Show Us Your Troops (Sideshow/Marmit/Medicom/etc.)!

[ZE_501]

So.. you mean you modded them previously.. or not?

I LOVE the Snowies, but half the reason why I passed on these SSC versions, was the wonky headgear - i.e; bulbous crown, squinty eye lenses, & that wildly draping face cloth. All the stock ones I've seen don't look like yours.. am I missing something??

Oh! I thought you'd seen a way earlier post about these. The first mod I did was replace the stock face shroud.

I'm digitizing the pattern for some freaks (been late on that because of stupid work and stupid real life ) ... anyway...the pattern was developed through references gleaned from ESB promo photos, screen shots and 501rst costume reference. It needed to be modified slightly as the SSC helmet has a little more of a flare and lacks the interior "nose guard" structure.

The material is good quality adhesive vinyl with the paper backing left intact to give it stiffness. The mask components (front and back) are formed into place and glued, given slight wrinkles, than treated with pigment powders and a satin finish varnish.

That was step 1. Step 2 is the body swap. Fair bit of work to get them up to speed. Worth it though.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Yeah, I thought they looked different.

Needless to say, it makes a ton of difference to the overall look of the headgear.

 

[ZE_501]

Yeah, I thought they looked different.

Needless to say, it makes a ton of difference to the overall look of the headgear.

Yep! I snapped the recent pics to show the new body in a neutral pose; not to show off the face masks. I'll see if I can dig up some better photos for those, can't remember where I posted originally...could have been here and/or the snowie thread.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

The new bodies look excellent dude, you've brought the figures to life!

I just said in another thread that I think I'll be devoting time going forward this year, to getting up to speed with making my own customs.

With each new 1/6 release across all the various companies, the parts base is ever increasing, so options for great figures are getting easier.

I just need to learn how to paint & work with fabrics really.

 

[agonistes86]

With Hot Toys releases looming in the future, it almost feels like this kind of customizing is becoming obsolete, but that remains to be seen.

I had some time this afternoon (first time in days) and re-visited Marmit Sandtrooper weathering.

In my opinion, the following steps are critical to achieve a good result:

1. Stippling. A dry or slightly damp sponge with pigment powders. Washes or brushing look too "muddy" when you actually want "grit".

2. Multiple layers. I've been working these on and off for months. Some layers were removed, others blended or added. It serves to age the armour, which has a cheap "waxy" look out of the box.

3. Texture. See above. Through use of Scotch Brite pads and very fine grit emery paper, the pigment has been ground in to a network of very fine scratches, all very, *very* fine, to the point where portions of the armour appear matte. This is a to-scale "sand-blasted" effect. It removes the "waxy" look and adds depth and the illusion of weight to the armour.

4. Belts and shoes: the shoes look too waxy and plastic. They could do with heavy abrasion and matte-ification via fine emery; but I didn't spend too much time as I will swap out the boots with parts from the incoming Hot Toys release. The belts are one-piece moulded with the torso armour. While the option is coming to switch out these portions, I found to sell the illusion of separation it helped to work pigment into the seam between the top of the belt and torso armour to separate the regions visually.

5. The eyes...not sculpted sharp enough. Makes them pop more to add weathering beneath the lower borders and also screen accurate.

6. Finally, don't forget to get the pauldrons dirty. Especially the bright orange of a squad leader; looks too "toy-like" if left untouched.

As usual, here are bad iPhone pictures to illustrate. I think those of you who've seen these before may notice the weathering has progressed, hard to say on-screen, but suffice to say they look more "heavy" and high-end with further care and attention. What hurt them the most previously was the look of paint merely sitting on waxy plastic; now in-hand the look and feel is closer to 1:1.

At some point I'll shoot them with the real camera and that may bring out the details better.

(For those of you waiting on snowtrooper mask patterns/instructions, I'm creating a correctly sized digital pattern for you today).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awesome work on the weathering! Saved the shots and bookmarked the post for future reference, when I finally get around to weathering mine as well.

The only thing that stands out to me are those Sideshow hands, especially on the orange pauldron one. Have you thought about making new ones with the marmit hand protection?
I used SS GI JOE Cobra Viper hands, with the red hand guard removed, and carefully cut the marmit armor from the hands and glued them in place. That way you get the same material and colour as the rest of the suit. Plus, the hands are a bit bendy, as opposed to the SS Sandtrooper hands, so they are able to hold the weapons more easily.

Here are some shots of mine that show the customized hands on both my Sandy and Stormtrooper (man, does the original marmit weathering look crappy compared to yours ):

 

[ZE_501]

Awesome work on the weathering! Saved the shots and bookmarked the post for future reference, when I finally get around to weathering mine as well.

Thanks for your kind words! I really should photograph them properly some time, as it is I squeeze in all this stuff in a hurry, usually.

The only thing that stands out to me are those Sideshow hands, especially on the orange pauldron one. Have you thought about making new ones with the marmit hand protection?

I used SS GI JOE Cobra Viper hands, with the red hand guard removed, and carefully cut the marmit armor from the hands and glued them in place. That way you get the same material and colour as the rest of the suit. Plus, the hands are a bit bendy, as opposed to the SS Sandtrooper hands, so they are able to hold the weapons more easily.

Actually, I've done just that on a few occasions, I got the idea from you way back!

