Hello, everyone!
I'm relatively new to the world of modifying 1/6 scale figures and toys/action figures in general. However, I've modded enough to be able to figure some improvements for figures here and there, often for the purpose of articulation enhancement.
For this post's topic, I'll be sharing how I modify ACI's Christian nude body figure to enable it to have a forward bend at the abdominal joint. I looked around on this forum as well as other 1/6 figure forums for such a mod but couldn't find one. I hope this information is helpful to a fellow owner of an ACI Christian body out there who wishes the torso could bend forward as it should(in my opinion).
The tools I used were a hair dryer, a plastic model nipper(manufactured by Tamiya, it's a high quality product and very sharp and durable), a hand held rotary tool(most use Dremel, I have a Jobmate rotary tool that does the trick), a flat head screw driver and an X-Acto knife.
First, let's take a look at the torso of the Christian body:
The yellow oval shows the extent of the torso's forward bend, which is non-existent.
The red oval shows the seam line where the front and back half of the torso shell joins.
The green oval shows an indentation where I used a flat head screw driver to wedge the front and back halves of the torso apart.
Step one of this mod involves using an X-Acto knife to score the seam line, repeatedly, down the sides of the torso. Eventually, you'll get through the glue that ACI used to adhere the two halves of the upper torso together.
You aren't finished yet as there are seam lines to score at the top of the shoulders and sides of the neck as well.
You can use something like a small/thin flat head screw driver to wedge into the seam after it has been freed by the scoring by an X-Acto knife and then by turning the screw driver, the head of the screw driver will gradually wedge the torso apart.
I do want to note that you don't absolutely have to use a wedging tool. I discovered that by heating the torso up for about 60 seconds with a hair dryer, one should be able to pull apart the halves of the torso as long as you've scored the seam lines to reduce/break down the adhesive used to secure the two halves together.
Next let's look at the internals of the halves of the torso:
The red ovals denote the areas of plastic that you will need to remove to enable front bending of the torso. We'll get to the specifics soon.
Next up is a look at how the upper torso halves attach to the lower abdomen.
The red oval shows a peg that goes into a port that is at the top of a stem that connects to the lower abdomen by a ball joint at the bottom of the stem.
Here is the front on view of the port. You modify this in order to allow forward bending at the torso. Basically, you will sand/grind/dremel upwards to make the opening a "vertical oval" as you'll see in the next image:
Next you will need to clip/cut/sand/dremel off two portions of plastic to create a larger curved area as seen in the next image shown by the two green ovals.
You will need to repeat this procedure for the front half of the torso, again removing plastic in that area to create a larger curved area to allow forward bending.
And now, finally, re-assemble the torso, use an adhesive to glue together the two halves of the torso, let it set up according to the adhesive manufacturer's instructions, and your ACI Christian body's torso can now bend forward without compromise to the appearance of the figure and without compromise to the backwards and sideways bending of the torso!
I'll be honest...I was initially disappointed by some quality control issues of my particular ACI Christian body. I was even more disappointed by the seemingly unnecessary lack of forward bend at the torso joint. So rather than wallow in disappointment, I set out to mod the figure and now it is able to achieve the articulation potential that I wanted in this figure. Now that I've modded my figure, I can further appreciate the work that ACI's designers put into the Christian body.
Here's a final photo showing a pose that I think is quite impressive for any articulated figure, 1/6 scale or otherwise!
I'm relatively new to the world of modifying 1/6 scale figures and toys/action figures in general. However, I've modded enough to be able to figure some improvements for figures here and there, often for the purpose of articulation enhancement.
For this post's topic, I'll be sharing how I modify ACI's Christian nude body figure to enable it to have a forward bend at the abdominal joint. I looked around on this forum as well as other 1/6 figure forums for such a mod but couldn't find one. I hope this information is helpful to a fellow owner of an ACI Christian body out there who wishes the torso could bend forward as it should(in my opinion).
The tools I used were a hair dryer, a plastic model nipper(manufactured by Tamiya, it's a high quality product and very sharp and durable), a hand held rotary tool(most use Dremel, I have a Jobmate rotary tool that does the trick), a flat head screw driver and an X-Acto knife.
First, let's take a look at the torso of the Christian body:
The yellow oval shows the extent of the torso's forward bend, which is non-existent.
The red oval shows the seam line where the front and back half of the torso shell joins.
The green oval shows an indentation where I used a flat head screw driver to wedge the front and back halves of the torso apart.
Step one of this mod involves using an X-Acto knife to score the seam line, repeatedly, down the sides of the torso. Eventually, you'll get through the glue that ACI used to adhere the two halves of the upper torso together.
You aren't finished yet as there are seam lines to score at the top of the shoulders and sides of the neck as well.
You can use something like a small/thin flat head screw driver to wedge into the seam after it has been freed by the scoring by an X-Acto knife and then by turning the screw driver, the head of the screw driver will gradually wedge the torso apart.
I do want to note that you don't absolutely have to use a wedging tool. I discovered that by heating the torso up for about 60 seconds with a hair dryer, one should be able to pull apart the halves of the torso as long as you've scored the seam lines to reduce/break down the adhesive used to secure the two halves together.
Next let's look at the internals of the halves of the torso:
The red ovals denote the areas of plastic that you will need to remove to enable front bending of the torso. We'll get to the specifics soon.
Next up is a look at how the upper torso halves attach to the lower abdomen.
The red oval shows a peg that goes into a port that is at the top of a stem that connects to the lower abdomen by a ball joint at the bottom of the stem.
Here is the front on view of the port. You modify this in order to allow forward bending at the torso. Basically, you will sand/grind/dremel upwards to make the opening a "vertical oval" as you'll see in the next image:
Next you will need to clip/cut/sand/dremel off two portions of plastic to create a larger curved area as seen in the next image shown by the two green ovals.
You will need to repeat this procedure for the front half of the torso, again removing plastic in that area to create a larger curved area to allow forward bending.
And now, finally, re-assemble the torso, use an adhesive to glue together the two halves of the torso, let it set up according to the adhesive manufacturer's instructions, and your ACI Christian body's torso can now bend forward without compromise to the appearance of the figure and without compromise to the backwards and sideways bending of the torso!
I'll be honest...I was initially disappointed by some quality control issues of my particular ACI Christian body. I was even more disappointed by the seemingly unnecessary lack of forward bend at the torso joint. So rather than wallow in disappointment, I set out to mod the figure and now it is able to achieve the articulation potential that I wanted in this figure. Now that I've modded my figure, I can further appreciate the work that ACI's designers put into the Christian body.
Here's a final photo showing a pose that I think is quite impressive for any articulated figure, 1/6 scale or otherwise!
