact not that different from each other. Despite being on opposing sides of the war, the two quickly became friends.

Eventually, Bonteri returned to his homeworld of Onderon, which was under Separatist occupation. The Separatist regime had made Sanjay Rash King of Onderon, and removed the true King, Ramsis Dendup. Bonteri joined a resistance group that had been formed by Steela and Saw Gerrera with the goal of returning Dendup to the throne. In order for their mission to be successful, however, the rebels required supplies, weapons, and training. Using his personal connection to Ahsoka Tano to his advantage, Bonteri contacted the Jedi High Council, asking for aid to help restore peace to Onderon. The Jedi promised to help, however many were resistant to becoming directly involved in the matter, saying that it was an internal affair and out of their control. Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker suggested that the Jedi provide supplies and training to the rebels, but not directly become involved in the fight; allowing the rebels to retake their homeworld on their own. Agreeing with this idea, the Council sent Jedi Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, accompanied by Commander Ahsoka Tano and Clone Captain CT-7567, known as "Rex", to Onderon where they began to train the rebels for combat.

Upon arrival to Onderon, Kenobi, Skywalker, Tano, and Rex were brought to the rebel camp and began to train the rebels. The rebels began by learning to disable Armored Assault Tanks and droidekas using grenades. Bonteri was particularly good as disarming the droidekas, however when paired with Saw to take out the tank, he fell off the tank taking Saw down with him. This caused Saw to be upset with Bonteri, claiming that he was a politician and not meant to fight. Both Steela and Saw could not disable the droidekas, and Steela became frustrated with herself, preferring her skills as a sniper to destroy droids.

While practicing their marksmanship with the Jedi, a group of battle droids, learning the location of the rebel base, began to attack the rebels. Using their new training, the rebels took out the first wave of battle droids using grenades. However, the second wave of battle droids arrived with a tank, which Bonteri and Saw had been unsuccessful disarming in training. Bonteri and Saw paired up again to take out the tank, and this time succeeded, using thermal detonators and destroying the tank. After succeeding in defending their base, the Jedi and the rebels decided that they were ready to take the fight to Iziz and reclaim Onderon. In order to get into the Separatist controlled city, Bonteri came up with the idea of posing as hunters, coming back into Iziz to sell their game in the market. Not detecting any of their weaponry due to the high amounts of organic matter on their carts, the battle droids allowed the rebels to enter. After entering Iziz, the group split up to avoid attention; agreeing to regroup after nightfall.

The group decided to execute a series of small strikes on battle droid battalions throughout the city, where Bonteri hid behind a market stand and disables a patrol of droids in front of some citizens. When the rebels later met up in a safehouse in Iziz, Saw suggested that they increase their attacks on the Separatists. However, it was noted that many of the civilians in Iziz had become frightened by the sudden outbreak of violence, and it was suggested by Bonteri and Steela that they first must win the trust of the people. Bonteri suggested that they take on a large target to show their strength and draw public attention to themselves. It was decided that they would attack the city power generator. Skywalker, Kenobi, and Rex left the rebels and returned to Coruscant, while Tano remained as an advisor to the rebels.

Eventually, after some time training, Bonteri, Tano and the Onderon rebels—led by Steela—made their presence known to the people in Iziz and fought against the droid army, forcing them to retreat. Onderon was won, Dendup became king again, and Bonteri—having his faith placed in the Jedi and the Republic—was appointed Senator of Onderon. He swore to serve the Republic."

Because Lux was such a key character throughout many episodes of The Clone Wars and such a good friend to Ahsoka Tano, we thought he definitely deserved a spot on the shelf with all our other clone Wars action figures. While he was depicted with several different looks in his episodic appearances, we felt his Onderon appearance was the one we wanted most so we could pose him next to our Saw and Steela action figures.

To create this 100% sculpted action figure, I just resculpted a head onto a Clone Wars Anakin Skywalker and for the body I used the Black Series Endor Han Solo action figure as my base.



THE CLONE WARS
LUX BONTERI
created by Elias





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"CUSTOMS FOR THE KID" CELEBRATES 10 YEARS OF BLOGGING

When we started this blog, we never knew we would be still here 10 years later still making action figures and promoting the members of the Star Wars custom action figure community. We weren't quite sure how best to pay reverence to the event so we took a multi-pronged approach. First, we made a custom 3.75"scaled Loth-Wolf from the Star Wars Rebels animated series. We will get into the significance of why a Loth-Wolf a little later but there is a small story there. Next we updated the banner for our blog to include some of our more recent creations while making sure to include some of our older customs as well. As a bonus, we got together with some of our friends in the Star Wars community for a livestream to celebrate "Custom for the Kid" milestones over this past decade that can be viewed in the video above.

At the moment, the picture above is the photo we are using for our new banner, We are still deciding if it will be a permanent fixture or not. We'll let you all know when the jury is out on that one.

The Loth-Wolf was a project Dad had been working on for some time now. We recently decided that when we hit our 10 year anniversary, Dad would be stepping down from his duties here at the blog. Therefore this custom Loth-Wolf may just be the last custom we get here from Darth Daddy. There was a combination of factors that led to this decision but ultimately we both decided that I am more than capable of managing the blog on my own from now on.

