Master Ben’s Customs

[MasterBEN]

I’m going to try out using this thread for future customs instead of individual posts. I’m hoping to post some updated photos of past customs I’ve done in here, but for now I’m starting with 2 recent figures I’ve finished.

Director Krennic was a simple cape swap from plastic to soft goods. Mon Mothma’s Yavin costume was a little bit more involved of a project. I used the body from an old Geonosis Padme figure and the head from an old Hoth Leia. The outer cloak is removable, which lets the underdress work as a base for some of her Andor costumes.

Director Krennic


Mon Mothma

 

[Hero-of-the-Dune-Sea]

I am a fan of you softgoods and your Mons!

 

[MasterBEN]

I recently made some minor tweaks and customizations to a few of my Leia and Han figures.



Most of these are simple part swaps or repaints. The Bespin escape Leia has a really great head sculpt, so I used that one to replace the heads from a few of the older figures including Yavin, Hoth, and the Bespin dress.


On this figure I swapped the head by drilling into the figure’s neck post and making room for the ball jointed head from the Bespin figure. I repainted the face to add more dramatic makeup, and changed out the hair for a soft goods braid. I also swapped out the cloak for a finer fabric made from a pair of sheer tights.



For this one I also drilled out part of the existing neck to fit the head from the newer Bespin escape Leia. I also swapped out the hairpiece for a soft goods piece that was more to scale and repainted the collar of the dress to have finer detailing and more closely match the color of the cape.



For the Hoth figure I cut the neck at the collar and replaced it completely with the Bespin Leia neck and head. I sculpted the braids on and did some minor paint touch ups to the body and face.



All I did to this one was replace the braids with a soft goods version closer to scale that now moves with the figure’s head.



I finally found a fabric that works well for the skirt on this figure and worked out a way to use it. I stitched a seam on each side of the skirt, ending at the knee and hemmed the rest of the way down. I made the skirt a bit wider than it needed to be and then cinched it tight at the waist to give it some folds. It’s nice to finally be able to use the leg articulation that was locked under the plastic!



This one was pretty simple with some minor paint touch ups, fixing the skirt to not be so boxy, and replacing the braid and chain.



These were both pretty simple, mainly consisting of paint touch ups on the faces, along with fixing up the Endor poncho and adding the braid to Boushh Leia. I also carved the thermal detonator out of her hand to make the figure less scene specific.



For Bespin Han I took the arms from the older Bespin jacket figure and swapped them onto the body of the newer ROTJ figure. I swapped the hands back for the newer ones, and painted the vest to match the new sleeves.



This was a simple swap of the older VOTC Han arms onto the new ANH figure. I didn’t like the wrist joints of the new figure much, so this cleaned it up a good bit.


This wound up being a longer post than I realized it would be! I’m working on an Ewok Leia currently, so I hope to post that soon.

 

[Hero-of-the-Dune-Sea]

Hi @MasterBEN,
I think you should give us a little workshop on how to paint and upgrade heads and faces sometimes. I have no idea how you do it.
All upgrades look great and also your photos. Your Star Wars figures always look like they are professional models!

Did you use the braids from an existing Endor Leia figure or did you make them yourself?

I think my favorite character is Yavin 4 Leia.

And another question - What do you think of the head of the Leia SOLO series figure? Could this also be an alternative?

 

[yodashizzle]

These are fantastic!!!

 

[MasterBEN]

Hi @MasterBEN,
I think you should give us a little workshop on how to paint and upgrade heads and faces sometimes. I have no idea how you do it.
All upgrades look great and also your photos. Your Star Wars figures always look like they are professional models!

Did you use the braids from an existing Endor Leia figure or did you make them yourself?

I think my favorite character is Yavin 4 Leia.

And another question - What do you think of the head of the Leia SOLO series figure? Could this also be an alternative?

Thank you for the kind words! I will say that on these particular figures the photo-real paint apps did most of the work for me - I just added some details here and there. But I’ll list a few tips that I think may be useful!

