First Custom Action Figure Complete

New Year is a time for many things.  Resolutions.  Hangovers.  Actually getting some snow in Minnesota for the first time this winter.  And new beginnings.  Which means its time to be done with the First Custom Action Figure Project.

Applying the clear coat.

As I write this paragraph, I am waiting for the sealant to dry on the figure so I can reassemble it.  While I wait, I'll reflect on what I did well and what I didn't do so well in this project.

What I did well.

1. Got a clue.  I wanted to do some custom painting, but I didn't know jack about how to actually paint.  I read some forums, watched some youtube videos, and found several great tutorials, but the problem with that was that most of them assumed the reader/viewer had at least some background with painting.  I didn't, so I bought some books aimed at beginners.  This was a good move.

2. Fully disassembled the figure before I began painting it.  Yes, it took time and was irritating, but it made painting everything much, much, easier.

3. Rotary Tool down the rub zones.  Again, this took time, but I think it was the right way to go, if all of the folks on the internet who know what they are doing are to be trusted.

4. Priming the figure.  Some people do not prime their work pieces before they paint.  Those people are taking the quick and easy way.  That is the path to the Dark Side.  If want are taking the time to actually customize a toy, take the time to do it right.  Primer makes the paint adhere to the object being painted.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I expect my customs to be family heirlooms that David Draper XXXVCII  hands down to his children.  That means I want them to last.  That means I prime my damn figures.

5. Come up with a color scheme before hand.  This was a very good idea.  I knew what I wanted.  That made it possible for me to not second guess myself when I was painting, which was good, because at my beginner level of painting I need to be able to concentrate completely on the actual painting, not on doubts I have about the choice of paint.

What I didn't do well.

1. I didn't know my paints.  Just because something looks one way in the bottle does not mean its going that way when it is applied to a surface.  That's a grade school mistake.  I ended up making swatches of all my paints, but I should have done this before I started.  It won't happen again.

2. I painted myself into a corner.  By painting details like eyes and ammo onto my figure, I made it impossible to paint a wash onto the figure without screwing that stuff up.  Washes are watered down mixtures of dark paint that fall into the recesses of a model and give the illusion of shadows and depth.  I could repaint, but eh.  Now I know the correct order to paint a model (once it is primed) is:

1. Apply the base coats.
2. Apply wash.
3. Apply details. 

I won't screw that one up next time.

3. I didn't layer my paint.  When I started the project, I incorrectly thought the idea was to paint dark colors onto the object first, then lighter colors because the darker colors would show throw the lighter ones.  Yeah.  Not so much.  Lighter colors are painted on top of darker ones so the lower, more recessed areas of a model look darker, which, like the washes, helps give a sense of depth and and shadow.  I get that now.  I didn't when I started this project.

Ok- I think the clear coat should be dry now.  I'm going to go get everything from the porch and try to reassemble the figure.  Through the magic of blogging, you won't even notice the gap of time between when you read this paragraph and the next, even though the next will will be written minutes to half an hour after this one!

...

PEG!  GET INTO THAT SOCKET!!!!

Ok.  This is the project that will not die.

All I had to do was reassemble the figure, right?  How hard could that be?

Ha ha ha!  Funny!  Ha ha ha!

These are the joys of doing something for the first time.  Surprisingly long and rather frustrating story short: the little pegs that go in the joints did not want to go back into the joints.  At all.  No matter how hard I pushed, they only went in about half way.  So I had to come up with a plan.  Here is what I did.

Fire it up! Fire it up! Fire it up!

1. Use a hair dryer to heat up the joints and make the plastic nice and flexible.
2. Insert peg.
3. Use my little desk vice with rubber grabbers to CRUSH THE *&^% JOINTS back together.

And this worked great, except for one thing.

THE *&^%^$^%#$ &$^%$#%^_)(*(*$&# vice rubbed the paint right off the pegs!!!!!

So some touch up work was needed.

I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH THE PAINTING PHASE!

