Captain Scarlet Action Figures Wave 4 of 4

[Kambei]

Well, here we are. The set is finished. For now. I say 'for now because Mary has given me a few ideas for at least another 9 possible OCS figures., and yes, she was right about two of this wave.

Wave 4:




Captain Brown:




Captain Purple:




Doctor Fawn (Labcoat Variant):




Major Stone, Koala Base:




World President:




Director General, United Asian Republic:



The World President figure was supposed to go up with The Angels in Wave 2 as the mail-in offer, but I missed it, so it either goes in as a single carded variant, or the mail-in.
Captain Brown was a must from the get-go, especially as I was doing a World President figure. Captain Purple came into the equation very late. I was looking at a couple of collector sites, and skimmimg through various figures. One trend that has come in in recent years, especially in the GI Joe and Star Wars lines are the 'Expanded Universe' figures. Usually from the books or the comics. Where are the other Shades, I hear you ask? Well, it is my custom set and I live in Area Purple, so that is the one I made. I may get around to making the others, but it will be next year at teh earliest now.
I did the DG of the UAR because it is such a distinctive uniform within the series. Nearly wore out that poor DVD pausing and rewinding while I was getting the details and sculpting.
Major Stone was done as something of an afterthought, as was Doctor Fawn in the labcoat. I was watching 'Traitor' and realised that I could make Major Stone with minimal effort. The same with Doctor Fawn. I was ordering some coats from Urban Rev Toys anyway, so I threw a standard labcoat into the mix. The other coats can be seen in all their glory below.

[Kambei]

2069 Futura City Comic Con Exclusive:









I have always liked the cold-weather coats that the Spectrum officers used. Unfortunately, my sewing skills are not up to creating coats for 1:18 scale figures, but I know a man who can!
Killuminati at Urban Rev Toys has been supplying the customising community with high quality soft-goods for 4 inch figures for several years now. He very kindly did these custom coats at no extra cost for me, and did a fantastic job on them. If you think they look good in the pics, you should see them in hand.

[Kambei]

And finally! I put all of the figures together to get a group shot of the set of 31 customs:




As promised, I have put together a list of parts and links to pictures and suppliers. Just a point of interest, I actually used a total of 19 of the Han Solo figures. I even bought what amounted to most of Play.com's entire stock of them. Thank goodness for Ebay!

All Spectrum Officers/Security/Captain Black/Major Stone/Cold Weather: Star Wars Legacy Collection Sandstorm Han Solo, or Endor Bunker Han Solo (same figure but with a waistcoat and gunbelt) with various heads
http://www.rebelscum.com/photo.asp?imag ... LC-476.jpg

All Angels: Star Wars Comic Pack Imperial Disguise Deena Shan
http://www.rebelscum.com/photo.asp?imag ... 4DSart.jpg

Spectrum Spacesuits: Star Wars Imperial Engineer/Death Star Gunner with helmet cast from Vivid Imaginations figure
http://www.rebelscum.com/photo.asp?imag ... C-1002.jpg

World President: Harry Potter body, Sirius Black coat and GI Joe vs. Cobra Zartan head

Director General Asian Republic: Harry Potter body, Indiana Jones: TLC Colonel Vogel head.

Judy Chapman: Head: Deena Shan cast, Torso/Arms: Indiana Jones Irina Spalko, Legs: Pirates of the
Caribbean 3 Elizabeth Swan, Skirt: Golden Compass Mrs Coulter

Linda Nolan: Indiana Jones: Last Crusade Elsa Schneider with Henry Jones’ glasses.

http://www.cooltoyreview.com/photo.asp? ... dy-221.jpg
http://www.cooltoyreview.com/photo.asp? ... G_0348.jpg

All Spectrum issue handguns: SOCOM Mk 23 from Marauder John @ Marauder Gun Runners:
http://www.marauderinc.com/servlet/Detail?no=77

Spectrum Security assault rifles: AUG77 from Marauder John @ Marauder Gun Runners:
http://www.marauderinc.com/servlet/Detail?no=45

Spectrum Cold Weather coats and Doctor Fawn’s lab coat by Killuminati @ Urban Rev Toys:
http://urbanrevtoys.googlepages.com/

Black’s sniper rifle: Dragunov sinper rifle with added laser sight from Marauder John @ Marauder Gun Runners:
http://www.marauderinc.com/servlet/Detail?no=13

[Mary]

Excellent! I was going to ask where you found the space helmets, since they looked so much like the original, but you answered my question. I would have done the same myself. I actually like your cold-weather coats more than the actual series; these look considerably warmer than their TV counterparts!

Do you run into any difficulty "bashing" the figures together using body parts from different series, or are the figures made by the same manufacturer(s)? I've found that the large Vivid doll heads don't fit properly with most other 12" dolls, whose bodies I absolutely need for the articulation the Vivid doll seriously lacks.

[Kambei]

Yes, 'Frankensteining' figures can be a nightmare, even if they come from the same manufacturer. Take Hasbro, for instance. They make GI Joe, Star Wars, Wolverine and Marvel universe all in 1:18 scale, but it can cause a nervous breakdown trying to swap parts between those lines, and sometimes between within one range of figures. Sculpting or soft-goods sometimes covers a multitude of sins. Judy Chapman is three different figures. The Jacket and skirt cover a large gap at the waist

Heads are not generally a problem these days as most figures in this scale tend to be all on ball joints and only require dremelling out or filling in the neck hole. I generally use a diamond spherical grinding tool on a flexible neck rotary tool. Finding the right head to use on a figure can be difficult sometimes. I have a tub full of heads from figures and about 30 head molds and sometimes cannot find one suitable. As Eric Morecombe famously said to Andre Previn: "I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!"

