1:12
scale Custom Action Figure Gallery
By:
Net-Viper X
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to the Star Wars Customs Main Page
SUMMARY
This section contains custom figures of characters
found in Episode 4 - 6 of the Star Wars saga. Many of these figures are simple
enhancements to existing figures by applying additional paint work, while
others are total conversions into entirely different characters.
GALLERY
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6" Black Series Imperial General Bast
Bast was and Imperial General that served as a
Chief on the first Death Star. He was the Officer that warned Grand Moff Tarkin
of the potential destruction of the Death Star and urged Tarkin to evacuate. I
created the General from a Director Krennic figure with several modifications.
I removed the pistol holster and grenade canisters from the belt and sculpted
on the hat and sideburns. The rank badge on his chest was also trimmed down to
the appropriate size and repainted. The entire figure was given a coat of Field
Gray paint and the hair was painted an auburn color. The eyes were also
repainted to a dark green color.
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6" Black Series Imperial Colonel Yularen
Colonel Yularen was another Officer seen on the
first Death Star in Episode 4. This guy was quite distinct in his beige colored
tunic and was seen at the Death Star conference table and walking past Han and
Luke while they are disguised as Stormtroopers. His body was modified a bit
more extensively than General Bast, since the beige tunic has a slightly
different pattern. The seam on his left side had to be removed and the
overlapping breast had to be shortened so it was even with the bottom of his
collar instead of going all the way up t the shoulder. The front flap was also
reduced so it doesn't overlap onto his right side as much. The rank badge also
had to cut down to a single row and his chest pockets removed. For the head I
re-sculpted Krennic's hair style to give the widows peak and combed back hair,
and also added the mustache. Once the head was repainted and he had his
distinct arching black eyebrown, you can barely tell it used to be Krennic's
head.
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6"
Black Series Imperial Commander
This figure is loosely based on Commander Praji;
one of the black uniformed Officers from Episode 4. The conversion for this
Officer was similar to the others I have made so far; with the removal of his
rank cylinders and a modification to his rank insignia. Some of the gear war
also removed from his belt but unlike the others, this one got to keep his
holster. Oddly the pistol holsters on these black uniforms are brown rather
than black, so they look a bit out of place. I wanted to stick with screen
accuracy though so I used the brown color for the figure.
The head for this figure is from a Marvel Legends
Tony Stark with his beard removed and some sideburns added. I sculpted the hat
from scratch and gave his entire uniform a coat of flat black paint. The pistol
is a from Director Krennic with the barrel shortened and the scope repositioned
so it resembles a DL-44 blaster.
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6" Black Series Imperial Security Sergeant
The security sergeant is seen in the first Death
Star directing squads of Naval Security troops, he is simply a Naval Security
Guard with a black hat on instead of the large helmet. All this figure needed
was a hat and a head swap to get him going. I repainted one of my leftover
Krennic heads for this guy and modified the neck socket for a better fit. The
hat is one of my custom sculpted designs and is removable.
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6"
Black Series TIE Fighter Pilots
In the Original Trilogy three different TIE
Pilots are shown with extra details painted on their helmets in dark metallic
silver. I decided to replicate these marking on three of the Black Series
6" TIE Pilots to make for a more impressive display. All the helmets were
given their appropriate serial numbers on their foreheads. The helmet on the
left has the metallic markings on his side tubes of his helmet, the helmet in
the middle has the metallic stripes on his faceplate and the little piece below
the serial number on his forehead, the one on the right has the metallic crest
on his forehead. I also painted the teeth and chin vents silver on all three
helmets to match the movie prop helmets. In order to make the goggles stand out
from the black helmet, I gave them a coat of black tined with a small amount of
dark green, and covered it with a gloss clear coat to give them a more
realistic look.
A pic of the three TIE Pilot variants together.
A closer view of helmet details.
Star Wars Episode V The Empire
Strikes Back
The AT-AT Driver has always been one of my
favorite Imperial troops, and I really wanted one for my 6" collection.
Since its likely to be a very long wait for a 6" AT-AT Driver to be
released, I decided to create one from a TIE Pilot. This requires a number of
changes to the figure in order to be accurate. The helmet had a ton of small
details to be added including the devices beside and above the eye lenses,
several little tabs and buttons on the forehead, and little vent pieces to fill
the holes where the air pipes had been on the chin of the helmet. The Empire
logos and the black stripes on the side tubes of his helmet are custom decals,
with the remaining helmet details hand painted. The air pipes themselves had to
be replaced with longer hoses and connected to the rear of the helmet with
custom made canister fittings. The control box on the chest required the
buttons to be shaved off and a new control panel decal added, with several new
buttons sculpted on.
The breastplate of an AT-AT Driver has a
different style of shoulder straps than the TIE Pilot, so these had to be
shaved down and re-sculpted. The standard Imperial belt worn by the TIE Pilot
was removed and in its place the AT-AT Driver harness was added that hangs from
his chest armor and wraps around his legs. For the electronic style plaque on
his back-plate, I used a decal mounted on a thin piece of transparent plastic
card and sculpted some additional details as needed. On the arms I had to
sculpt the proper shoulder armor on both sides and cover up the communicator
electronics on the left forearm. The cuff of the gloves was also reduced and
slightly re-sculpted so they don't flare out as much as the TIE Pilot gloves
did, and a new communicator was added to the cuff of his left glove. The legs
required no modification other than to re-sculpt the boots to be the more puffy
padded winter boots as used on the movie prop.