Talhk, you Svine!  Vee haav your friends in Astreeah!!

Yeah. 

Not so much.

In any case, things are back on track now.  As I type this, the second coat of paint is drying on the ends of the pegs viable from within each joint.  I am very happy that I had my little desk vice here- without it, I would have never been able to get those pegs back into their sockets. If and when this phase of the project is complete, my little desk vice is getting the MVP for this inning of play.

I really was not ready for the pegs to not pretty much slide right back into the joints. Sure, I figured I would need to heat the joints up again, but I thought that they would be soft enough for the peg to fit back in, but it became pretty clear pretty fast that this method was not going to work.  Thank goodness for the vice.  Too bad the paint came off.

Enough stalling... I think the paint should be dry at this point (my paint dries in about 20 minutes, and I only needed a bit, so it should be good now.)  Be right back.

...

Ladies and gentlemen.  It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you, the NEW and IMPROVED Kinji "Rain" Shinto, of The Corps.  First a quick run back down memory lane- here is what he looked like fresh out of the package:

From the front.

From the back.

And here is what he looks like now!

Woo hoo!

Yee ha!!

Alright!!!

WE DONE!

I'm really happy with how this turned out.  I learned a lot of stuff from this project that I will be able to apply to future work.  And it ended up looking pretty good.  I'm pretty stoked right now.

Yeah baby!

This is a good time to mention I could have never finished this project without the support of many people, including most of all my wife, who was nothing but supportive of me spending so much of my free time here in my workshop putting this together.  I would also like to thank Mystic, Numbers, and all the rest of the folks who had supportive comments and advice here on the blog and in the threads on HissTank.com.

I had a great time with this project, but I am also glad to move on to the next one.  It is going to be a vehicle.  Alpha class.  I think you know what project I am talking about.  If not, tune in next week at the latest to see.

Until next time,

David D.

We done, baby. We done.

Well, its official.  The Build-A-HQ project has been built. This morning, I cemented the last video panel in, just above its one inch styrene conduit, waited 30 minutes, and called it complete.   Here are the photos.

Busy night in the TOC.

First a shot of the Tactical Operations Center itself.   I played around with a few different figures, but Cover Girl, Pit Commando, (aka Red Shirt), Helix, and Mainframe just looked the best staffing the workstations themselves.  I put Mainframe's computer next to him on the back wall desk, and General Hawk's briefcase computer next to Cover Girl. They are nice accessories and fit in well here.  I've got Sargent Stone briefing General Hawk in the front.  The graphics Vexar Designs made to go with their Build a HQ design are fantastic. I purchased both clear and white project paper to print the graphics on, and my advice for anyone else trying this is to print your decals out on the white paper, and trim the white edges off.  The clear paper, especially when it is being placed on dark styrene, ends up looking too dark and the stickers become hard to see.  The white paper keeps the ink fresh and bright regardless of what color styrene you put the decal on.  If you have to use clear sticker project paper, use it for graphics that are going to go on white styrene surfaces.

Snake Eyes is glad to be home.

Next up we have the lobby; Scarlet and Snake Eyes are back from who knows where.  Ripcord is clearly happy to see Scarlet back, and Duke keeps an eye on the feeds from the security cameras around the base.  Oh yeah- one thing I still may do is build a little Cisco IP phone for Duke to have at the reception/security desk so he can keep in touch with the rest of the base.  Back before I started grad school, I worked at an IT company and we all had IP phones on our desks. They looked pretty cool.  They were also completely redundant, because when you have IP phone systems, you can actually answer your phone using your computer itself.  We all had wireless headsets anyway, so we didn't need a phone handset or a deskset.  There was a little app we had installed on our laptops to place calls choice voice mail, etc, and any calls themselves placed using this app would be routed via Bluetooth to our headsets, which we were always suppose to have in our ears.  But people are just used to having phones on their desks.  I think having an IP phone at the security/reception desk would just be a nice touch, and as soon as I can find an image I can turn into a decal, I am making Duke his own little deskset phone, which is technically unnecessary, but something I think will look cool and useful on his desk.

