Hi everybody,
I've been tackling the JP 20" K-2SO for a few days now, so i might just as well post this online (this is my first thread on the rpf btw).
The JP figure doens't look too bad, certainly not for a quick repaint. I'm not planning on making this screen accurate, i just want to make it less toy-like and with a better overall finish. The three things i'd like to achieve:
- fix the more prominent and visible features: the eyes, particularly, and the overall finish (mould lines, sink marks, etc).
- replace the soft vynil parts with homemade styrene parts
- alter the position of his limbs to give him a more natural stance
*please excuse the low quality of the pictures, i usually build at night and take shots as i go, so no fancy studio quality pics here ^^
Naturally, the first thing to do is to take him apart.
(look at those legs... couldn't make 'em anymore stiff...)
The very good news is that the eyes are a separate insert inside the head. That will make things MUCH easier than i actually thought!
So flat... so lifeless...
But more on the eyes later on. The first soft vynil part that i tackled is also one of the most visible. The whole mouth piece is molded in vynil (for safety reasons, i believe). That part was a bit tricky to remove without damaging it too much - i still needed the original part for measurements.
On this wonky shot, you can see the vynil mouthpiece and behind it, a thick screw post. Inside the head, there's a thick loop on the moutpiece that wraps tightly around the post. First, the loop must be sliced open (taking extra care not to slip and cut myself), then the mouthpiece can be pried apart with a chisel and some side-cutters.
Absorbed by my work, i forgot to take in progress shots of the scratchbuilt mouthpiece, so as not to spoil my own thread, let's switch to the eyes first, shall we?
I rummaged through my spare box and unbuild kits for some kind of lens that would fit over the eyes without too much hassle. Luckily for me, i quickly found the perfect match in an old AMT/ERTL 1953 Ford F-100 Pickup kit:
Using Bare Metal Foil as backing on the original part, then adding the headlight lenses, i managed to achieve the look i wanted.
And here you can also see the new mouthpiece ^^ The result is a mix between the original part, movie photos and other toys/collectibles found on the internet. Again, this may not be 100% accurate, since a lot of artistic licence and "creative gizmology" (thanks, Shep Paine!) is involved.
One thing i learned from detailing and upgrading toys is to keep the level of detail consistent with the general quality of the figure. If some added details are really sharp (or way sharper than the surrounding details), the effect might get lost as the other, untouched areas will seem very crude and bland.
Here's another shot. The two prongs (mandibles?) on the mouthpiece are bits of thick copper wire.
When a light hits the eyes at just the right angle it really is quite creepy ^^
The next step was to fix the vynil antennas on his back.
Nah, that won't do... So out came the hobby knife and chisel! The vynil part is only slightly glued at the bottom so it came out pretty easily. Here's a blurry shot:
I filled the hole with some scrap styrene then cut a piece of sheet to cover it completely, so as not to have some tedious filling/sanding to do between those details.
Again, the edges and corners of this styrene part were slightly rounded with some fine sandpaper, so they'll blend in with the surrounding details once painted.
Using small bits of styrene tubing cut and filed at an angle, the antenna bases were added:
As you can see, i also added a smaller rectangle with two sware lights/buttons, as per Sideshow's model. Looks a bit busier that way.
Finally, I cut a few lengths of tubing that could slide in one another, glued them together then used my rotary tool as a small lathe to shape them and add some grooves with a Tamiya saw blade.
And that's it for now, i'll try and update this thread as i carry on, hope you'll enjoy it!
Cheers,
Patrick
I've been tackling the JP 20" K-2SO for a few days now, so i might just as well post this online (this is my first thread on the rpf btw).
The JP figure doens't look too bad, certainly not for a quick repaint. I'm not planning on making this screen accurate, i just want to make it less toy-like and with a better overall finish. The three things i'd like to achieve:
- fix the more prominent and visible features: the eyes, particularly, and the overall finish (mould lines, sink marks, etc).
- replace the soft vynil parts with homemade styrene parts
- alter the position of his limbs to give him a more natural stance
*please excuse the low quality of the pictures, i usually build at night and take shots as i go, so no fancy studio quality pics here ^^
Naturally, the first thing to do is to take him apart.
(look at those legs... couldn't make 'em anymore stiff...)
The very good news is that the eyes are a separate insert inside the head. That will make things MUCH easier than i actually thought!
So flat... so lifeless...
But more on the eyes later on. The first soft vynil part that i tackled is also one of the most visible. The whole mouth piece is molded in vynil (for safety reasons, i believe). That part was a bit tricky to remove without damaging it too much - i still needed the original part for measurements.
On this wonky shot, you can see the vynil mouthpiece and behind it, a thick screw post. Inside the head, there's a thick loop on the moutpiece that wraps tightly around the post. First, the loop must be sliced open (taking extra care not to slip and cut myself), then the mouthpiece can be pried apart with a chisel and some side-cutters.
Absorbed by my work, i forgot to take in progress shots of the scratchbuilt mouthpiece, so as not to spoil my own thread, let's switch to the eyes first, shall we?
I rummaged through my spare box and unbuild kits for some kind of lens that would fit over the eyes without too much hassle. Luckily for me, i quickly found the perfect match in an old AMT/ERTL 1953 Ford F-100 Pickup kit:
Using Bare Metal Foil as backing on the original part, then adding the headlight lenses, i managed to achieve the look i wanted.
And here you can also see the new mouthpiece ^^ The result is a mix between the original part, movie photos and other toys/collectibles found on the internet. Again, this may not be 100% accurate, since a lot of artistic licence and "creative gizmology" (thanks, Shep Paine!) is involved.
One thing i learned from detailing and upgrading toys is to keep the level of detail consistent with the general quality of the figure. If some added details are really sharp (or way sharper than the surrounding details), the effect might get lost as the other, untouched areas will seem very crude and bland.
Here's another shot. The two prongs (mandibles?) on the mouthpiece are bits of thick copper wire.
When a light hits the eyes at just the right angle it really is quite creepy ^^
The next step was to fix the vynil antennas on his back.
Nah, that won't do... So out came the hobby knife and chisel! The vynil part is only slightly glued at the bottom so it came out pretty easily. Here's a blurry shot:
I filled the hole with some scrap styrene then cut a piece of sheet to cover it completely, so as not to have some tedious filling/sanding to do between those details.
Again, the edges and corners of this styrene part were slightly rounded with some fine sandpaper, so they'll blend in with the surrounding details once painted.
Using small bits of styrene tubing cut and filed at an angle, the antenna bases were added:
As you can see, i also added a smaller rectangle with two sware lights/buttons, as per Sideshow's model. Looks a bit busier that way.
Finally, I cut a few lengths of tubing that could slide in one another, glued them together then used my rotary tool as a small lathe to shape them and add some grooves with a Tamiya saw blade.
And that's it for now, i'll try and update this thread as i carry on, hope you'll enjoy it!
Cheers,
Patrick