I painted the figure to be accurate to the actual
movie prop, which had armor that was actually light gray. The bright studio
lamps used for the promotional pictures made the armor appear white in most
shots. Since many of the parts didn't match perfectly in
color on the prop, I did the same with the paintwork on the figure. The gloves
are a slightly lighter shade of gray than the armor, almost an off white just
like the real welding goves used on the costume. I also painted the web harness
around his legs in a slightly different shade of gray since being cloth, the
straps didn't match his painted armor precisely. The boots on the costume
appear to have been overpainted with the same gray as the armor (paint smudges
from this can be seen on his boot tread in some of the behind the scenes
photos), so I did the same here although I left off the paint smudges since it
looked messy.
The completed AT-AT Driver from several angles.
Star Wars Episode IV A New
Hope
6"
Black Series Imperial Gunner
The Imperial Gunner is another rarely seen
trooper that I always really liked the look of, and really wanted one for my
6" figure collection. Fortunately this is another figure that can be
created from an existing TIE Pilot, though the changes required are much more
extensive than the AT-AT Driver. There are several versions of the Gunner with
some differences to their uniform; one operates the Death Star super laser and
has a black jumpsuit like a TIE Fighter Pilot, the other operates the defensive
turbo-laser batteries and has a black leather jacket with a ribbed pattern on
it. Both gunners are seen with and without a padded breast plate. The one with
pilot jumpsuit would be much easier, but the leather jacket version looks so
much better that I opted for that version despite the additional work required.
The head for this figure needed to be created
from scratch, since no other figure at this point has a helmet shape that can
be used as a base. The main part of the helmet and faceplate were made from
Sculpey clay and baked. A thin strip of plastic was then used for the visor and
the helmet's rear panel was cut from a plastic Easter egg. The helmet
communicator was hand sculpted and a piece of wire added for the antenna.
The ribbed pattern of the leather jacket was
sculpted onto the sleeves and the lower front portion of his torso. The back of
the jacket does not have the ribbed pattern but still needed to be resculpted
to cover up the removed back plate of the TIE Fighter Pilot. The padded breast
armor was sculpted as a separate piece and glued on afterwards, with the straps
for the breastplate being sculpted once it was attached. The final touch was
the addition of two silver boxes to the belt and the placement of three white
Imperial Insignia.
Some various shots of the Imperial Gunner.
Star Wars Episode V The Empire
Strikes Back
6"
Black Series Snowtrooper Commander
I
have always thought the Snowtrooper Commander was much cooler than the basic troopers
with his molded faceplate and rank insignia, so when the basic Snowtrooper was
released I immediately set about making a Commander of my own. While not
immediately noticeable, the Commander actually has a large number of
differences from the basic Snowtrooper, and required quite a bit of
modification to get him film accurate.
The
most apparent difference in the Commander's molded faceplate, which stands out
compared to the wrinkly cloth face cover on the troopers. After sculpting on
the faceplate I also added the two little silver discs on the sides of his
helmet. The breastplate also has a number of changes to the standard trooper,
most noticeable being the rank insignia on the chest. In addition, I also had
to rework the three control panels in the center of the breastplate. The center
panel had to be completely redesigned with a new set of buttons and switches
The small panel on his right side had two small buttons added, and the panel on
his left has the three red buttons removed and a grooved cover added. This left
panel also had the gray outlines added to the sides to match the film prop. An
armor plate was also added to his back in place of the backpack, with a number
of buttons and details added.
For
the arms a number of changes had to be made. First off, the shoulder pads had
to be removed and rotated upside down so the little row of raised squares is on
top. The forearms had to be completely remodeled by adding the Stormtrooper
armor bracers with AT-AT Driver style gloves on over them. The belt also had to
be modified by removing the large cargo pockets and adding a pistol holster.
The pistol is a custom design created by shortening the barrel of a Director
Krennic pistol and re-positioning the scope.
The
legs also required a couple of changes. The Commander does not have kneepads,
so those had to be removed and the knee area re-sculpted as part of his pants.
The boots are also different from the standard trooper, the Commander wears the
same type of boots as the AT-AT Driver so those had to be sculpted on as well.
Star Wars Episode V The Empire
Strikes Back
6"
Black Series 4-L0M Bounty Hunter Droid
The
remaining bounty hunters from the Empire Strikes Back have been a long time
coming, so I decided to make one of them myself using a C-3p0 body as the base.
The only modification required to the body was on the breastplate. Unlike the
normal 3p0 torso that has a human style breast, this one is more of an insect
style design with three overlapping breasts on each side. I added this with
some kneadatite sculpting putty, and at the same time I removed the two little
pistons on the base of the neck.
Aside
from that the body was a straight repaint of 3p0. From what little information
I could find, the original movie prop of this droid was a very dark blue
metallic paint. The color could look black or dark metallic gray depending on
the lighting used. The whole body was sprayed with metallic navy blue and then
a red marking was added to the breastplate. All of the abdominal wiring was
repainted silver and the whole body was weathered with several washes of a
thinned down orange brown color.
The
head was acquired from a seller on eBay and I think it is an enlarged re-cast
from the head of a 3.75" Hasbro figure. It was painted gunmetal metallic
and washed with thinned down black paint. The nozzles on the face were painted
bright silver and used the same black wash. For the eyes I started with a dark
green metallic and then added a wash to the gaps with thinned golden orange
paint.
The blaster rifle is a spare from the Hasbro 6" Sandtrooper.
