Going to try my first custom - Ferra/Torr

So how did this project end? Any pics?

I more or less finished Torr a while ago, and I've been meaning to try adding a wash to his skin. The skin looks good in person, but looks really cheap in photos. I bought a base figure for Ferra and prepped the body, but I haven't gotten around to actually working on it. I'm intimidated because, compared to Torr, Ferra is going to involve a much tougher job on a much smaller body.

It's time to start working on Ferra. As suggested, I'm using a GoT Daenerys figure as my base, though my gut says I may need to buy more than one before I figure out what I'm doing. I'm pretty intimidated by having to work with a figure that's so much smaller, plus I think I'm going to have to repaint her face. Guess I'll just see how it goes.

That's funny I was just looking at one of those. She's definitely on my short-list of potential bodies.

A game of thrones Daenerys maybe. Shes aroun 5 inches and as a bonus you can find her on the cheap at target right now.

After a week of painting, and a major setback that resulted in me taking a week off of this project, I'm done with the painting. The base is giving me a bit more trouble than I anticipated, but I'm rolling with it. Now, I'm back to the issue of finding a good base figure for Ferra. I looked at someone's custom Salvador (from Borderlands 2), and the mentioned that they ended up cutting a chunk of his legs to shorten them. Any thoughts on this project. At this point, articulation isn't really an issue. This whole thing is becoming more of a statue than a proper figure at this point.

Thanks
-Dave

Thanks for the advice, I'm actually already at the painting step. The sculpting came out pretty good I think, especially considering I've never done it before. Even now I can look at it and notice some things I can do differently in the future, so I learned a bit, too. Finding a properly scaled figure to use for Ferra is going to be tough, but for now I'm happy with him and my friends think he looks cool, and that's all that really matters in the end, right?

If you're new to customizing/modifying stuff, all I can suggest is start sculpting as early and as often as possible so you get good at it. The better you get at sculpting the less you have to rely on specific base figures, it frees you up to use what you have instead of dropping a ton of cash on rare/expensive figs.

Far as paints go, DON'T use Tamiya unless you're airbrushing, they suck for hand painting. You're going to get a streaky mess of raised brushstrokes. I've been using Formula P3 paint lately, it's nice but you have to seal it when you're done to give it durability. Testors is more durable, but you have to water it down a little to avoid visible raised brushstrokes. Citadel is horribly overpriced paint, P3 is cheaper and better (IMO). I heard good things about Reaper, Vallejo paints are so-so.

Anyway, cool project, based on the Rough Sketch I'd go with a chubby Mattel wrestler figure and swap in longer legs. But based on the first pic some kind of Hulk or maybe even ML Hyperion/Tigershark would work. They're all very plain figures so you'd have to sculpt most of the detail though.

A funny thing happened on my way to the coffee shop today...

My friends and I went on our coffee break, and I brought my (sculpted but not painted) Torr to show our friend Sam, since she's about the only person I come across during the work day who would know who Torr is. I left him standing on the counter while I walked around, and a hippie-looking man, who was eating an assortment of jams, came up and was looking at him. He asked if I made the figure and I told him yes. He was impressed by it and gave me his card and he's an art professor at the local community college. I think he though I sculpted the body as well as the outfit. I tried to make it abundantly clear that I was just adding sculpt onto an action figure body. I'm about 40% sure he understood.

So that was weird.

Anyways, I've decided to make a nice heavy base for Torr so he'll stand better. In keeping with the overall theme of my project, it's going to be very ambitious and probably overly complicated.

That's all for now.

There are a few things you can try, some of them are trickier than others. Easiest would be to just always use a stand with him. If you are going to be displaying him on something magnetic you could insert cylinder magnets into his feet. Poster putty can sometimes do the trick to help a figures balance too. You could also try adding counter weights, I had to do that a few times. I'm guessing the weight of the arms is making the figure fall forward when he is posed, if thats the case making his legs heavier could do the trick. I did a WWHulk a few years back with the same problem and ended up drill holes into his lower legs to insert little lead weights. A bit of a pain but he could stand on his own after.

Something to consider though is Ferra, and how you'll be posing them together. It would suck to put work into solving his balance issue only to have to start over once you try to pose the two of them together.

Still having trouble getting this guy to stand properly. I think I'm going to make a kind of mold of his foot and add it to the base.
Any tips or tricks for getting a guy to stand?

I shouldn't have tried to play God!
Mixing and matching upper and lower bodies has totally thrown off the balance of my figure. Luckily, the Red Hulk came with a base, which can easily be Mortal Kombat-ified. I think I'm going to try to add some blood and skulls on spikes and whatnot.

