Bucky's customs end of year poll

bucky · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am **Location:** IA

I decided to go with the one thread for one customizer route. Easier to follow, find, and read the feedback that way.
I will update the title of the thread, with the newest customs always at the top, in the 1st post.
any feedback or critiques are more than welcome!

FAST DRAW

COMBINE

I made this guy out of some spare parts. Just in time for the Midwest Harvest season! I tried to give him a John Deere look. I picture him as a mechanic at the Pit working on big tanks.
head: Retaliation Firefly
Body: Tunnel Rat
Helmet:cast

DUKE
Head: PoC Duke
Arms and Torso: Kwinn
Legs: Steel Brigade
Webgear: Duke 25th combined with Cpt. America

OUTBACK
Head and Forearms: DTC Outback, Sculpted beard
Backpack and harness: Kwinn
Hands: Cpt. America Crossbones
Thighs: poc Recondo
Rest: Retaliation Roadblock

Week of 9/22-9/28
Air Commando Week!
This week I will be posting customs based on Air Commando's! I've got a day for the next week, each inspired by the Air Commando subset from the vintage line.
Air Commando Spirit and the entire idea to do a subset started back in July with my LBC week where I had tried to do easy kitbashes or customs that I could get done in under 15 minutes. Spirit was on tap to be part of that, but the more I was messing around with him, the longer he started to take. I decided to hold him off til a later time, and after LBC week I thought doing the Air Commando's would be a fun project, provided I could come up with 7 different characters and parts combo's, which finally came to fruition in mid August, and completed them all last week.

NIMBUS
Pilot Scarlett figure
Trakker's helicoptor
Ripper Gloves

SKY CREEPER
Head: Heavily modified Tripwire
Torso, arms and webgear: Retaliation Trooper
Upper Legs: VvV Heavy Duty
Lower legs: Hiss Driver
Kneedpads: Para Viper

SKYMATE
Head: RoC footloose with sculpy mustache
Rest: DG Shipwreck
Webgear: Chap Mei
Arm Gauntlet: Mutt
Beret: Flint

AIR DEVIL
Wet Suit head
Cpt. America helmet with horns from a head found in the PIF box, and face shield added
Upper body and arms: RoC Charbroil
Legs: Jungle Viper
Gear: Cpt. America figure

CLOUDBURST
Retaliation Cobra Commander Torso
Dollar General Duke head, with modded Mouse helmet
Resolute Cobra Trooper Arms
Hazard Viper hands
Roc Duke thighs
Resolute Firefly feet

NIGHT VULTURE
Night Vulture was a character I never owned until collecting after I moved out from home.
I thought including him with this was pretty much an unwritten rule, as he never appeared outside of the Air Commando Sub-line. I decided to make him his own unique character as opposed to a trooper. A sadistic air assault trooper whom enjoys snatching Joes off the ground and then dropping them from the air.
He is made from the Retaliation Wave 1 Snake Eyes, a Retaliation trooper head, kitbashed webgear and a Skydive Glider.

Air Commando Spirit
Entire Figure:Marauders Spirit
Slightly Modified Roadblock vest
I went for a mash up between International Spirit and Air Commando Spirit rather than a direct update.

ROADBLOCK:
Head and Torso: Resolute RB
Legs: Retaliation RB
Vest: poc Recondo modified with pouches, knife, green stuff

and some fun shots

STRETCHER
Head and Forearms: RoC Repeater
Torso: Resolute Duke Arctic
Legs: Retaliation Firefly/Poc Duke
Webgear: Kitbashed parts

Also, went back and reworked my 2nd Gung Ho, with painted flesh, a better mustache and some different highlights. I used Build and Brawl elbowpads to cover up any joint chipping that would occur around the elbows. What do you think? Does it still look too much like the Rock?

BUDO
budo was made with:
Thor figure head
Temple guardian snake eyes mask, with a piece of ninja weapon to make the little horns
Renegades trooper torso
Storm shadow arms and legs
The pack for the sai's was a piece of random joe parts.

LBC WEEK 7/8-7/12: :-P

I decided to kill off a bunch of customs in a week that have been floating around in my head for awhile, or have been done for along time and never shown. They might not have been shown due to them being so similar to other's, it wasn't worth posting up. But this week, i celebrate the easy webgear swaps, the 5 minute paint jobs, and the head/body part swaps that make quick, easy, (LAZY BASTARD) customs!!
I'm aiming for two a day, the goal, if they have not been done before this week, is less than 15 minutes per custom.
That doesn't include paint drying.

Fri LBC:
COBRA COMMANDER

SGT. SLAUGHTER

Thurs LBC's:

Night Force Crazylegs

Night Force Snake Eyes

Wed. LBC'S:
BREAKER
Head: Benchpress
Forearms: TF Flint
Rest: DG Duke
custom made backpack, webgear modified by removing holster, adding pouches in it's pace, and poking a hole in it to mount the radio/cellphone/whatever that is.
A little black paint, and some fleshtone on the neck.
I was really pushing my self imposed 15 minute time limit with this guy, that backpack idea hit me with 5 minutes left.

