*Official* Customs Thread

Great job on all the customizing people. I don't have the hand or patience to even try that. Plus If i used a exacto knife I might not have any fingers left.

 

Hi, I am a bit of a newby to customizing, so I just wanted to know if anyone can give me step-by-step instructions to perform an arm/leg swap, and still have the figure be able to be played with afterwards. Thanks.

 

The best and only, actually, option is to use the boil 'n pop method. Here goes:

1. boil a fair amount of water in the microwave, water heater, on the stove, whatever. (enough to fully submerge the entire figure(s))
2. after the water's boiled, immediately put the figure(s) in the water and let them float around for a couple of minutes (2-3 minutes should be enough)
3. Take out one figure with some tongs or other utensil. Grasp the figure with a towel and gently, but firmly pull off a leg or an arm. If it the peg seems to tear apart, don't use force. Put the figure back in the water and try again.
4. Repeat step 3 for the other figure.
5. Let the legs/arms cool off and put the figures back in the hot water, so that the pegholes remain soft. Again, get a figure out of the water and firmly press the leg/arm in place. Repeat for the other limbs.

Be careful though, as you are working with boiled water!

And don't try this with Clone Trooper arms, since they have a special kind of shoulder peg. I think this goes for any figure with shoulder articulation. You might want to practice on an older figure first, like POTF2 Monkey Face Leia .

Hope this helps you along and feel free to shoot me a pm if you have any questions!

 

I don't have any pictures yet, but I just finished my first custom in 5 years, a Sha'a Gi. I'll try and post some pics when I get my camera working.

 

Sweet, he's a neat character in the CW series.

 

Now I've seen a lot of people bash the latest Stormtrooper (the TAC one with removable bucket and eagerly debated over "Jango" clone visage, you know...) all throughout the internet. And I just don't really think this figure deserves all of that.

So like I did before with the TANTIVE IV BP Stormtrooper, I tweaked some small details on this guy.
And voilá, here goes another very cool stormtrooper IMHO.
[image=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1051/739656657_47d50e18cc.jpg]
Now this is all I've really altered:
- painted the mic tips silver
- scraped off the excess black paint between the brow and the lenses
- fitted a cut-apart lil' rubber band (the ones HASBRO madly ties around all their figures) and glued it into the helmet for a tighter fit

Since there's absolutely nothing wrong (no loose waist joints on my two) from below the neck, I didn't change anything else.

 

Cool, tiny adjustments make for a huge improvement! I have three TAC Stormies, but I'm happy with the way they are.

While I'm here, check out QT-UT, which I made for a competition at Yakface:

[image=http://album.zoom.nl/user/10119/images/388/3305250/vLHTmk.jpg] [image=http://album.zoom.nl/user/10119/images/388/3305254/Lek2oy.jpg]

 

Wow, cool droid, awesome paintjob.
Was this in any way inspired by KILL BILL? That's the first thing I was thinking.

 

Yep, hence the designation QT-UT. Shouldn't need any explanation, right?

Anyway, the story is he was an all purpose utility droid on the set of Kill Bill 1 & 2. This little fella stood in as reserve-backup-last-resort-stunt-triple for Uma Thurman and was supposed to direct the 5th and 6th unit. Unfortunately, his services were never called upon, so he just stood in a corner, acting as a water cooler...

 

QT-UT as in Q(uentin)T(arantino)-U(ma)T(hurman), I suppose? Now that's hilarious. I hope you won the competition?

 

Nope, didn't win. I won once though. But it's not really a contest/competition. Just a bunch of figure-slicers coming up with weird and wonderful ideas. All entries go into a large digital hat and the winner's picked at random.

 

hey guys and gals. i posted something about a 12" Mara figure over in the collectors thread and LAJ_FETT thinks that what im looking at is a custom. I dont have any pics of the figure sadly. any of you guys do anything like that? alot of the older pics on this thread wont come up. thanks!

 

Hey, folks! It's been a while since I hit this thread, mainly because I haven't customized anything myself lately (I did some clone paint jobs when the ROTS figure line first came out). I'm a big fan of the Jedi Knight games, particularly Jedi Outcast, and almost to the same extent, Jedi Academy. It was natural that I would want to search the web for a custom Desann figure to see how folks interpreted him (since we have yet to see an EU figure of him).

