Building your MARINES - CORRECTLY

[Stendec]

You really should screw the torso pieces firmly closed because the snaps alone will not securely hold it together, especially when you start posing the arms like MF said.

 

[JediMike71]

Hey guys. I just found this auction on eBay, for a set of 3 complete boxed figures for Sgt. Apone, Pvt. Vasquez, and the big fan favorite aka "holy grail"...Cpl. Hicks. Here's the link to it on eBay:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Hot-Toys-Alien...ryZ27294QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I've already got Vasquez, and Apone, and made my own custom Hicks from a Hudson. Check out the auction if you're looking for them!

 

[Reinhardt]

I don't know if this site is reputable, but they apparently have Hudson, for $109.99... and i even saw one on there for 89.99.

I'd call them first.

https://screenrant.com/store/product/6322.html

 

[Reinhardt]

A couple of pics of my most recent acquisition - a repainted Frontline Apone head!!

And some pics of the brilliant Les repaints!!

And one of the group - Hudson is still in limbo, but should be complete very soon.

 

[Jamal]

HOLY **** WTF. How real do those heads look..

 

[Jamal]

I don't know if this site is reputable, but they apparently have Hudson, for $109.99... and i even saw one on there for 89.99.

I'd call them first.

https://screenrant.com/store/product/6322.html

When you click buy it now it takes you to sideshow

 

[Reinhardt]

When you click buy it now it takes you to sideshow

nice!! i didn't do that, but that is hilarious.

 

[Jamal]

So he probably doesnt have jack **** lol, it takes you to sideshows page to buy it

 

[The Chaver]

A couple of pics of my most recent acquisition - a repainted Frontline Apone head!!

And some pics of the brilliant Les repaints!!

And one of the group - Hudson is still in limbo, but should be complete very soon.

FU%#ING INSANE DUDE!!

 

[Mr. Fusion]

Those are tight, brother! Les always does amazing work. But I'm a little confused. Did you paint Apone? If so, stellar job, man.

Oh yeah, and they look totally bad ass standing next to each other. Now all you need is a better head for Hudson. There's one on eBay right now that looks pretty good.
https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270187782031&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=017

And there's the one on this site:
https://members.aol.com/Uscmr/rdr.html#anchor314077
That one has more of a worried expression. Which is prefect for his character in ALIENS.

 

[Boba Fett 73]

The Les repaints on the Marines (awesome) they all look fantastic dang i am in ahhhh excellent job Les. Now i just need to get me some Marines.

 

[icruise]

Yes, I was hoping to get that one on ebay. I emailed the people from that other site about the other Hudson head, but haven't heard back yet.

 

[Reinhardt]

Those are tight, brother! Les always does amazing work. But I'm a little confused. Did you paint Apone? If so, stellar job, man.

Oh yeah, and they look totally bad ass standing next to each other. Now all you need is a better head for Hudson.

Thanks man!! Yeah, I have Hudson, and his arms are just being fixed up right now. I have a Les head to go with him too.

A friend of mine painted up Apone. Yeah, I don't have mad skills anywhere near Les or him!!

FU%#ING INSANE DUDE!!

The Les repaints on the Marines (awesome) they all look fantastic dang i am in ahhhh excellent job Les. Now i just need to get me some Marines.

don't give up the search, and something may turn up.

 

[icruise]

I now have a Hudson (thanks superdoug!) and a Drake, but I refuse to pay the prices that Hicks has been fetching on ebay recently. Just how hard is it to turn a Hudson into a Hicks? I actually have a loose Hicks head (again, thanks superdoug) and I'm not super concerned that the equipment be 100% movie accurate, so the main thing is the graffiti on the armor. I think I can paint reasonable versions of Hicks' graffiti if I can manage to remove the existing Hudson graffiti. How hard is that to do, and how do you do it?

 

[Mudshark]

JediMike71 did a full build-up of Hicks from parts and I bet he'd have plenty of useful information to help you get started. Why not shoot him a PM?

