Thursday, October 22, 2009

Figma Saber from Fate/Extra

The exclusive for the Fate/Extra PSP game was announced to be a red version of Saber.

Known to some as Mordred, she is the "daughter"(?) of King Arthur who rebelled against her after finding out that she will not be the next king. In the final battle, Arturia pierced Mordred's armor thus killing her.

This Figma is one awesome exclusive. For the first time ever, there is a clear part for the dress. The sculpt, paint, and presentation looks to be on par with the last Saber exclusive Saber Lily. I'm definitely gettin' this piece right dur.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Gundam White Destiny

This is my repaint of the Destiny Gundam from Gundam Seed Destiny. As can be seen in the pics it is mostly white with silver trim and a metallic red secondary trim. It's my 2nd repaint and my first as a customiser in training.

Closer inspection of the back reveals that it is equipped with not 1 but 2 anti-ship swords. I thought that it fit better with this type of color scheme.



Someday I'll build the twin of this Gundam. It'll be a darker version with 2 blasters.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

ROTF Leader Starscream

Seibertron.com posted a pic of the back of the packaging of leader class ROTF Starscream.

That's looking pretty good. I might have to get that one when it comes out. Of course, I'll need to see some reviews first and/or see it in person for the final consideration.

1/2000 Scale SDF-1 Macross

I saw this over at Over drive's blog and it's got me excited.

This thing is huge and much better than the little one that Wave released a while ago. Unfortunately the cost of such a large piece will no doubt be high.

Too many cool Macross stuff and not enough monies.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Figma Lacus Clyne

A while back I saw a picture of a custom made Figma Lacus Clyne. It was posted on Dannychoo.com by member Quentin Lau. I then went over to his blog to read his posting. The custom was made by a Chinese customizer who is a member of the Toys Daily forum. I was so impressed by his work that I decided to follow in his footsteps and make myself a Figma Lacus Clyne. It was at this point that I saw the potential to Figma customizing and the joys that came with it.

So here's my attempt and how I went about it. First I studied what the person did to create their custom. Sadly I'm not as experienced or as skilled, but I'm really good at improvising. I didn't watch all those McGuyver episodes when I was a kid for nothing.

Anyway, after studying the pictures and their work in progress pics, I procured a set of the Gundam Seed Trading figures necessary for this custom. I then set about ravishing my Miku Figma for the pieces I needed. Once the trading figs arrived, I went about and got the head and clothes needed. After some messing around and experimenting I came up with this.

The coat came from a different trading fig that I got a while back. It's made out of soft rubber like material so it works well with this custom.

I then compared how it looked with the rest of my figmas. Since it looked pretty good and is of the same size I was happy. Unfortunately I had to wait until I got more figmas and more free time to continue this custom. After many months I finally got back to it.

Here are the arms when I painted it black. You can see Lacus on the right and Miku on the left. The custom for her will be on a different post. Anyway, after the paint dried I clear coasted it. Then after that dried I put the arms on Lacus and this is how it looks.


So that's what I have so far. It's pretty much done, but I may do something about her shoes so that it's more accurate to the high-heeled-pointy-toe type she actually wore in the series. I should probably take better pictures too and some without her coat on.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

New Transformers Toys

Just saw this over on Seibertron.com and I'm happy to see some new molds that actually looks good. First up is the Human Alliance Barricade.


This one I might get since I like the Saleen Mustang design. Now on the the good stuff.


Voyager class Mindwipe is a good looking piece. I can see some potential in repainting this as a proper soundwave movie toy. The scout class Skystalker can attach to Mindwipe kinda like a minicon.


Then there's deluxe class Brawn. This one has hints of his G1 color scheme and it looks good. I've been wanting a Brawn and this one will definitely do. Painting it more G1 would be cool.


And then there's another TFA Lockdown toy. This one seem to be in TFmovie styling and looks better than the original Lockdown toy. I think I'll be getting this one.


There's also a deluxe class Ratchet coming out, but I already have the voyager class. There's also a scout class scattershot, but the scout class are small and I don't usually collect those. Check the rest out on Seibertron.com for details.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

X-Men figma repaints

One of my biggest customs over the summer was making some X-Men Figma out of the Figma Archetype:She. I ordered 6 of these Figma exclusives for customizing and after receiving them I thought about what I can do with them.

Back when I was younger I was quite a big fan of the X-Men series and the costumes of the female characters are just full body tights which looked really on them. Anyway, I made a list of my top 5 favorite hot X-Women and proceeded to get some pics of them to study their costume. I then decided on my first subject, Jean Grey AKA as the Phoenix.
The green and the gold looked good. While that would be cool to do, I decided to go with the Dark Phoenix instead.
This color scheme is better in that she has an edge to her in both look and attitude. I went about painting the figure and half way through it I decided on my 2nd character to do, Rogue.
Now that I had the pictures as reference and I was progressing alright with my painting I hit a snag. I didn't have heads to use for my figures. I'm not that good yet that I can sculpt out faces and hair so I improvised and used some heads from my figmas for the time being. Here are the results.







I learned some good lessons doing these repaints. There are different types of paints for different materials. I got some proper mixing paints practice since improper thinning and mixing results in a not so smooth paint. Also, the joints will chip the paint off once dried. So there it is my first figma repaints and I hope I can do a better job the next time around.

Introduction

So, I've started this blog to document my journey into figure customizing. Toys and figures have become quite popular as collectibles. Yet, there are those collectors who likes to do more to their collection than just play with or display them. As a collector of Transformers, Anime PVC figures, and MG Gundam builder, I too caught the customizing bug.

So far I've studied up on how to do re-paints and I've been trying to improve my painting skills as I go along. That's probably the most I do for customizing for now. However, as I progress I'd like to get into more modifications and sculpting someday.

One final note is that I'm going to blog about my figures and customs primarily, but I may just post something unrelated like cars, movies, video games, and coding from time to time. Not a whole lot, but a couple might sneak in there.