Topic: Xizor's Virago: Custom Figures!

[masterfett]

And so many people said that Leia was worthless, great job she looks outstanding!

[XizorsVirago]

Spud: Thanks and funny about the DVD player, I never would have thought to save electronics for customizing, good idea!

Customclone and Tamer: Thanks, glad you guys like them! I try and hide the splices on already-existing sculpt lines rather than just wherever, it seems to work at hiding the joinings... also super glue and lots of flat black paint to fill in any gaps!

Kessel: Glad you like it! I use mainly Model Master paints (for the natural colors) and some Testors (for the more primary ones including Guri's shirt), but as long as it's acrylic it all turns into plastic anyways

Dana: Glad to inspire you, you'll have to let me know when you get some new ones, I might need to steal some ideas!

Clint & Dan: Glad you guys like them, I like the shotgun thing best too (partly because it's the only one that was big enough for me to bore out the barrel a bit!), though it is a bit awkward for some of them to hold two-handed... might have to scale it down a bit if i ever try it again.

Masterfett: I'd have totally agreed that Leia was worthless before I started... cankles, ugly outfit and whatever that stupid cloth thingie was that was attached to her arms, shame on Hasbro for all that! Glad you like her though!

[XizorsVirago]

Okay, time for some more... here's a pair of custom battle droids from the Republic Commando video game! It took me forever to actually find a good reference picture of them, but I finally did, and I'm really happy with them. They started out as the two-pack of rust-red battle droids, which I chose because if the paint ever scratched off, it would look better than having that light tan crap showing through. Enjoy!

[Clonehead]

Oh Yeah, Virago, I really like those. What kind of paint did you use? Lucas should have made all of the battle droids that color. Perhaps he was afraid they would look too much like the terminator robots.

[Commander_Kurgan]

To be honest, I would have liked the battledroids to be a bit more of a serious enemy to the GAR.
You always see them attack in unimaginative waves, trying to overwhelm the Troopers with sheer numbers. You see nothing like "intelligent" programming such as 3PO and R2 seem to have.

Yours surely look very cool!

[XizorsVirago]

      Thanks! I agree about wanting the battle droids to be smarter... If the separatists had spent their money on fewer but more intelligent battle droids, with better armor and not all being controlled by a singular source, they totally could have done better (though it still makes sense for them to be dumb enough to lose considering the war was basically staged by Palpatine anyways). Oh and more Droidekas, because those things are some of the coolest fighting droids out there. Anything that makes Jedi run scared is pretty bad ass!
     I always hated how stupid the basic battle droids were, with their constant "roger roger" and annoying voices. One roger is plenty, thank you. One of the only really funny things that have come out of their mouths was when grievous, in the clone wars movie, pushed one off some cliff for pretty much no reason, and he screams "Whaaaaaaaaaaaay?"  I thought this was funny because it starts off seeming like he's just giving a generic scream, but at the last second you realize that he was actually questioning Grievous's senseless violence towards them. Priceless!
     Oh, I also agree that all battle droids should look like this (Not that I'm claiming credit for the design, as it was just from the game)... the eyes alone are so much better looking than those two half-circle things. I've been tempted to do all my battle droids in this scheme, they definitely look better when grouped with the SBDs and Droidekas like this... I like my little squad that's these two BDs, two SBDs, and a droideka, led by either a magnaguard or IG-88 (depending on what I'm feeling that day)

[spudafett]

the droids look 100 times better than regular droids.   I always wondered what was up with the eyes anyway... they look like they just have painted on eyes, even in the movie.  Are the half circles actually optical sensors? or are they there for looks?

I did a battle droid up like this one a while back... I also did a terminator/battle droid combo that looks pretty cool as well... I think it's somewhere in my thread if you wanna look it up.  funny thing is after I started doing some research there was actually a battle droid in the EU that looks dead up like a terminator that was designed to fight the vong!  sounded to me like a perfect way to fit the 3.75" terminators into the star wars verse!

[Tamer]

Very nice. Daggone I miss that video game.

[Psyclone]

Nice painting work on all of this stuff!!  Republic Commando is still one of my favorite games, that and Battlefront 2.  Fantastic work.  Love Bossk's gun, great stuff!

[wraithnine]

seriously minty dude

[Goldleaderone]

Awesome customs dude, keep them coming!

[B.R. Steel]

These look great.  You've done to these droids what the Prequels could never do--make them look cool.

Did you ever mention what kind of paint you used?

[StenHunter]

Very cool!

[XizorsVirago]

Thanks everybody, glad you like them!

Steel: I use Model Masters for most of my metallic and natural / Earth-tone paints, and Testors for my more primary / synthetic looking colors. The only real reason is that I started off customizing when I got a paint-your-own model car acrylic kit from Testors, and when I wanted to get some easy no-mix natural looking colors, I went up to Hobby Lobby and the main one they had was the Model Masters (no Testors acrylic at all!). Both paints are pretty good, but I kind of like the Testors bottles a little better because the layers or sealing stuff under the cap seem to crap out a little less with use. I never use all that much paint when I do a customization job (except a full repaint job like Guri and the Battle Droids) which is why I like to have at least a few pre-made colors... mixing always uses up a lot of paint for me, and I end up wasting it, even though I actually really like mixing myself (like a sweet skin-tone I made for Guri, can you tell where?). And, with a pre-made color, I can always add in just a little of another color to shift it in the direction I want it to go without wasting too much paint.

[Reconsgt]

The driods look fantastic.  I like the the realism you out into the customs, The wood grain on the gun stocks in the first page are killer.