Custom Cad Bane and Boba Fett:
I had a twofold inspiration here. First, both of the "real" versions of these figures go for no less than forty-plus dollars apiece, and there's no way I'm spending that much on an inch-and-a-half tall plastic figure. I'm skeptical of dropping more than five, actually. The second was that I saw YIU's excellent Cad Bane custom (
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=25481.0), and ordered one of the
Rodian Black Sun Vigo figures that he used as the basis for his.
I decided to go with different arms. I cut two pistol-wielding limbs from a
Rodian Mercenary figure...
...and put those on the
Black Sun body, with a
Duros Scoundrel head. The pipes are plastic tubing, the hat brim plasticard, and the boot rockets plastic tubing as well. A slice of plasticard on the hip also to give a hint of the holster behind the coat.
This was also the first time I've ever used green stuff. One of my students gave me a little bit and talked me through how I should use it, and I am hooked. I've tried doing detail work with sculpy before, but this is 10 times easier. I used it to make the ammo-rounds belt, the hat top, and the wrist gauntlets, and to make the coat stand out against the now-larger waist.
Boba Fett was made from two miniatures that I already owned - a
Mandalorian Gunslinger (for the helmet) and a
Republic Commando Training Sergeant for the body. The gun arm was originally at its side, but I cut and reglued it to have a more Boba Fett-like pose. The rocket pack on the back comes from an Action Fleet Boba Fett that I had given to my little brother-in-law when he was a kid (he gave back all the old action fleet stuff when he got to high school), and the cape is plasticcard, folded and re-folded, with texture added with an x-acto knife.
I painted them both with acrylic and did an ink-wash - again, a first attempt. I've never done an ink wash before, and kick myself for not having figured out how to do one earlier.
Riding high on enjoying the green stuff, I thought I'd try another custom, this one based on
True Grit's one-eyed alcoholic over-the-hill marshall, Rooster Cogburn.
Figured that if a two-eyed guy with one eye could be fun, then a THREE-eyed guy would be even MORE fun. Decided to make the character a Gran, one of the species you see in Jabba the Hutt's throne room in
Return of the Jedi.
for the cut-off stems of the missing eyes, I used plastic tubing. This mini was a learning experience - I was ridiculously happy with the pre-coat body and under-jacket, but didn't realize that you should sculpt in stages. With each additional piece of the figure I added, the coat pushed harder against the body, killing the silhouette value I had achieved at the beginning. He's a lot more compact than I'd originally intended. His left hand, holding a bottle, was originally out to the side a bit for balance.
The legs, cut off at the top, were from an imperial officer figure, and I used them at the beginning to help me make sure I stayed in scale. The pistol comes from an
Ishi Tib scout, whose overly dynamic pose I really didn't like. Here's the original pose:
So anyway, I cut off the arms and replaced them with the arms of that
Rodian Black Sun Vigo from earlier. I put the chest and head on the lower-half of that
Rodian Mercenary. I also cut the cape down, as it was too thick to bend away from its backwards-flowing ways. I'll paint the hands to match the face eventually, and now I have an Ishi Tib scout that I actually like:
Anyway, I'm hooked on the green stuff, so I'm going to start sculpting more, that's for sure!