Monday 29 September 2014

Photo album custom Kiwami Tamashii Zeronos Vega form

Enjoy the photos below :) Just so you know, the figure is only 4 inche tall :)
 
Painting this guy was easy. Just take note that before painting the metalic green and gold parts, a metallic silver layer should be added on first to add to the shiny-ness of the metallic green and gold.
 
I have also added a bit of gunmetal iron on  certain parts of the black scheme (mostly on his lower legs) to make some of the details more distinct instead of a deep black. Then I did linings all over the body to add to the realism. Liners are also good to make shadings if you know how to do it right. Just make a blotch over the part you wanted shaded and use your finger to wipe off the parts you wanted to be non shaded ;)
 
 
 
 In making this custom I have to sacrifice a den o sword body and a MRS vega plus a spare regular SIG unevolved sword. Total cost before workmanship time costs should come up to S$40.

Still im glad I made this guy, love zeronos vega form designs since long ago :)

If you check out the photo below you will notice his chest piece are actually riddled with lining details that are hard to see due to the black color scheme.


Here you can see the details I added onto the capes and the sculpted shoulder pads.

This photo you will see how detailed the back of the head are thanks to the MRS duplicated details.
 So far I have only made 3 den o kiwami customs, the wing version, the nega den o version and the zeronos vega form version. I would like to make more but Im all out of spare den o bodies ;p If I have more (and the time for it) I would love to make another den o form, gaoh came to mind which is gonna be really difficult lol


Stripping off all his stuff you will find his basic form a little wierd with those funny shoulders. He has enough accesories worthy of an SIC figure ;)

 

 A comparison of the original den o sword form and the customised result of the zeronos vega form :)


Well thats it for now ;) see you guys next time!


Sunday 28 September 2014

Tutorial Custom Kiwami Tamashii Zeronos Vega Form



I have actually being planning to make this guy for quite a while now but the last few months have being tough in real life and I didnt have the mood or time to look into doing customs. So that has finally lifted with something that came up and I am very thankful for it.

So I quickly finish this custom that took a little over 4 days :)

For anyone who is not in the know, Kiwami is the 4inch version of regular SICs. The regular SIC already came up with a Zeronos Vega Form which i love a lot. So I thought it would be cool to have a kiwami version as well.

Luckily for me, I have just the material i need to make this: I.E a kiwami den o sword form spare body AND (this is important to save you a lot of time) a Motion Revive Series (MRS) Zeronos Vega Form (see photo below).

The custom is actually very simple as it involve mainly duplicating the details from the MRS figure and adding it onto the kiwami den o figure.

First, some prepping of the kiwami den o figure is necessary.

Cut off the chest, the back pack and the belt buckle of the figure:



Pull and cut off the eye mask from the head. Cut the mouth piece off as an individual piece which you will need to reglue back on the head later. Shave off some of the head's overall resin as well (especially those railway tracks at the back of his head, zeronos vega form has 2 tracks instead of one on sword form).


And here is the body of the MRS zeronos vega form fgure. It has excellent detail for the chest and the belt buckle. The MRS head too has good head sculpt. All of which are perfect templates to be duplicated onto the kiwami figure :)
 
Using Oyumaru resin (see photo below) duplicate the eye mask, back of the head tracks, back of the body, the chest and the belt buckle from the MRS figure. For the eye mask, I used clear epoxy putty 5 min devcon to make the transparent eye mask (ok actually for this custom i used the cheap tube clear putty version which has high risk of forming bubbles but i ran out of devcon putty ;p i lucked out as I managed to remove most of the bubbles from the putty [have to do it within 30 seconds before the putty hardens] to holes appearing on the duplicated eye mask.)
 
For the duplication of those tracks at the back of the MRS body, a different technique needs to be used. This is because the MRS' back is smaller than the Kiwami's so the tracks from the MRS would not be long enough to cover the kiwami's back. In order to make this possible, the epoxy putty fixed onto the oyumaru mold of the MRS back will need to be removed from the mold while it is half dried. By doing so, the half dried epoxy putty duplicate of the MRS' back of the body can be stretched and straigthened a bit to cover the kiwami's back. Glue the stretched and straigthened epoxy putty piece onto the kiwami's back with super glue and let it dry.
 
 
The result from afixing the duplicate parts onto the kiwami body can be seen in the photo below. For the shoulder armor, for once I feel the MRS figure was unsuitable for duplication as it was not SIC styled enough. As such, I have to sculpt them out myself.