- I’ve had good luck using a fine brush with short bristles for details on a face. Long, narrow brushes look like they’d be suited to detail work but I find that tend to be harder to control
- Adding a (small) bit of water to the paint helps it go on smoother. I find it’s better to do a couple of runs of thinner paint rather than trying to apply a thick coat that either won’t go on or goes on too thick
- At this scale I recommend muting your colors a little more than you’d initially think you should. Even for black eyelashes or red lips, you’re going to want to mix in a lot of brown tones or even beige or white to make it look natural and not cartoonish
- Other than the above, I think it mostly just takes a bit of practice and patience over time!

On the recent ANH Leia, I found the photo-real paint apps to be a little bit too muted, so I applied my own paint over top. The version on the left was my first attempt and you can see that I went a little too wide with the eyes, but by my second attempt I was able to better follow the sculpt of the face.


The recent improvements to head sculpts and paint apps from the factory have made the biggest difference. You can see my attempt from years ago to clean up the Yavin Leia’s face paint but it still looked cartoonish. The newer head sculpt is much better, and I hope I’ve also improved a little bit!

“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.”
-commonly attributed to Kylo Ren, but actually said first by his mother


In this image you can see the subtle differences in the paint apps on the same face sculpt. Again, I didn’t do much here besides adding eyeliner, darkening the pupils, changing the lip color, and adding some color to Yavin Leia’s cheeks.

I used embroidery floss for the braid rather than using a braid from another figure. It’s pretty cheap and easy to work with, and comes in hundreds of colors at Michael’s and other craft stores.

Just one more photo to emphasize how far Hasbro has come in the last few years. I put the old Bespin Leia head on the body that I took the new Bespin Escape head and they really have made big improvements.

 

[Hero-of-the-Dune-Sea]

Hello @MasterBEN
Thanks for the face examples and the long answer. The facial expressions you create are really good. I'll have to read through your answer again within the next few days. (I have too much culture evening program these days)

 

[Hero-of-the-Dune-Sea]

Hi @MasterBEN, which figure's head did you actually use for your Mon Mothma? I was thinking about reworking the head of a comic custom Mon figure.

 

[MasterBEN]

Hi @MasterBEN, which figure's head did you actually use for your Mon Mothma? I was thinking about reworking the head of a comic custom Mon figure.

I used the old 2010 version of VC02 Hoth Leia, which had really pale skin that worked well for Mon Mothma.

 

[MasterBEN]

I really like the Mandalore Maul figure but I’ve never been a huge fan of any of the TPM Maul figures even though he’s always been one of my favorite character designs, so I decided to try using the Mandalore figure to make an Episode I Maul. I used the Mandalore figure with the lower legs of a Han Solo figure as a base, then dyed the body black to match all of the joints. I then painted the body and added soft goods for the under tunic, sleeves, and tabards. I used a faux leather material for the boots, and also repainted the lightsaber. It was a little tricky to photograph such a dark colored figure, but overall I think this is one of my favorite customs I’ve done.

 

[MasterBEN]

I finished up these two customs over the weekend, both using the Bespin Leia as a base. I think I’m finally done working on all of the Leia figures from the original trilogy.


For the Ewok figure I used the Bespin figure as a base and then used legs from an old TAC dinner Padme. I shaved down a lot of the plastic and sculpted back up the neck. After that it was just a bit of work to paint and add the hair and dress.



And for the Endor figure, I used the head, torso, and upper arms of the Bespin Leia. The legs and lower arms are from the Endor figure. The pieces actually fit together very well, I just had to reshape the legs for a closer stance. Other than that I just had to do some painting to the costume and face. I added the braids, and also trimmed down the poncho and glued parts of it into place so the hood wouldn’t fly away. The costume under the poncho isn’t fully screen accurate but I don’t mind too much. I’ve never liked that version of the costume, it feels very 80s. I added a vest underneath to fill out the poncho better, and I think I like that look better.

 

[MasterBEN]

Also. How do I post without the attachments coming in separately at the end lol? I can’t figure out why that happens sometimes but not every time.