To my dismay, try as I might, I couldn't find one. I checked everywhere I could think of and tried searching all different criteria, and came up empty. All I could find were custom "skins" for the JK games. So anyway, I've been working on creating the custom myself. He's about halfway finished as of last night and I should finish him this evening. I've never done a figure that required chopping up other figs or baking sculpey on them, so it's been a new experience. I may have some pics to post with the results by tomorrow...

 

Ugh...wound up visiting at someone else's house all evening last night, so Desann went mostly neglected. I should definitely have some photos by tomorrow though. I have very little to do to finish the figure, I just didn't have time to do it last night!

 

Okay, well, the Desann custom job has reached a stopping point for the time being. I like to call this my "Alpha" Desann, as, knowing me, I'll probably wind up touching it up as I learn new techniques. For now, though, it is what it is. The paint job looks a bit rough in spots, and I was torn between wanting to define the details on the armor and thinking it made it look too cartoony. So anyway, here it is...enjoy...sorry I'm not the best photographer...

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/des3.jpg]
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/des2.jpg]
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/des1.jpg]

 

I'd really like to do an orange hooded Reborn to go with the Desann, and maybe eventually a Shadow Trooper. Anyone have a suggestion for a figure that would work well as a Shadow Trooper? I'm thinking I'm going to sacrifice my least favorite figure, Throne Room Duel Luke, for the orange Reborn...assuming his posture doesn't make it look too crappy...

 

This particular thread isn't a very active one, is it?

Anyway, I put together a Reborn last night over the course of a few hours. The finished product looks pretty good...unfortunately, my photography skills somehow prevented me from getting a picture of it that captures its better angles...I think I should have shot some from slightly above rather than straight on - it makes the hood like kind of bulky shooting from beneath (which it is a bit). Anyway, here they are...there was a little bit of a rough spot on the cowl near the shoulder I didn't notice till I took the pics that I since cleaned up...

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/reb1.jpg]
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/reb2.jpg]
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/reb3.jpg]
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/majik_monkee/reb4.jpg]

 

Those JKO customs are sweet, mate! You've set my mind twitching now!

I'm currently working on a custom Yun from JK1, and maybe a Boc too (depends how difficult he's going to be). I'm very new to customising and I've only done head & limb swaps so far.

I made a couple of Hoth-Jaden figures (from JKA) a while ago;

Edit:
Jaden Korr (Kel-Dor species)
Jaden Korr (Rodian species)
Like I said, these seemed like the easiest options. We've all got to start somewhere!

 

Wow! Seriously nice work on those figures and the cards! The good thing about the Hoth Jaden outfits is that's one outfit that's universal no matter what species or outfit the player initially chooses. They are both very well done! I look forward to seeing how your Jedi Knight customs turn out. I was thinking about Yun a long time ago and wondering how a Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker and a Bespin Security Guard hybrid would look, but I never did try it (not sure just how ideal the security guard head is anyway).

My complete customs page is at the link below. Right now the only other customs are some clone troopers I did back when ROTS first came out, but I hope to add some stuff down the road...

 

So I've got a decapitated 12" Hasbro Shaak Ti. What I would like to know is how to reattach the head. Can anyone help me?

 

I figured if anyone could help you folks could since you are always removing and replacing extremities on figures. I don't have the Shaak Ti to look at so I was no help.

 

I'd have to know a little bit more about the damage - is there a hole where the neck post used to be or is there solid plastic still where the head broke off? Is there a neck post stuck in the head still? Just trying to get an idea of what it looks like before I make suggestions...I've never had a 12" figure break before...

 

SLK posted this over in the Questions thread:

So I have the Hasbro RotS 12" Shaak Ti. Only problem is that her head popped off. Any suggestions on how to reattach it? I'd really appreciate the assistance.

When I asked why he (or she - I don't know for sure) didn't just pop it back on SLK said he already tried that and that it was impossible.

 

Okay. Well, I would definitely suggest the old stand-by, boiling the head for several minutes then attempting to push it back into the socket. It's kind of hard to say for sure without having experienced the problem, but that's a good place to start. If that doesn't work, a little petroleum jelly around the post prior to trying to reattach it can make the process more doeable. I would definitely suggest those two methods before anything else...

 

Precisely See what I mean about the easy-option? The Kel-Dor was for my nephew, so I did the Rodian version for myself. Never attached mine to the card (I open 99% of my figures), but did him two. One to keep carded, one to play with.

You're reading my mind now Those are the bits I've got assembled for the job. Also got a PotJ Eeth Koth for the extended loincloth-thing.
I've just got to get all the bits out and actually do it now. And a custom card, of course