For the duplicate eye mask that was using clear putty, let it dry in the mold for at least over night to make sure it wont turn sticky. This is important. Once you have removed it from the mold, paint the back of the clear putty piece with silver metallic paint before afixing it on the kiwami head with putty. The silver paint layer will reflect light off from the eye.
The MRS figure is incredibly useful for this custom but it aint the nice details of its body and head. It is actually the MRS figure's cape and shoulder cannons! They are made of hard rubber yet flexible enough that they wont break from repeated playings making them very suitable for long term keeping of this figure instead of trying to make the capes out from other materials that I can use.

For the cape, I extended the plug point using those gundam spare so that it can be secured properly onto the kiwami body.
 
Drill holes at the back of the kiwami figures. One at the middle of his back to fit in the cape. Another 2 on his shoulder to fit in the sockets for the double ball joints to connect the body with the hsoulder cannons. I drilled holes onto the shoulder cannon parts and glue in the ball joint portion. Those ball joints connectors can be found at hlj.com.
 


 From the photo above you can see how the putty piece for the back of the body are afixed onto the kiwami's back using super glue. I made sure there is a portion that is not blocked by the putty to allow the cape plug to be able to plug into the drilled hole at the kiwami body's back.

For his armaments, the MRS again come to the rescue with its modled zeronos piece. I cut off those MRS armaments and glue them onto the kiwami piece.


For his giant sword, I used the smaller unevolved sword part from the SIC set and using kiwami armament pieces to form his hilt.To keep the pieces together, I drilled holes in the armament pieces and the sword piece and placed hard metal wires within before glueing the pieces together. Refer to the photo below to see where i placed the metal wires (the part colored in bright red).

We are almost there. Cant be seen from the photos but I did some detailings on his cape and shoulder cannon capes as well.

Next up will be his picture gallery ;) Notice that the shoulder cannons are poseable thanks to the ball joint connectors.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Repairing Equip & Prop Garo Berserk!!!

Coz I like challenges (when I dont need them), I bought a broken up Equip & Prop Garo Berserk to xsee if I can fix it or not. The original owner claimed he displayed it and when he move it, it came apart in his hands. The Equip & Prop line is plaqued by broken limbs especially the Garo Gouten set. I did not expect the Berserk set to be this bad but then gravity has always been a b***h with gigantic figures with short stubby legs.
 
So this is how it looks like before the repair:
 


After much consideration I realised I can't make it poseable after the repair due to the fact that I can't find giant joints to replace those which were broken and smaller joints won't work due to the weight they need to support. This guy is really realyl gigantic for a toy.

So with much reluctance, I have to repair it with a fixed pose in mind. I used strong wire skeleton frames and then shore the joint up with super glue and epoxy putty.


I then repainted the putty into its supposed colors of green veins and matt black skin.






The result? Luckily the broken joints didn't really hinder much of its poseability as you can see from the following gallery. It makes a very fine display piece but I seriously don't have space for it ;p

Gonna sell it off now lol

The other way of making him stand without its tail is to use any kind of object that allow Berserk's knees to rest on it to make him stand, see photo below:






Thursday 11 September 2014

Custom SHF Kamen Rider OOO Love Form painted version (commissioned work)

So the customer wanted me to paint the figure too. The hardest part wasn't the painting but prepping it. As I have mentioned before, try never to paint the figure until you have fully sculpted the figure. The process of sculpting the figure might leave residue on the painted areas that you will need to get it off later when you really started painting it post sculpting.

So I spent quite a lot of time sanding, cutting and cracking some parts of the old paint and stuck sculpt pieces off before i could paint it.

Anyway to cut the story short, here are the steps to paint this custom piece:

1) Sand the figure rigorously! Cut any pockets of unwanted stuck sculpt away, if any
2) Clear away the original eye color with hobby thinner or paint remover recolor it clear red
3) If possible prime certain parts of the figure or all of it.
4) 1st layer white for all white surface (do 2  - 3 layers of these as the next few layers, best after the first layer to use a white color spray can which makes the white a lot more even. White areone of those colors that is a lot better if you use spray cans then hand painted)
5) 1st layer metallic silver for all the other non white surface
6) Paint gloss pink and metallic yellow over the right surface
7) Top coat it with gloss topcoat
8) Sitback and enjoy a glass of martinee

Note: I didnt do linings at all on this custom as I wanted it to have a softer look. Having linings on it will make it more hardlined which should not be the theme for this custom.

And the results are as follows: