Topic: Simple Helljumper headswap

[smeagol92055]

Hi everyone!
So I know that I haven't exactly been the most active in the community, with only one custom figure and his (crappily) painted astromech droid, but I've been wanting to make a new custom for a looooooooooong time and I'm finally able to do it!
So this is the character I'm going to make a custom of:





He's called The White Skull, a memeber of the Ruthless Organization Against Civilian Heroes (ROACH for short). I created him back in 2009 as a gag and drew four comics featuring him, which is honestly more attention than I've ever paid to any of my other comic-book creations. Sadly, his day is passed, but I've been wanting to make a custom figure of him for years.
In the second picture, where he's telling that poor flea-moth-thing-guy to get out, you can probably guess where I took the inspiration for his day-to-day jumpsuit from: a Vintage collection Bespin Luke Skywalker. (Because he's a member of an evil organization, and they have uniforms.)
So, my thoughts were to get a second Luke figure (which I just did through eBay!) and a second Red Skull head from the new Captain America film from Clonehead (in progress) and do some painting to make a custom figure of him.

I'll post progress pics as I go!

[smeagol92055]

Progress on the figure:
First, I ordered a second Dagobah Luke online.



 I took to my fodder bin and removed the bootss from an old Han Solo figure.



Then I repeated the process for Luke and, using Shoe Goo, attached Han's boots to Luke's legs. (If you can find Shoe Goo, I HIGHLY recommend it; it sets up in seconds, is tough as rubber, yet can be removed easily later on.)





Next up, I have to acquire the necessary skulls and repaint Luke's coverall to a dark blue. (The trenchcoat outfit is actually next on my list of alt figures to create!)



Don't worry, Han ol' buddy... we'll fix you up in a jiffy.

[smeagol92055]

So I found the trench coat I was looking for; it'll work perfectly for the plainclothes variant I'm building.
Here's some quick progress on the planning phase:

The art reference


The mockup of what the figure will look like

[Tamer]

Wow, love that mock up.

I will tell you one thing. I have seen that Vintage Bespin Luke used to great effect on a number of awesome customs. They should really rerelease that figure again.

Off to share on the front page.

[smeagol92055]

Great. And now my creativity has been sparked. I just spent the last two hours making this instead of prepping for my lecture tonight.  Whoops.

[Tamer]

Wow, great looking cover. I would buy it to read.

[smeagol92055]

So I was going through my fodder bin and came across a body that I had put together previously, mostly Bespin Han with Dagobah Luke's boots (the leftovers from the last custom that I started to put together.)



EDIT: Okay, so I had to reorganize my bookshelf, and I came across my copy of Shadows of the Empire, and I thought, HEY! Why not make him into a swoop biker?!

Okay, so this is phase one: the rough cut-n-glue. I cut up some additional figs to give him swivel knees, more beefy arms, a matching jacket and ammo belt. He's got an ugly mug hidden behind the blast shield, and you'd better hope he never points that bucket in your direction, because he'd just as soon fry you as say hello.




Phase two will be to give him a good thorough paint job and fix up the mistakes I made during phase one (seriously, I MANGLED that jacket fitting it over those arms!)

[Tamer]

Looks pretty cool. Almost reminds me of  Judge Dredd custom.

[smeagol92055]

Looks pretty cool. Almost reminds me of  Judge Dredd custom.

I actually got a little of that vibe myself once I had put the helmet on him! While I think that would be totally rad to make a 1:18 scale judge figure, I'm going to stick with the swoop biker idea. Has anyone out there ever built a swoop from scratch? I know there are a couple that I've seen here on the boards from time to time, and (hopefully) I'll locate my box of old figures from when I was a teenager soon; I know I had a speeder bike in there.

[I-am-Boba-Fett]

That swoop rider work in progress is looking interesting. Nice part work on it too!

[koth]

I like those arms with the jacket. Good stuff!

[kelcken]

I really like the swoop biker, too. Looks great!

[smeagol92055]

I like those arms with the jacket. Good stuff!

Thanks! The arms came from a SUPER CHEAP 'the Corps!" figure (seen here in the Orca team)


The Corps! figures are only about four bucks for a pack of three (or two with a vehicle) and over the years they've turned from something that was compatible with older GI Joe figs to... well, now they're ugly rubber monstrosities that don't really fit with any other figure, so quite a bit of whittling was necessary to get those darned arms to fit in the arm sockets. The knees also came from a Corps! figure and are surprisingly sturdy.

The right leg is permanently bent like that, so I'm actually thinking of making him a leg brace, à la Mad Max!

[smeagol92055]

Oksy, phase 2: I decided to scrap the jacket completely in favor of more heavy armor. I gave the figure an initial paint job (really rough, more of a wash than anything else at this point,) so that I have a nice consistent base coat for the final paint application.



Recipe:
Head: Dagobah training Luke
Torso: Indiana Jones
Legs (upper): Indiana Jones
Legs (knees): The Corps! figure
Boots: Dagobah Luke
Arms: The Corps! figure
Helmet: Millenium Falcon training Luke
Chest armor: Jango Fett and Halo Reach armor pack

[Tamer]

Oh yeah, like the more armored look. Off to share.