New person to customs, looking for some help.

I've always been decently good at art type stuff. And after finding this site and looking at it alot, and reading a bunch of guides. I decideded I wanted to try and make something. You've all inspired me so much it's unreal, but anyway....
What I want to make is my FFXI (Final Fantasy 11) charector; Kamugi, a mithra (cat girl) red mage. Here's some random screenshots I took in game a bit ago and cropped together to give you an idea;


For the body Ive decided to use the 25th anniversary Scarlett. I think it will be beyond perfect honestly. It shouldnt be very hard to go from this;


To this;


For the head I searched ebay for some anime toys and found this;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=007
item number; 170146422849 in case the link doesnt work.

As for the size, its perfect, and her human ears are completely covered by her hair, And the hair style is dead on too. But I dont like the 'hair in the face blowing in the wind effect' that it has. It's made of soft plastic, much softer then any gi joe I've ever owned. And I was wondering if there's anything I can do to move her hair out of her face, permenantly, without chopping it off.

As you may have noticed, she's going to be kind of naked at this point..... I want to make her pants and shirt out of something else, I guess. So that they are not a permenant part of the figure. My problem is -short of making them out of cloth I have no idea what I could use. Does anyone know of anything that would look/work better? Id preffer it to be all plastic honestly, but I dont know if thats at all possible.


My next problem is the hat and the ears. Ive decided I want a removable hat and removable ears. I figure I can sculpt the ears out of that 'green stuff' I see people talk about, and add little pegs to the bottom of them, and drill little holes in her head for them to snap into so I can take them off when her hat is on. But as for the hat..... I have no idea of anything even remotely similar I could use. Anyone know of anything?


Next is the tail..... Again no idea what to make it out of, or how to attach it.

Lastly, her fencing style sword, and weird looking shield. Anyone know of a fencing style sword thats sized right for the 25th anniversary gi joes I could find easily on ebay/online store and buy? For the shield I think I might be able to mod a 'cobra logo' Alley Viper shield to make it, but does anyone know of something easier/better I could use? I figure there's gotta be something nicer out there then that.

For those of you still with me, thanks for reading my post and any and all adivce is greatly appreciated.
Here's some random/funny pictures I drew of Kamugi when I first heard of them releasing the 25th anniversary gi joes, I keep meaning to go back and fix them, since I did them in a rush, but I havent yet out of lazyness I guess.
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/stshkam1.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/seskam1.jpg

I suggest looking into some Pirates of the Caribbean figures by Zizzle. You'll be able to find a variety of swords, hats, and even some coats all in the same scale. If you have a KB toys nearby, they have Pirates stuff at 50% off.

I never realized how bikini-ready Scarlett was until you just posted this

You might also try Killuminati's site:

http://www.urbanrevtoys.com/

His stuff is excellent.

One thing, though. You seem to have chosen a very ambitious project for your first figure. Good luck with it. But I would advise buying some cheap figures and practising on them first so that you can find out what works for you. Most of us on here started ou doing this.

You guys are awesome, thanks so much. And pirates lol.... I didnt even think of that!
Abou Scarlett.... yea she really is.... you should make it!

The Sakura toy was like 9 bucks, and Scarlett..... well there'll be tons of them everywhere when the comic packs pop up right?
I dont really mind spending like 50 or even 300 for something as cool as I hope this turns out to be.
As for ambitious, youre completely right. But it's the only way I could of think of to do it. It's the rollerblader in me acting up again I guess- go big or go home! And it'll be nicer in the end wont it? lol. just wait and see what happens if I cant make it and do it nice if you think this bad.... I'll end up doing something like offering someone $300 to make it and make it nice ( ;^.^)
Not only that but I have full faith in all of you to help me threw this! I barely posted this 2 hours ago and already I have a great website to look threw for stuff I might be able to use! And some very good advice on the sword.

I'm with Mundo on this one. Defiantly check out he POTC toys. It might require some dremel work but it would be worth it. Also, you might want to really go over the guides listed here on the page and the joe wiki. They offer GREAT info to get started especially the painting guides. Also, it might be wise to pick up some super cheap fodder to practice on. Thats what I did, we have a shop up the street that had some cheep (50 cent each) joe sized figures that I tore to pieces practicing dremel and painting techniques on.

Awesome project. For the head, maybe you might want to look into getting some Japanese gashapon or shokugan that already have the long ears and faces. For a moment, I almost thought that was a Morrowind inhabitant..

Great research!

Hey, I just posted an amazon using the same Scarlet and a similar outfit. Check it out here
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2539

As for the tail a swamprat tail modded would work well for you. You might aslo check out just modding Bombstrikes hairpeice for both your hat and ear versions, then all you would have to do is pop on the one you want for the appropriate occasion. The plastic coat route will limit her articulation when she has it on unless you alter the sleeves. As mentioned above POTC has several foil/rapier style swords,

I got a good sword to use out of a PotC toy line.

That custom Scarlett is pretty hot. Definately makes me think it'll work even more.
By swamprat tail do you mean this guy; http://cgi.ebay.com/cobra-SWAMP-RAT-G-I ... dZViewItem
item number; 120167557848


And that bit about plastic coat hampering moveability is something I didnt even think of (x.x)
Im going to start working on this tommarrow too. After I go to the store and buy paint and sandpaper and stuff. I cant wait. Wish me luck all!

This sounds like an exciting project. Good luck.

Yes thats the SR tail I was referring to. You would have to mod it to get the sleek look your going for, but it would be flexible. I think a better option might be to just get a small length of insulated copper wireing, like the ones they used for Payloads teather. A little green stuff on the end would make it look like a cats tail. It should hold paint well and would let you pose it better, not to mention you could get a foot of it cheap or free. Some plastic coats are removeable, but when on, the arms are stuck in that pose. A solution is to replace the sleaves with real cloth, prefferably leather, shiny side out. Then paint it all to get it to match. this gives you the look of all plastic, while regaining articulation in the arms.

Hey wish12oz.

Might have solved the problem of a good tail for your project. When I was in SuperTarget today, I noticed that they had a very affordable poseable keychain figure of the Pink Panther. His tail was not only the right size and shape and near the color of your figure, but it was also poseable. Being that the figure is closer to that PVC/rubber, painting it should be much easier than the polyethelene type of accents you might find in Joe and Cobra figures.

let me know what you think, or if you can get to a ST. If not, let me know, as they had plenty and the tail seemed excellent for your needs.