Dad liked the idea of making the Loth-Wolf as his final piece because he has had dreams of wolves his entire childhood. One of the last wolf dreams he had, back around when I was born, was his wolf pack giving him a young cub to raise. Dad said I was that little cub in his dream and this blog was such a big part of that upbringing. The Loth-Wolf stood at the door to The World Between Worlds. This blog opened both me and my dad up to the world of Star Wars customizing and we can't thank you all for the support you have shown us all over the last decade. Working on this blog has been life changing for both of us. We will never forget the cool creations, friendships, podcast interviews, awards, and events we got to be a part of.

I can't thank Dad enough for all he did to make this blog a reality.

Here is the link to the livestream! Thank you to all who participated and Thank The Maker for his "Flimflam and Gorky" introduction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1J3NU1sJmg



"Loth-Wolf"
by Customs for the Kid









I hope you all stick with the "Customs for the Kid" blog for another 10 years even though Dad had to step away and that I will be a worthy successor.

[Tamer]

Wow, great customs. Off to the front pages. I saw that wolf the other day on FB and had to share it.

Congrats on ten years!

[darthdaddy]

Wow, great customs. Off to the front pages. I saw that wolf the other day on FB and had to share it.

Congrats on ten years!

Thanks Shawn! I gave you and the Shipyards a shout out in our video.

[Tamer]

That was sure nice of you Brian. Feel like just yesterday, but man it has been a few years hasn't it!

[DarthSinister]

As always, excellent work Brian and Elias! You guys are the bomb!

[Starchaser]

These are most amazing customs Elias! Kudos to your Dad for the Loth wolf as well, I love the story behind that figure (as a dad myself). You are really doing masterful work with these figures - great sculpting and great paint apps! Congratulations on the milestone anniversary as well.

[Elias]

Thank you all!

Being the 3.75" action figure purists that we are, I never saw myself creating a custom in the 6" scale. However, when a client reached out to me asking for a character as awesome as Ahsoka Tano, I couldn't resist. This commissioned action figure is made from the body of a Star Wars Rebels Black Series Ahsoka Tano, and an Ahsoka head from Watto's Scrapyard, which I modified to give it a more animated look. The Ahsoka body underwent some serious dremelling, and a then I gave her a 100% new sculpt. I used Aves Fixit sculpt to give her arms some more muscular definition, and to smooth out the shirt. I also made sure to make the armor on her gauntlets and boots screen accurate, unlike Hasbro's new 6" Black "Series Siege of Mandalore - Ahsoka Tano" that took some serious shortcuts when it came to screen accuracy on the gauntlets and lower legs. 

I faced a particularly difficult challenge in constructing her Lightsabers, as the ones she used in The Clone Wars don't exist in the 6" scale yet, so I had to dive in head first and sculpt them myself. I did so by cutting a styrene rod to size, and using the tips of the Black Series Ahsoka lightsabers so the blades would still click into place the way they used to. I then sanded the base of the lightsabers down, and then sculpted all the necessary details into place. I dyed her lightsaber blades by simply coating them in a blue wash so they would maintain their transparency.


THE BLACK SERIES
CUSTOM "AHSOKA TANO - SIEGE OF MANDALORE"
created by Elias









MORE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING THE LINK:
https://customsforthekid.blogspot.com/2020/08/custom-6-black-series-ahsoka-tano-siege.html


STAR WARS REBELS "HONDO OHNAKA" created by CUSTOMS FOR THE KID

This was a figure that my Dad had started prior to stepping down from his role here at the blog. He did both the build and the sculpt for the figure. To build the frame, he used the lower arms of The Clone Wars Hondo Ohnaka, the upper arms of a Clone Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi (heavily re-sculpted), the upper torso of an Indiana Jones & The Crystal Skull Mutt Williams action figure (heavily re-sculpted), the thighs of a Clone Wars Admiral Yularen and the lower legs and feet from a Black Series Force Awakens Leia Organa (heavily re-sculpted).

Seeing Dad's almost completed work just sitting there inspired me to pick up where he left off and add some color to his sculpt. By the time I put the figure down he was fully painted, Hondo symbol painted on his back and all. Dad couldn't be more excited to see this one finished. Hondo is one of Dad's favorite Star Wars characters!

The head was a 3-D resin printed cast from Watto's Scrapyard. It was a lot of fun to start bringing one of his heads to life with some paint. When it painted up as well as it did, I wanted to get going on the other fifty or so heads we received from Wattos.



STAR WARS REBELS
"HONDO OHNAKA"
created by Customs for the Kid









MORE IMAGES IN THE LINK:
https://customsforthekid.blogspot.com/2020/08/star-wars-rebels-hondo-ohnaka-created.html

[Darth More]

Elias, it's always an event when you and your dad share your projects on here!
Ahsoka looks stunning. You did an excellent job on her lightsabers and re-sculpting her costume. I think it's just a matter of time until we see her in this form from Hasbro. So your custom sets a nice scale to achieve by them regarding the quality and accuracy. Her eyes look stunning as well, so does the accuracy of your painting skills!
The level of detail you achieve is always impressive. And I think you did a great job on putting together her lightsabers!


Looks like Hondo got a little belly! I'm stunned by how much his torso looks like real fabric on the front. Amazing combination of parts and colors. The headsculpt looks fantastic!
Both of you made this another stunning one-of piece!

- Philipp