I'm having a bit of trouble connecting the upper and lower bodies. It's mostly a matter of finding an idea pose.
That's all or now

Yeah that should work for a primer, I've believe I've done it a few times when I ran out of primer.


Hmm, that's a bit tricky. I would probably make the shoulder armor an unattached piece and connect it to the circular bit and the torso harness with some twine. If your worried about consistency you could go replace the sculpted bits of rope with twine. Though it may not be noticeable once both are painted.

The sculpting is going well but I've hit a snag. Im not sure how to deal with the little circular bit between the shoulder armor and the forearm armor. In the picuture everything is connected by ropes. Any suggestions on how to connect everything without limiting what little articulation the body has? I though about using twine, but I've already sculpted some rope on other parts of the body and I'd like to stay consistent.

Bonus question: for my base primer coat of paint, can I get away with using a flat grey krylon for plastic?

Yeah you'll definitely want to get some glue involved.

I would avoid using powder on the fixit. Just make sure you wet your tools and the stickiness shouldn't be an issue. If you run into any issues just give the fixit a few minutes to firm up and the finer sculpting will be a bit easier.

Another question:
The fixit-sculpt is a bit sticky and I'm concerned it will make it difficult to do some of the finer sculpting. Is it possible to powder it with some flour or baking powder or something, or will that mess with the fixit?

I've been sculpting my little heart out, and I've got a question about attaching the upper and lower halves.
Will the fixit-sculpt alone be enough to hold the two halves together, or should I use some kind of glue to reinforce?

Nice. Yeah it should work. The only problem you could have is if the waists are different sizes and don't line up well. Though you could probably mask it will Torr's belt if that is an issue.

So I cut grey The in half. Generally when I ask "will this work", but the time anyone answers or even reads it, I've already gotten impatient and done it anyway.

Basically cutting them both right at the waist and swapping. Even though Grey has no leg articulation, he's actually sculpted into a better hunched position than I can get Red into. I just like the weight of Red's body (Red is solid, whereas Grey is hollow), so I'd like to keep as much of it as possible.

A standard boil and pop should work to remove the hand. Just heat some water in the microwave for 3 minutes or so and let the part sit in the hot water for a little bit. Once the plastic soften you'll be able to just pop it off.

It is possible to swap the upper and lower parts of the body, it just depends on the measurements for how hard it is. Where are you thinking of making the swap? Al the waist? Just swapping the legs?

Well I think I understand why I don't see a lot of people working with marvel select figures. Red Hulk arrived today, and while he has knee joints, his legs are actually worse for what I'm doing. I'm thinking of attaching red's upper body to grey's lower body. Is that even a thing you can do?

Quick question:

I think I'm going to go with the MS Red Hulk for my base, but I really like Ultimate Hulk's open hand. Should I be able to heat/pop them off and swap them?
Every time I try to google some variation of "Marvel Select Hand Removal", I just get reviews of a Thanos figure with swappable hands

So my Grey Hulk arrived today, and boy they weren't kidding about his articulation. It ain't great. I took some photos of a few different scale figures I had lying around.


Left -> Right: Marvel Select Ultimate Hulk, Marvel Legends Captain Marvel, Marvel Universe Wasp, Marvel Universe Drax


I feel like the Marvel Legends size is a bit too big to act as a Ferra figure.


The Marvel Universe seems like it works a bit better, but there are some concerns. I had to use the Drax figure because Wasp is one of the newer Marvel Universe figures and her leg articulation doesn't really work for me. Also, it seems like the female figures are a hair smaller than the males, so the scale gets a little smaller.

I guess that's all for now. I may very well snatch up a cheap Red Hulk tonight, just for funsies.

I just bought a handful of Vallejo paints and some Fixit sculpt online. I ended up grabbing a few different flesh tones and greys, as far as paint goes.

*Edit* Just for laughs, I just grabbed a cheap-o Marvel Legends Hulk on the eBay, because apparently I hate having money.

He doesn't look as tall as I thought when hes next to a normal sized guy. you could probably get away with using one of the bigger Marvel Legends Hulk. Looks like you could use a Marvel Universe sized body for Ferra.

It's definitely worth getting the good paints even if you have to order them. I've had good experiences with the war store for ordering paints if you don't want to use amazon. As a last resort craft paints can suffice if you mix in a little matte sealer with them. The thing about craft paints is they are not as durable, so be away of that if you go that route.

White primer will give you brighter colors, grey will stay pretty neutral and black primer will give you darker ones. I'd go for black or grey for Torr.

I've considered that, but I have a few I have few thoughts on Mezco's figures
- I Feel like Ferra/Torr is pretty far down on the roster in terms of story significance (of the first 6 figures announced only one is a character introduced in the new game) and, I feel like, overall popularity, which my gut says makes them a pretty unlikely candidate for a figure.
- Secondly, and most importantly, I'm waaaaay too impatient to wait for Mezco, or any company, to get around to maybe putting the figure out.

