Custom Work

 It's Memorial Day Weekend in the US, and my original plan for this weekend was to do my review of the new Vintage Collection Jango Fett figure. But, around Thursday I had things go all 180 on me. I unexpectedly had to work on Saturday for a half day, and that just threw me off. Yes, I have pictures already done, but as I've been talking a lot about things to cover here while the Vintage Collection is in a state of Carbonite induced hibernation, I got started on finally doing a Black Series review last week. The other thing I've talked about showing off is custom action figures. That's what I'm talking about today. 

Now when it comes to customs, I'm not an expert. The best Star Wars customizers now can be found on Instagram, and search Darth Daddy's blog as they do great work, and it's expert level stuff! I got my start customizing repainting a couple POTF2 Leia's back in 1997-98. Back then there was a resource to help, the Forgotten Force Ultima Resource Guide (FFURG) and the tips of that website are ones I still keep to this day, even though that website is long since gone. Same with The Custom Alliance website which I discovered in the early 2000's. So, I've taken what I've learned from those sites and applied it in part to the 3 custom figures I'm showing off today. They didn't take a lot of time to do, and some I still need to do some work on. 

1. Jedi Master Luke Skywalker 

As hard as I attempted to do some part swapping with Light Cruiser Luke, I just don't have the skill to do so. Maybe with Old Man Luke. Maybe. But what I did here took barely any time, a half hour from start to finish. I trimmed the sash off his belt, and since that was to his right, I rotated the belt so the "cut" would be on the left, and he could theoretically put his lightsaber there. But, it just didn't look right, so I put the belt back as it was. I had a spare 30th Anniversary Yavin Luke, but that belt won't fit this figure, so I was left to just add paint. 

When painting figures, use acrylic model paint. Enamle model paint takes forever to dry, and can ruin your figure. I found out the hard way when painting my fading bat emblem on my Toy Biz Batman back in the day. I used gloss black paint for the belt and the boots. I still need to touch up the "buckle" which is silver paint. It's a lazy effort on my part, and I freely admit it. 

But that being said, I like how it looks! The gloss paint on the boots gives it a nice shine, and it gives me hope that when or if I'm able to use this figure to part swap with Old Man Luke for a potential custom (arm swapping is going to be the most difficult since the plastic in the shoulder joint is hard plastic and not the PVC type used on the arms themselves). This isn't my 1st Luke custom, as you may know from some past posts here. Adding gloss paint to the belt really makes this figure look good. And now that I have 2 extra BOBF Luke's I might move the cut part of the belt to the left side and paint that to see how it looks. A possible addition could one day include gluing a pouch, and adding a possible peg hole to hold his lightsaber hilt. If I do more work on this, or another BOBF Luke I'll share the update in the future. 

2. "Marrok"

With Hasbro no longer making 1:18 scale GI Joe figures, it makes it tough to easily find figures to customize. Fortnite makes good figures to custom, but honestly some don't need to be customized to fit in with Star Wars figures. Back in 2009, when GI Joe Rise of Cobra came out, they made a ton of figures, including the Neo Viper, which is the buck I used to "make" this figure. I used a ROC Scarlett to make a Mara Jade custom, and a Baroness head on a Juno Eclipse in officer uniform for another. I've got Dr Rex, Duke, and a couple others, like Destro and Snake Eyes for others. 

All I did was paint the Neo Viper in gloss black paint. I used a Snake Eyes head, and had painted the visor with a brush coat of gloss red paint, and mixed some gloss black to give off a rust look. I actually made this custom long before the Ahsoka series, and this was originally going to be a Knight of Ren figure in my displays. He can use any lightsaber, and I have a few custom Reva's on hand and can make a lightsaber similar to the one he used in the show. 

This took about 30 minutes on the body and about 5-10 minutes on the head. I've found a couple figures to make a better version of Marrok, but for all intents and purposes, he's my Marrok. Until Hasbro gets off their collective asses and puts not only Marrok, but Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati in the Vintage Collection!! This character is still a work in progress. 

3. Joruus C'baoth 

Surprisingly, this is a cheap custom. I bought the Evolutions Sith Lord 3 pack on clearance for $15 a long time ago. It came with Dooku, Palpy and a shirtless Maul. With the most recent VC ROTJ Palpy, that Evolutions Palpy became potential custom material, which is good because it was never a great figure to begin with. That cloth robe and hood was made of a thin material that just never worked. But anyway, it's a classic figure, so it's easy to do a boil and pop (place figure in just boiled water and pop off limbs). I did that to remove the cloth skirt the figure had. But who could I use that buck for?! 

When The Hobbit movie hit theaters, there was a 1:18 figure line made for that movie. One day I saw a Gandalf figure and realized that the time was now to make a Joruus C'baoth custom! But I ran into a problem: the neck hole couldn't fit Palpy's neck ball joint, so I had to cut it off and glue the head on. I attempted to cut the ball in half, like I had done for an Imperial Knight figure but that didn't work. Had to get rid of it. In the end, it didn't matter anyway, the beard is so long it limits head movement anyway. Coincidentally I used a gift card to get Gamdalf, and a few other Hobbit figures. 

I didn't add any paint to this figure. I had planned on painting him a combo of light and dark tan, but keeping him in all black just made sense for me since painting his body would be a monumental task, and I couldn't trust my hands enough to do it. An advantage of Evolutions Palpy is he has swappable Force Lightning hands, and C'baoth used that quite a bit in the Original Thrawn Trilogy. So I kept Palpy's hands, since they're old and look like they're "withering" due to not only using the dark side, but also being a clone. My first plan for this buck was to use it as a Dark Empire Palpy, and for a time this figure was exactly that. 

Now this is definitely a custom I plan on continuing work on for the future. Palpy is short and C'baoth is supposed to be tall, so I need to find legs that can be swapped. Honestly, with the upcoming Sixer Joruus in the works, I want to see the legs they used on that and go on from there. Despite this being one I want to upgrade, I would also be happy if I don't. 

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