Stg. Stone updates General Hawk on global ops status

Ok, here are Stone and Hawk.  Check out the beauty and detail in Vexar's decal images. In this picture you have a world map with different hotspots in red, a satellite image at the Pit Commando's left workstation (lower right side of the image), a sound wave analysis of Destro's voice and a work screen at Helix's workstation (lower left side of the image) and a keypad just to the right of Hawk on the right middle section of the image.  Vexar spent some time putting these things together.  I printed them up at highest quality on my HP deskjet printer, and they look crisp and near lifelike, as if they could plausibly be the kinds of screens one would see on computers performing the various tasks in a tactical operations center.

Scarlet checks in.

At my old job, the company I worked for was global and dealt with some security related services.  In one of our buildings, we had a TOC with a window between it and the lobby so potential clients could walk past and be impressed with our sophistication.  I never worked in that room, but I knew people who did.  They said it was actually a pain in the ass to work in there because while they always had the newest hardware, that also meant they were also always fixing bugs in the new machines and that everything in there felt like it was for show instead of actually being useful for the business.  Which I'm guessing was probably close to the truth.  

In the next image I've got going here (just above this paragraph) is the lobby from the right side.  You can't see Duke's keyboard or mouse (yeah, I cemented the mouse to the desk- it isn't going anywhere, and I decided it was a wireless mouse, so I didn't have to make any kind of cord between it and some part of the desk.) You can see the Exit, keypad and security screens decals here.  I think we kind of have a love triangle going on here between Scarlet, Ripcord and Snake Eyes.  Sorry Rip, I've got my money on SE.  He's got the strong silent type thing *down*.  Nothing personal, but that is what Scarlet is into and I don't think anyone can compete in that arena with Snake Eyes.

Helix, Mainframe, Cover girl and Red Shirt process their feeds.

Ok- Next image is of the TOC from the left side  Yes, the first thing I will always see here is the fact that the right most screen of Cover Girl's workstation is about 1/16th of an inch lower than her other computers.  I could try to pull the screen off and re-cement it, but the desk itself is *extremely* fragile, and comes disconnected from the rest of the dio if you look at it too hard, much less try to pull a piece of cemented styrene off of it.  I have thought about redoing that screen many times, but the fear of having to fix who knows what else keeps me from doing it.  I'll just have to live with the results, even if it gives me the heebie jeebies. I think Mainframe and Helix would make a good team together.  Helix strikes me as a kind of computer wizkid, and Mainframe looks ever the tech guru, like the kind of guy who writes COBOL code in his sleep, whereas she is more a Ruby on Rails kind of girl.  Yes, I don't think you'd ever seen developers or engineers working a TOC in real life, but its a flavor thing.  More than techie, I am going for a non-combat look in the TOC, and there aren't many non-combat looking figures in the GI JOE universe.  Beggars can't be choosers.

Never a dull moment.

Here it is- the entire thing on one overhead shot.  I don't know if I mentioned it before, but all the chairs swivel. None of them can turn a full 360 because the back of the chair bumps up against the desk, but none of the chair backs will hit each other in this dio, so I can have my TOC staffers turn to each other for a conversation or have Cover Girl or Mainframe twist to check out the computers next to them on the desk.  Everyone could turn toward the back of the room if they needed to give General Hawk their full attention.  Duke, in his security desk seat, can spin there too.  It gives a little action feature capacity to what is otherwise a cool but utterly frozen in time diorama.

Well, that is it for this project.  I'm thrilled with how it went, and I hope you like the results.  I do have some plans for a next project- Dr. Mindbender is going to get a robotics lab from Cobra Commander and work on the next generation of cobra food soldier there.  Before I work on that project, I may work on the long neglected Clipper custom.  I should give that one some time.  It has been sitting on the edge of my workstation for a long time now.  ::sigh:: that means I'm going to have to brush paint again.  We'll see how that goes.

Until next time,

David D.