Plus, what's cooler than having a figure you made yourself?

You might want to hold off from trying to make a Ferra/Torr as Mezco are doing Mortal Kombat X figures which would save you a lot of hassle.

After flying to Detroit, just barley catching a connecting flight to St. Louis MO, driving to Belleville Illinois, taking down an art exhibition, and driving 18 hours straight, I'm finally back home.
Here's what's happening with this project:
-My MS Ultimate Hulk hasn't arrived yet, hopefully it'll be here on Monday
-The other Hulks I'm watching on eBay (Red and Green) both still have no bids with just under two days left. If they stay cheap, I might pick them both up, just to have.
-I spent today (Saturday) in Salem NH, which is where all the good stores are, in search of paints. I went to two craft stores, a comic shop, Walmart, Toys R us, Target, and an ever-loving tabletop gaming shop and COULD NOT find paints anywhere. The closest I could find was Testors enamels, and I remember being told not to use enamel. I'm trying to convince some friends to take a trip to Newburyport tomorrow, where I know for a fact there's a gaming shop that sells paints there. If not, there's always Amazon I guess.

Painting Question:
Since I'm painting the entire figure, should I start with a white or black primer coat?

I took a few screenshots to try and further show Ferra and Torrss relative heights.




It's a little weird trying to figure out scale when everyone is in fighting poses. As a rough guess, I'd say Scorpion is a pretty big guy, and I imagine Torr stands at least a whole head taller than him if they were to both stand up straight

If you've got the time wait it out, sometimes you can get a pretty good deal.

I've got a couple of other Hulks in my eBay watch list, hopefully I can snag them pretty cheap.
Thanks for the paint advice, and for taking an interest in my project in general. I'm wicked excited to get started on it, so it's pretty cool to have someone elso checking it out as well.
A little later I'm going to fire up MKX and try to get a better idea of the Ferra - Torr - Regular guy size relations. You're right, I probably should have looked into a good scale figure for Ferra first, but I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I'm going away for a few days for work, so I might not post anything for a little bit.

Yeah, I'm a big Minor Threat fan. Maybe my favorite American punk band.

*Edit* Right now I'm torn between waiting to see how the eBay auctions pan out on my Hulks (both currently about 9 bucks with 5-6 days remaining, no bids yet) or just just grabbing one at the Buy It Now price
-Green Hulk: $25
-Red Hulk: $25
-Avengers Hulk: $21

Thoughts? (sorry to keep bugging you!)

In that case I'd look at Barbarian Hulk, or the Red of Green Incredible Hulk. Any of those would make a good base. The Ultimate Hulk can work as a base, the biggest issue I can see you having with that one is trying to get him into a Torr pose.

For paint Citadel, and Vallejo are the ones I use. I like Vallejo in particular because the bottles have droppers which just makes things easier. Reaper, Formula 3P, Model Masters and Tamiya are good as well, though Tamiya can be a little tricky to use in my experience. If you use Model Masters, make sure you get the acrylic ones as they have an enamel line as well and enamels are your enemy.

cheers

Unrelated question: Fan of Minor Threat? Or is the screen name unrelated?

Thanks for the reply! I ended up picking up an ultimate hulk for a song on ebay. Even if his articulation doesn't end up working for me, I figure I can at least practice painting on him.

The zombie hulk figure does look really great, but he costs a bit more than I'd like to spend on my first custom. Any thoughts on the other hulks in the series (green and red)?

I know there's pages and pages on what paints to use, but what would recommend off the top of your head?

Thanks again,
Dave

MS Ultimate Hulk wouldn't make the best base figure due to the lack of elbow and knee articulation. You may want to check out MS Zombie Hulk as a base, it has better articulation and it already has a bit of a hunch to it. It'd be a pretty good idea to figure out the base figure you want to use for Ferra, it'd suck pretty hard to put work in on Torr only to find the best base body for Ferra is out of scale him.

Very ambitious character to pick for your first custom, and yes they will be a bit of a nightmare but that's not a bad thing. It just means you are going to pick up skills faster. When you get to paint remember to prime and use good paints, it makes a big difference.

cheers

So the thrift was a bust, but you know how that goes. Go back in a few days and the stock will be totally different. In other news, I'm leaning towards a Marvel Select Ultimate Hulk as my base figure. I like his facial expression and his hand situation - one closed fist and one open hand with big grody fingernails. I have some concerns though, I've heard his articulation isn't as good as some other MS hulks. Does anyone have some insight into this? Would I be able to get him into a sort of hunched over pose like in the first pic I posted?

Anyways thanks for reading and for any tips or insights