SGT. SIX
Sgt. Six (or sky patrol Airborne)
Who originally coined Sgt. Six? Was it http://www.Generalsjoes.com in a dio? Either way, the name stuck for me. So kudos to you.
Sgt. Six was the only Sky Patrol figure I owned as a child. I loved him, the helmet, the gun, the military air force grey, the mean looking face. I've had this one done for years now, and I'm pretty sure I borrowed it part for part from LeeMarvin.
Head: Ripcord
Vest: Tomahawk
Body: Resolute Firefly. with Grey added.
Helmet: Wild Bill, with a metallic Red added
This one, if I recall, took literally five minutes to make.

Tuesday's LBC's:
Frostbite
This is the Frostbite I made to go with the Wolf Hound/Snow Cat vehicle.
Shipwreck's Head
Tunnel Rat goggles
Webgear unknown
Fur is from a Star Wars Han Solo Hoth trooper

SUB ZERO
Made Sub Zero here to fill in the ranks of the 90's figures. Follows a very popular recipe.
The entire figure is a ROC SE with baby blue paint added, a Tunnel Rat machine Gun, and POC Firefly.
Not sure where the head is from... Poc Zartan maybe?

Monday's LBC's:

BILLY
Pretty straightforward. He had been sitting on a shelf for years, waiting to be done. I think I actually picked up that head at the 2009 Con, so that tells you how long it's been. I looked at him the other day, and figured he was done, didn't need anything else.

Deep Six
I had the Lowlight head slapped on this body since early this year. I didn't know what to do with it. I was leaning towards a new character, but the name I had picked out didn't really fit the figure. I opted to go forward with making a non dive suit Deep Six, as seen in the Marvel Comic. It was also partially inspired by Oreobuilder's Deep Six for his Make a Con Group Project.
The vest came off of a Chap Mei figure years ago. The working holster is from the Retaliation Trooper backpack.

DART
All Roadblock Retaliaton V1
Gauntlets-from Pit Commando Chestpiece
Belt and Vest from a Captain America figure
Helmet- WW2 BBI figure
goggles-Poc Dusty
Feather-Vintage Dart
hair-top of head sculpted
ponytail-Vintage Dart
1 arm gauntlet is sculpted
1 arm gaunlet is from the 25th Airborne belt
Eagle on chest is a dry transfer decal

Here's Dart. One of the best of the New Sculpt era, and a fine character to boot. I remember being pretty stoked when I originally got him, the Duke/Ripper pack, and Wild Bill pack back in 02/03. Not sure of the year. I really liked him though.
There are several characters that don't get alot of recognition from that era that I am currently making plans for. Dart had to be the first out of the gates though.
I have had him on my radar for awhile, and had a couple of false starts with him. Mostly due to size, and skin tone. I HATE painting flesh tones. To me, it never looks right. Rock has that skin tone that's not quite white, not quite black, and when washed with a watered down "leather" color, looked native American enough for me. I picture Dart as a rather tall guy.. might just be due to the original seeming bigger than most figures coming out at that time.
I needed him to look not so much like the Rock (not that the V1 Roadblock really does..) so off came the mustache and goatee with some nail polish remover. The eyebrows were made thicker with just paint. Hair sculpted on, but the ponytail, along with the feather were sliced off a vintage Dart.
I had started to sculpt armbands... and one of them wasn't too bad, I even tried to add a little detail to it like the original.
however, once painted, you can't see it, so the next one I just cut off of the 25th Airborne's gear. I had originally sculpted some gauntlets as well, but couldn't get them to look right with the massive and rounded forearms of the figure.
I ended up using the same gauntlet trick I did with Rawhide Toa from last year. I gave a slight wash to the pants with a olive green, which made the pants look like a different type of camo. It was an accident, but I liked the result and left it.e
The darts on the gauntlets are from a POC Recondo. Sliced off with an exacto.

SPIRIT
This custom made it's debut at the 2013 Convention, but I am neglected to post him up for a couple months afterwards. Sole purpose was to create a Spirit that fit in a little bit better with my style of figure.

head- Poc Spirit
Torso and Arms- Snake Eyes
Forearms- Beach Head
Upper Legs- Trooper
Lower legs- Beach Head

Wide Scope

I didn't do alot to him as you can see. I had him started well before the FSS showing. I wanted something that looked somewhat swat, somewhat military, and less like Shockwave. I am leaning towards using the FSS on as Shockwave.

Im still trying to find a suitable sniper type rifle.

Parts:
Hazard viper Head
ROC City Strike Duke
Renegades Duke webgear with some pouches
dog unknown

Blizzard!