I understand exactly what you mean about heads for 1:6 (12 inch) figures. There are a lot of gorgeous figures out there these days in that scale, but they can be extremely expensive, especially if you just want to do a 'Marie Antoinette' on them If you shop around and Google, it is possible to find loose heads in this scale. There are also firms that will make heads to order, but these can cost as much as and more than a regular figure.

All of the Captains, security, Doctor Fawn, Colonel White, Lieutenant Green, Major Stone and Captain Black are the same Han Solo figure. In fact, all but four are Star Wars figures made by Hasbro. Fortunately, all I had to do was some sanding, no parts swapping.

As for the helmets, I made a two part mold from siligum and used Fastglass car resin to cast them. Just needed hollowed out, and some clear plasticard over teh front as a visor.

[Mysteronslayer]

Please say you would make more of these and sell them?

[Kambei]

Please say you would make more of these and sell them?

First of all, this is a hobby for me. I very rarely do commissions. In fact I recall doing only ten in the twenty-five plus years I have been customising. I wish I had the time and mental energy to do more. I have made and sold accessories, but only as a sideline to making them for myself in the first place and having to make molds for the finished article, or having to buy materials in bulk. A few examples:
http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b317/Kambei/Relics/
Eighteen months on and I still have not cast the Moai, it is just the Plasticine master copy. Been trying to work out a way of getting the weight/cost/postage down to a minimum.

I will occasionally do a commission, but there are several factors to be considered. Firstly, as I said, it is a hobby, and I have an ever growing list of figures that I want to make for myself, especially if I am entering a contest as I am at the moment.
I am currently engaged in making several sets. I have a variant of OCD when i am making figures, and try to concentrate on one thing at a time, otherwise things get unfinished.
The main factor is cost. The absolute minimum I charge for a commission is the basic cost of parts and materials, plus postage. Just recently, it has been costing anything between £12 and £26 just for the parts and materials for figures. For a single figure commission, you are looking at a minimum of £8, unless it is becoming hard to find, and then the costs can go up dramatically. I have had customs cost me over £30 just for the parts.
Also if I have to buy a two-pack of figures, or a set to get something, you get charged the full cost, because more often than not, the other figure is a useless, unusable pack-in. I had this problem when making the Angels. I now have five figures that are worthless both as sell-ons and for customising. Give you a basic idea of costs (and this is cheap compared to some others online ):
Cost of basic parts and materials plus:
Basic repaint of figure: £3 - £5 depending on complexity
Casting of parts £3 plus
Basic sculpting: £5 (plus painting/casting costs)
Major sculpting: £10 plus (plus painting/casting costs)
And please remember that this is per figure.
The cold weather coats and lab coats I do not make myself. Unfortunately, although I am reasonably good with a sewing machine, my skills are not equal to the task. I got those on special order from a friend in America. They came to £10 each. So to give an example, a cold weather Captain Scarlet would set you back about £30 and take four to six weeks to make depending how soon Keli could get one of the coats to me.
I wish I had the casting equipment and materials I would need to turn these out cheaply. I would have offered them up for sale by now.

[chrisbishop]

Great to see you back, Kambei! It's been a while. We still have some pictures of your works on our Gallery pages! I hope you have seen them? Did you do anymore you'd like to share?

This is very useful information you just gave our members. If ever they also want to indulge in this kind of hobby, that will give them some input on how much money they should look for, if they want to obtain a similar level of quality.

I've contented myself to create Spectrum-dressed small Teddy bears, basing my models on a few similar items that I bought on eBay. They were sold by a CS fan who used to sell them at conventions. I had to start from scratch, buying bears at a Dollar Store (I think I exhausted their entire supply at the time), samples of felt fabric of assorted colours, black fabric, zippers, ribbons and other assorted material. Most of this material was cheap enough, but the task was time-consuming. When it came to create the Angel bears, I needed silk-like fabric and doll wigs... which were not that cheap. An Angel bear being more complicated to create than a Spectrum colour bear, I only made one...

I had also designed the project to dress up Barbie dolls as Angel pilots, and bought the needed fabric, pattern, tiny white boots (from the net) and dolls - which I found while visiting flea markets. Do you have any idea how HARD it is to find a second-hand, non-smiling Barbie doll?!

Unfortunately, my first attempt at sewing the uniform didn't work that well (the metallic ribbon is a mess to sew!) and soon afterwards, the sewing machine broke down. We got a new machine since then, but at this point I had lost interest, and found I might not want to put any money in this anymore.

Perhaps later I'll try again... But right now, this is not my first priority.

Those of you who create such craft for yourselves, like Kambei, you are invited to show us your work! We like to see how creative CS fans could be and what they can come up with!

[Kambei]

Great to see you back, Kambei! It's been a while.

Thanks

I had also designed the project to dress up Barbie dolls as Angel pilots, and bought the needed fabric, pattern, tiny white boots (from the net) and dolls - which I found while visiting flea markets. Do you have any idea how HARD it is to find a second-hand, non-smiling Barbie doll?!

Quite easy, actually. BBi, Hot Toys, Takara, Century 21 (I kid you not ) Just go onto ebay and type in the following search: 1/6 female. Click on 'Worldwide'. I got 705 items come up. You will have to pay a little bit more than a second hand Barbie, but the quality will be far higher, and none of them will have the vacuous Barbie-grin. How well they fit a Barbie boby I don't know. The only Barbie dolls to my knowledge that don't have smiles are the collectors' edition dolls, and you are looking at silly money for some of these.