hey folks,

as some of you might know, I took the Customizing Class at the GIJCC last thursday, hosted by Richard Woodhouse, along with fellow JCers Kamakura, Dream, biThomas, ToyNutz, & FightingSwords.

These are what I came up with:

PITT (Cobra Pit Fighter)



*note: this was tougher than it looks - the ghost rider arms required major surgery, and the leg joints needed filling with hotglue (1st time for me!) I have the CC mask somewhere, but can't seem to locate it.

The Red Skull


*note: I had to cut stormy's collar off & glue it to the top of the cloak -- then I needed to add some hotglue to the head to get it to stay on the tip of the stormy neckball -- i think i like this 'hotglue' stuff... This was also the first time I had ever used this brand of paint (Model Masters Acrylic) -- as well as painting without priming -- I don't know that I have a knack with it yet, but I think I might give that brand another try.

CON-Traption


*note: this got an 'Atta Boy' from Richard Woodhouse, and when I asked his opinion on whether the control should be attached or remote, he said, "I prefer tethered, myself.." Who am I to argue -- the guy designed the freakin' fodder!!

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Sweet!

I'm a recent convert to the "hot-glue" method of customizing. Before then I always did my small mods with green stuff and then had to wait for it to cure -- now it takes longer for the glue gun to heat up than it does to perform the actual fix. Win.


Loving the Con-Traption. Very cool idea - I'll have to try it with my Rex claw thingies (after I remove them from the box of springloads I still haven't sent you )

Red Skull looks pretty good - great use of the Sleestak-Viper head, but the Pearl Green (I'm assuming that's the color you used? ) is too enamel-y looking for me - doesn't look right on clothing, unless you're going for that glossy green leather pimp look, in which case - mission accomplished

PITT is really cool - the mods to the arms are perfect. The thighs look a tad too skinny, though - maybe that's just the camera angle.


These were all made during the class? Awesome job for such a short timeframe - what kind of time window did you have to work with?

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PITT is very interesting. I have an extra Night Adder I want to turn into something (either Burn Out or Big Lob), although after seeing this it could work for a different Dreadnok.

Red Skull is neat, but I don't feel it as Red Skull. You made it to be a RoC-esque version, but I just wish there was a more skull like head instead of mask like head. I really like the paint apps on the Stormie parts. It has a mottled appearance which gives it a fabric texture.

I really like the Attaboy launcher. I never thought to open it up like that and use it as a launch base. Very cool.

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Nice work on all of these. And it's great to see some new stuff from ya!

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Thanks gents!

we had about 6 hrs or so from the starting gun to dig through fodder until slight pressure was applied to wrap things up --

there wasn't gobs and gobs of fodder for all the folks there -- but there was enough for everyone to make a few customs -- i guess i'm just slow -- i had another parted out & assembled, but just never got any further than that -- everybody was painting while i was still modding stuff...

there wasn't a whole lot of choice in paints... there were like 4 bottles of green, some purple, some blues, an orange, and barely any black. oh, there might have been some white, too.

i had no idea of what to expect from this type of paint, especially going over grey & white, but after seeing the results, i'd try it out again when I have a little more time (and my own brushes)

edit: i got a pm on CON-traption build, so i thought i'd just detail the construction in the thread --

I took the claw thing & cut the green control/springy off what would have been the 'back' of the claw -- i pulled all the claws out to become 'legs' and set it upright on them. I used an x-acto (or Kona) saw to cut the end off another spring-load missle, and glued that to the top. I popped the end ring off a third spring load weapon and glued it around the base of the missile. i found a couple of those purple air-tank things, and worked out that i could glue them in one quarter of the piece, and drilled small holes in the adjacent quarters to accept the hose. I took the handle from the spring-load that I had split with my needlenose, and that's when I asked Richard about the connected/remote idea. He liked tethered, so I dug through his fodder for something to connect the handle to the machine, and found a Breaker cable, as well as some kind of hand-held controller -- I glued all these together, and started looking for a place to attach it to the machine. Not finding a good spot, I went hunting in the fodder, and found a firefly backpack. I took off the removable plate and glued it to the machine. Richard had a power drill & bits there for our use, so I found one the same diameter as the connector hose and drilled through the firefly plate & machine until I could fit the connection cable in. The final piece of tech detail to the machine is one of the Doctor's nano-injection devices, which i glued on to act as an antenna or something. Then I also found that box thing for the top, just in case they needed to transport the CON-Traption and didn't want to get burned...

//thanks for the interest, AT!

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red skull does look pretty neat

oh hi JM

I really like what you did with Pitt there. I like what you did with the parts.
Red looks pretty neat. His green outfit kind of has a vinyl look to me. kinky....

I REALLY like the CON-traption. That thing is sweet.

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I know you had limited time and limited tools and stuff to work with so don't let this critique rattle you too much.

Pitt, I like the direction you went with the parts but it still looks like a WIP. They don't flow together as smooth as they should.

The Red Skull looks good. I like the addition of the cape for sure. I think the coat could have used another layer of paint, but otherwise I like him.

CON-traption is a work of art. Great name and great use of useless parts. If you could have figured out a way to make the tether removable you'd have the best of both worlds. What did you use for its "helmet"?

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Yeah, i thought about putting some type of 'weathering' on his skin .. but he was kind of my '2nd' while i was waiting for things to dry on the Skull ... He does look a little better with the mask on (i cut out the eye holes in the mask) -- one guy commented that he then looked like that guy from Mad Max...



the green needs 'something' -- i wish i would have painted all the white a gray color before starting with the green, and I probably will paint it again before I put it in the archive. I also think I'm going to paint the inside of the coat black -- I think that would make a world of difference, too. Maybe some silver or black touches here & there as well. I had thought about painting the 'teeth' area of the mask white, but got the 'nay' from Kama on that --



The tether is removable from the FF plate (unplugs) -- the 'helmet' is the snake chamber that came with one of the ROC vipers --

Thanks for the comments!

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PITT reminds me of the caged warriors from BeastMaster. Nice work.

I love the CON-traption-- and that's a powerful endorsement that you got there, JM.

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You know, I haven't seen many takes on the Red Skull that I would call distinct, but this one certainly has that going on. Almost feels like something I'd expect to see in Spectre's universe. Really neat.

thanks again, gents!

i tweaked a couple of these a bit:

I painted another coat of (more olive drabby) green on the Skull, and found the mask for PITT --

I also located the Shipwreck'd custom that someone had mocked up & left in Richards' fodder...

and then Kamakura & I continued to work on it... mostly making the cup...

actually, that's all we did. mostly Kama.

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DUDE....Red Skull looks SOOO much better now. See what having some good paint can do? The class was a challenge but would have been a lot better if had a wider variety of supplies to work with. Next year I am bring ing my own!!!

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Red Skull.......sooo much better now. Great work touching it up with better paint.

PITT looks better. I might do something more with the mask.

LOL at Shipwreck'd!
That's what Beav is going to look like when he gets back.

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