Took a break from my creepy twins to finish up Greyryder V2's accessories. I also took time to add different joints, to his feet. They function similar to the rocker ankles that some of the newer MU figures have had. I finally have my dimension hopping super-scientist werewolf.

When I draw him, his scabbard deploys by moving up, swinging down, and then opening in several segments, For the figure, I kept the segmented look, but kept it to a single panel on each side. However, it now has to move both up, and outward, before it swings down. The shoulder cannon was simpler, to pull off. I didn't realize until after I took all these pictures, that he was hip thrusting, the whole time. I also forgot to paint bore of the dart gun on top of the cannon.

Everything stowed:


Scabbard in action:


Shoulder cannon:


Dear Hasbro G.I. Joe team; it's possible to make an action figure that can look up:


Action poses, with photoshopped optic glow:






For those curious about how I built the back pack, here's descriptions and in progress shots.

The main part of the backpack is little more than a half cylinder, with the ends cut at angles. The shoulder cannon is built around a joint pulled from a Legends class Transformer, and just needs a piece of tubing sticking out to fasten it to. The sword scabbard mount is more complicated. To deploy, it needs to slide both up, and out to the side. It then needs to pivot, swinging the sword's handle down over the figure's left shoulder. Sometimes, when I get tired, I tend to zone out and just think about things. That let me come up with a stupidly simple mechanism, that not only gives me all the movement I need in the sword arm, but also restrict the travel on the pivot, and lock out the pivoting action when the mount is in the arm position.

All of these pictures are larger than the actual sizes!

A hole drilled at angle through the tube the arm is made of let's it ride on a length of brass rod, set at a similar angle. I had to notch out the end of the tube, to clear structure, so I reinforced it with a piece of smaller tubing, inside. This rail mounting keeps the end of the arm from drooping.


Slid half way up, gives an unobstructed view of the end of the arm:


The pivot relies on a piece of the same brass I made the rail from set into a hole in the acrylic axle. The brass pin rides in a slot, both limiting the travel, and keeping the axle from sliding in and out. The pin is cut just a little long, to sit in a hole in the bottom of the backpack. Once the pin is that hole, the pivoting mechanism is effectively locked in place.


The cannon, before final details:


The scabbard uses a single clam shell panel on each side, hinged off a common axle. The hinges are doll house hinges, with the original hinge pins removed, and a length of brass rod, same as I used for the sword arm rail, run through. The brass I used is bigger around than the original pins, it tightened up the movement, and eliminated all the slop out of them. They still move easily, but are stiff enough to hold their positions.


And, here's the sword, Darquesbayne. (read: Dark's Bane) It's held stable by two small prongs built into the scabbard, until the sides are closed.

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thats a awesome looking figure you got

holy hell that's cool man. the detail is ridiculous. You've been doing these kind of scratch build accessories forever, and not getting near enough credit for how awesome it all is. The sword and the mechanism on the pack are cooler than pretty much anything I've ever made. They steal the show here, but Greyryder is himself a brilliant figure. And the added articulation as you go has me shaking my head as well.

Damn nice work man. Damn nice.

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Thanks guys!

drb, You've made some pretty cool parts for your figures, too. I know I've seen some stuff from you that I'd love to copy, if the right custom comes along. Glad to know you're enjoying my customs as much as I enjoy yours.

The added articulation, and the moving parts on the accessories satisfy the part of me that likes to tinker with machines. The semi-random nature of the fur sculpting covering him makes it easy to blend the new bits and pieces into the figure.

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WOW! simply wow can't believe that's all scratch built, well done.

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Mass produce it, card it, distribute it and sell it.

Awesome figure!

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This is just awesome. I'd buy one at retail.

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First, the overall design of the figure is clean and well done. I could see an animated studio putting out a character like this. The one thing I might change is to give him the actual neon green eyes. It just looks way better like that instead of powered down. In in the all grey color scheme the bright green scares me more than the dark green.

Second, like drbindy said the engineering on the scabbard and the mounted cannon are very well down. As someone who has done working play features similar to that, I can say they take a lot of time trying to make happen. You spends hours working it out in your head and on paper only to spend days making it happen in plastic through trial and error. You could have skimped out and had the cannon be a pop on or had the scabbard pretend to open for the sword but you had a vision and you stuck with it. Kudos for that and I think it raises the bar just a little bit higher for the rest of us.

Third, you can have a great design and you can have great play features, but you tied it all up with some super clean craftsmanship. The play feature doesn't hinder articulation which isn't limited in anyway by the sculpt. You didn't make any noticeable sacrifices and yet you were still able to make a very pretty custom. The customizers who can do that are few and far between. To be fair, the professional designers who can do that are few and far between too.

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very well said pluv. GR, on your line about "dear Hasbro" with the figure looking up? I think you should actually change the letter to an application. Say "see my resume enclosed herewith" and simply print this page and stick it in with the letter. Can't think of a better resume than that.

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Thank you, everyone.

Pluv, wow! That's high praise, and words fail me, trying to think what to say to all of that. Thank you. I agree with you on the visor optics. I mixed green paint with clear coat and put it over silver to try to get more of a lit up look. I've got some yellows that are pretty transparent, I'll have to see if I can work one of those on in thin enough coats to get a better look. I probably wouldn't have thought about it, if somebody hadn't said something.

Dennis, man. I think they might want somebody who can actually sculpt. I hid everything on this guy under fur texture. We'll see how I do on my creepy twins.

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this is just beyond awsome man

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Thanks, Tankster!

I repainted the optics, to try to make them look more lit up. I also remembered the exposure setting on my camera.

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Woah, I'd but the "LASER BLAST" out of this if it was at retail. Fantastic work, mate.

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the touch up on the eyes, and the better pic, makes this complete. before the new pic, the right eye was being blacked out for some reason, even though I knew in hand it probably looked great. I have that problem with pics of eyes sometimes too.

out of curiosity what camera setting adjustments did you make?

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Thanks. I like the look of it hand better, too. It doesn't help that the "brim" on the visor keep that area in permanent shadow. I just don't think I'm quite up to light piping, and LEDs.

That eye looks darker, because of my lighting set up.I need to get another light, for the left side of my pictures.

I'm using a little Nikon CoolPix camera. The setting is called "Exposure compensation." I played around with the white balance a little, too.

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