Just some pics for a work in progress custom action figure I am working on, WHICH SHALL REMAIN A SECRET (at least until someone guesses correctly or I post pics near the end) and thought it might be fun/informative to post progress info and techniques I use on it, not just for you guys reading but for me also to LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES in future customs. Gah!

UPDATED ON 7/28/08

Keep on reading for more…

The belt pieces were made from various old GI Joe accessories I have sitting in a giant fishing tackle box, finally being put to good use - I knew there was I reason I never threw them out! There are some imperfections in the face sculpt I know, which I will work out once I get closer to finishing. Plus, I figured most of the painting would cover that up, if not the final finishing seal as well.

Even more months later, thanks to being busy as heck lately, now we’re to a new fun part - dying the plastic black. BLACK! (now I really bet you have no idea who this is gonna be, do you?)

Dying plastic is a neat little trick some customizer nerds figured out, and passed that knowledge down to other nerds via instructionals and tutorials all over the net, some written more confusingly than others. Through some very simple on the job learning though, I cracked the code, and it’s about a simple as task as you can do.

First of all, you can only dye up, meaning you aren’t going to be able to dye that black piece white, yeah? Second, if you have red plastic, you’re only going to be able to dye it a combinational color to the new one, the red plastic won’t be superceded and suddenly become yellow, yeah? BUT, with yellow dye you can make that red plastic orange, or with orange dye make that red plastic brown, or with blue dye make that red plastic purple - so on and so on. If you don’t understand how color works, you should get a color wheel, or a box of crayola crayons, and experiment mixing colors until you got it figured.

As for how it works, it’s really as simple as boiling some water, adding some RID dye (found EVERYWHERE) and a little acetone. ACETONE? Well, you can just use a bit of nail polish remover, and that’ll work JUST fine. I brought my water to a boil, turned off the burner and let it sit for a bit while I prepped my dye and acetone - put it in an extra tupperware container I had that I didn’t care about ruining (don’t use materials you’re planning on eating out of again later, yeah?), and made my mixture there. For this, I used about half the packet of powder dye, and if I was using the liquid kind I probably would have used 2-3 caps full. I added roughly an equal amount of the nail polish remover (if you’re using straight acetone, I’d use far less, but the remover has far more water than actual acetone in it’s mixture so that’s why I used as much as I did…) and then when I felt the water was cool enough, BUT STILL HOT(!!), I poured it in.

Now don’t do this in a closet, or a un-ventilated room, yeah? You’re now going to have steaming chemical mess spewing up at you, and while it won’t kill you on contact, it’s never a good idea to hork down giant breathes of that kinda stuff, either.

So once the mixture is all properly mixed up, I stuck the figure in with a pair of old metal tongs. The trick is, you don’t want the water hot enough to warp the plastic irrevocably, but you do want it hot enough to keep the dye active as well as expanding the plastic - and the acetone apparently helps the dye adhere to the plastic better as well (though honestly, next time, I’m gonna try it without it…). And now it’s a matter of waiting. Some people say let it sit only a few minutes, others say longer. Me, I left it alone and went and did some other crap for an hour or so, leaving the figure fully submerged in the liquid. I suppose if you are only trying for a degree of the color, you may want to pull it out at a certain point, but since I was going for black as black, it didn’t matter to me about degrees.

Took the figure out, rinsed it in cold water for awhile, and tried to shake off all the little pockets of dye-water I could find, then stuck this guy on a napkin and let him sit for a few days to dry out. You’re going to want to give at least 24 hours for evaporation before you do anything with the figures, and to let the plastic resume it’s normal temperature as well.

And voila - dyed figure. A few things I learned doing this; the dye didn’t work under any of the spots where superglue was, which was interesting. I would have assumed the dye to work beyond that, but it didn’t. Also, it didn’t work on ALL of the plastics, only the softer rubbery stuff, not so much the really hard stuff used in this guys shoulder joints, which again, interesting. I know people have used this technique on Transformers, which I would think are made out of a much tougher plastic than Red Tornado here, and they usually have success. Maybe I did something wrong? Also, under some of the paint apps like the stripes running down his leg I only partially sanded off, the dye didn’t work so well on that either, which I really wasn’t expecting either. Hmm - next time, SAND BETTER.

Now we’re to the painting part. Still think you know who this is gonna be?

For the base, I am using an enamel flat black mixed with a dark blue, thinned down to about 50%. I’m going to do 3 full coats of this, to make sure all the little parts the dye didn’t get are covered, and then I’ll get into the detail work. One thing I forgot before getting to this point is, flat paints and especially blacks will highlight faults in details much better than glossy ones will, which deflect alot of the surface light, whereas the flats and blacks absorb it. SO, I can see a lot of the flaws around where the cape were still, and I probably could have sanded a little more about the forehead as well.

Still, I’m sure I’m going to be able to get those out before this is done, and those things will be hardly noticeable at all. I hope.

UPDATED ON 7/28/08

So we’re getting close enough for you people to start having a serious guess at who this is gonna be. If I were to post the next set of pictures, you’d definitely figure it out - so I’ll wait a few more days before I post them to see what, if any, guesses you kids have.

Anyways, this is a few shots after a few coats of our base colors. The gloves and boots are painted in a custom enamel of a dark red with a shot of metallic red, thinned about 30%. It’s a very dark red intentionally so I can build up to a lighter red by layers, to really add a look of depth to it all. I’d speculate on how good it’d look, but since I live in the future from these pics I already know it turned out good!

TO BE CONTINUED…