I have had Blizzard done for a long time, perhaps a couple years now. If you are on Facebook, you may have seen him before. I never posted him on here for a couple of reasons. The last time we had a decent snowfall was two years ago. The original pics I took turned out well, except the knife did not stay in place. I never noticed it until I went to post him. By that time the snow was gone, so I decided to wait a year. Well, last year, it snowed once or twice, but was unseasonably warm. The snow didn't last and I missed my opportunity.

I shelved him and decided to revisit him this year. I drybrushed some snow effects on him, and tweaked the goggles, so it the helmet eyes didn't look so small compared to the helmet.

The backpack was missing parts, so for the handles I chopped up two knives and glued them in place. I think it's a good substitute.

ICEBERG
I thought making a companion to Blizzard would be a fun project.
Iceberg hasn't seen a decent figure since the early 90's in my opinion. I thought I would take a different route with him than has been seen before. Poc style I guess you could call it. I strayed away from the baby blue vest of the original, and the yellow ski mask of the 90's, and went with some standard grey's and green's. I did include the light green goggles in an attempt to tie him into the 86 version's goggles.

It's pretty much all Arctic Resolute Duke, with a shaved down Heavy Duty head, and a stocking cap.

Lance Sputnik · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am **Location:** Pants

That looks real nice! Very well done custom. The helmet still looks too big, but it always has, so that's not your doing.

unknownsoldier13 · **Joined:** Tue May 13, 2008 8:44 pm

Looks great,I really like the Dollar General Duke head on this.

alleyviperelite · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:38 pm

That helmet looked too big on the pumpkin headed noggins of RAH figs. Its definitely oversized here. Everything else is great, especially the snow backdrop. Its so realistic!!

drbindy · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:25 pm

agree on the helmet, but the rest of him is perfect. Nicely executed.

Is there a SW helmet you can find maybe to be close enough to look like an updated version?

Jay · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:33 pm

Gotta agree with everyone. Everything about this figure is stellar except the ginormous helmet.

drbindy wrote:

Is there a SW helmet you can find maybe to be close enough to look like an updated version?

There's Naboo Pilot figure that has a similar goggles/ear covers setup going for it.

Tsunami · **Posted:** Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:54 am

Jay wrote:

Gotta agree with everyone. Everything about this figure is stellar except the ginormous helmet.

drbindy wrote:

Is there a SW helmet you can find maybe to be close enough to look like an updated version?

There's Naboo Pilot figure that has a similar goggles/ear covers setup going for it.

I agree with the helmet comments, but one of the things that I think made Blizzard, Blizzard was his helmet. I think that was iconic for him.
On a side not, I just got two of those Naboo pilots, if you need a helmet, drop me a PM.

Spin Doctor · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am

Huge-helm or no, this is one of the best Blizzards I've seen in this format.

If there's a way to approximate the look while downsizing it some (as suggested above) I think that could really distinguish this as a smart update in addition to a true homage.

Do what makes you happy with it, though. Right now its very faithful.

Otto the Otter · **Posted:** Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:28 pm

Avalanche looks great, I just got the O-ring version and he's very cool, your update is just about perfect.

Also love the weathering and new ID numbers on the Flagg.

Shakka85 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:48 pm

Nice choice of subject matter for your first custom this year... Blizzard is my favorite Arctic Trooper, and you've done an excellent job of capturing his look. That being said, I am not a fan of the Breaker sculpt, but I understand why you've used it here. However, might I suggest the Marauder's 7-pack Lt. Falcon sculpt as an alternative? He has a full face, and with a repaint to the hair (or you could get a cast of the head from one of our many plastic-crack dealer friends on the web and paint the entire sculpt yourself) could make your figure even better. This is, of course, just my opinion...

-Todd
Shakka85

Tim 121RVC · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:30 pm

That weathering looks good indeed!

pluv · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:58 pm

The weathered flagg should look really cool. Cna't wait to see that project progress.

drbindy · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:49 pm

on Blizzard, I like the first head much better personally, for what that is worth.

Your workbench looks familiar. lol

bucky · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am **Location:** IA

this was a custom I made for a good friend as a Christmas gift. It would fall into my Universe Zero customs, as it is based on a comic book he drew threw middle school and high school. Her name is Tara, and she was an assassin whom companion was a Lion.
I don't have any of the pictures of the source material, though this is about as close as I could get to his concept. I just got the idea from visiting him on vacation in Arizona. The last night we just sat around discussing our favorite cartoons, heroes, toys, and the comics we drew and the characters we made up. This one was his favorite.

I think most parts are from Baroness and Helix. This is one of my first attempts at a female custom. I did not enjoy painting the skin tone. I used Testors acrylic flesh tone, which looks good, but was always kind of thick when i would go to use it. I tried to thin it with some water. Kind of became a pain in the butt.

Blakwulf · **Joined:** Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:37 pm

Tara is awesome!!
And the guys look sweet too!

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