I think DekDave mentioned lifting the grafitti from Hudson's armour with denatured alcohol, like with a Q-tip. That way it doesn't hurt the camo paint underneath and wouldn't require repainting the camo to match. I didn't try it personally cause I already have Hicks, but you might want to experiment with a very small area and see if that works for you. Hope this helped.

 

[JediMike71]

Hey icruise. Yep, just as Mudshark said, I did a "custom" Hicks from using the armor, weapons, and BDUs from an existing Hot Toys Pvt. Hudson. I actually took off all of Hudson's armor graffiti with some very lightweight sandpaper. I rubbed it lightly on the armor and the graffiti came off. I really thought I should have tried that alochol with a q-tip method. Because rubbing off the graffiti on Hudson's armor did take off some of the camo paint on the armor. I tried painting it back on there, but it didn't work too well that way. But, still I am happy with the job I did. I even drilled out the small hole in the left shoulder armor pad for Hicks's "born again" graffiti around that hole. I cut nearly all of the sleeves off of the Hudson BDUs for my Hicks since Hicks wore his BDU shirt that way in the movie. You can barely see the sleeves of his BDUs under his shoulder armor. I painted on the tattoo on Hicks's left arm with USCM and his social securty number with a black Sharpie fine point permanent pen. I then did some armor wear and tear on the armor with some silver acrylic paint. I still have to get a more accurate black "K-Bar" marine knife for my Hicks's armor. I have to either make or find a Hicks shotgun sheath/holster for his back. I did find a loose 1/6 pump-action pistol grip shotgun very close to the one he had. I also got the small padlock and armor clasp for going around the red heart painted on his chest armor from Chris Chulamanis at EVA Models. He posts on this board from time to time. He makes great resin props from the ALIENS movie in 1/6 scale for the U.S.C.M. figures out now! Check him out!
The padlock and armor clasp come unpainted from Chris, so I painted them as close as I could get them to how they were in the movie. I painted the red heart on his chest armor under his last name "HICKS". I got a "Stoner" head on eBay, since it looks like Michael Biehn once you paint over the camo face paint.

I think it turned out very well! It is not Les Walker's incredible "spikey haired" Hicks (I still would LOVE to own one someday Les!) ....but I like how it turned out. Check out my pictures....

I attempted to paint those red Japanese lettering symbols on the back of Hicks's armor too. They may not be "dead-on" accurate, but they're close enough for me. Plus you barely see them very quickly in the movie in one scene.

In this next picture I got the great Hudson head from Les Walker for my Hudson. I love it! Ask him about one for your Hudson someday.

I hope I've been able to help you out icruise. Please send me a PM (private message) if you have any more questions. You can always ask for help on this board my friend. I know I have, and I've got lots of help from the great members here! Take care, and good luck with your marines! I'm still working on tweaking out mine. I still have little things to do with my Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Drake and Ripley. I also have to finish up my custom Newt and Cpl. Dietrich soon too. I have the real figure stand for my Hicks coming in soon. I used one from a Ripley, and just painted over her name on it and put "Cpl. HICKS" on it with white sticky letters. It turned out okay, but the real stand will look SO much better once I get it!

 

[icruise]

Yes, that is helpful. Thanks! I guess I should try dissolving the graffiti first to see if that would work.

 

[JediMike71]

Yeah, I'd give that a try rather than doing the sanding thing I did for my Hudson to Hicks armor conversion. Hopefully it'll work better for you with the alcohol and q-tip. Keep us posted about your progress! Good luck!

 

[Mudshark]

I posted this a while back in a different thread, but for anyone who's obsessive about the details on their Hicks armour, here's the correct Japanese character for Ai (love) painted in red on his back. As JediMike said, it's next to impossible to see it clearly in the movie, so it probably doesn't matter to most people. But if you'll take my word for it, I'd bet credits to navy beans any day that the character below is correct.

 

[icruise]

Actually, I'm a Japanese translator, so I can read kanji. And yes, that's the correct character. I'm not sure why they chose that one. It seems a little incongruous, but I guess it sort of goes with that "heart and lock" thing on the front.