Having built up several Marmits over the past year or two; I like the look but it changes. What I mean is...the Marmit armour kits from different batches came out with different proportions. Must have had something to do with moulds, aging, plastic batches, temperature, production runs etc.

On some kits the Viper hands look perfect, on others just a touch large, which detracts from the "guy-in-a-suit" look.

I like the proportions of the SSC trooper hands on these particular kits, but have considered a re-paint to match the armour better. Just too lazy to hit it yet.

Although I don't mind a slight visual difference as this would reflect the screen look of the ANH latex hand guards as opposed to the plastic "shell" guards from ESB and ROTJ. Not sure how I'll tackle it yet.

 

[anwe]

Thanks for your kind words! I really should photograph them properly some time, as it is I squeeze in all this stuff in a hurry, usually.



Actually, I've done just that on a few occasions, I got the idea from you way back!

Having built up several Marmits over the past year or two; I like the look but it changes. What I mean is...the Marmit armour kits from different batches came out with different proportions. Must have had something to do with moulds, aging, plastic batches, temperature, production runs etc.

On some kits the Viper hands look perfect, on others just a touch large, which detracts from the "guy-in-a-suit" look.

I like the proportions of the SSC trooper hands on these particular kits, but have considered a re-paint to match the armour better. Just too lazy to hit it yet.

Although I don't mind a slight visual difference as this would reflect the screen look of the ANH latex hand guards as opposed to the plastic "shell" guards from ESB and ROTJ. Not sure how I'll tackle it yet.

Solo_bones had the idea to use the hands that came with the loose body and use plasti-dip to color them black, several coats if necessary. I thought that idea was inspired, but I have yet to try it since I have been going the other route.

 

[jkno]

I like the 2 Snowtroopers there!

 

[Aliaz]

Nice upgrades on both sand Troopers and snow Troopers but especially the snow Troopers!

 

[Sturtrup]

This is what I want to do with mine!! Which type of body have you used? Great figure!

 

[ZE_501]

The final step in weathering was to dial back everything one last time.

This simulated wear, and increased the contrast, which is especially important I'm 1/6 scale, I find.

No time to to do a detailed shoot, but I also repainted the armour on the Sideshow hands to match, and really cleaned up the ab armour, to leave dust and grime in the crevices only; and made an effort to remove any paint that looked "streaky" as opposed to "dusty".

Happy with the final result, and after all this work...man I never want to do that again...LOL...

My trademark Bad iPhone Photos just to show the helmets:

Now that I know what it takes to get the effect I want, I could probably do it faster, but the multiple layers, clean-up and micro-texturing are still very time consuming. Worth it though...in-hand these suits now look 1:1.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ZE_501]

The new bodies look excellent dude, you've brought the figures to life!

[...]

With each new 1/6 release across all the various companies, the parts base is ever increasing, so options for great figures are getting easier.

I just need to learn how to paint & work with fabrics really.

Thanks Vintij! To your point...more options, yes...but it's very time-consuming so honestly, I'd prefer the best out-of-box product to customizing, generally. I can sculpt, I can paint up to a point (weathering, machine parts...wouldn't trust myself to paint a head-sculpt) and as for fabrics...forget sewing, but I can do simple mods and mimic things like the trooper masks. But time is literally money, particularly when you're usually working for yourself, so I need to be careful how much time I spend customizing toys.

Solo_bones had the idea to use the hands that came with the loose body and use plasti-dip to color them black, several coats if necessary. I thought that idea was inspired, but I have yet to try it since I have been going the other route.

Yeah I remember that...I just repainted the SSC hands, but then you have to either use the Soldier Story pegs (flesh coloured) or drill the body to accommodate the SSC pegs.

I like the 2 Snowtroopers there!

Thanks Sergiu, high compliment coming from a trooper-head such as yourself!

Nice upgrades on both sand Troopers and snow Troopers but especially the snow Troopers!

Thanks!

 

[Tone]

Sideshow 1:6 Clone Troopers

Hi everyone. Was just wondering about other people's collections of clone troopers? I've been collecting for about 9+ months. Mostly clone troopers so far here's mine. Be good to see other people's

212th deluxe





Phase 1 Commander





Phase 1 Echo & Fives







Commander Cody







Commander Gree





41st Elite Corps





442nd







I have got Boil and Waxer on the way too and hopefully might be getting Commander Bly for my bday lol

Everyone get theirs up

Tone

 

[Darth Plagueis]

Re: Sideshow 1:6 Clone Troopers

You can post them here: https://www.sideshowcollectors.com/...35001-troops-sideshow-marmit-medicom-etc.html

Lots of pictures of people's clone troopers.

 

[Tone]

Cheers thanks for the info I'll look around

 

[qbomb71]

Wow! Great Clone Collection.

 

[agonistes86]

This is what I want to do with mine!! Which type of body have you used? Great figure!

Thanks. I used what I had in my parts box, which was an old (i.e., really old, the old broad shouldered type) Truetype. I dremeled the arms and shoulders heavily for the armor to fit, plus I think I had to shave down the thighs and calves a bit as well.



Again, great work on those Sandtroopers, ZE. The time consuming factor is what is still holding me back on starting. BTW, how did you remove the original weathering?

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Thanks Vintij! To your point...more options, yes...but it's very time-consuming so honestly, I'd prefer the best out-of-box product to customizing, generally. I can sculpt, I can paint up to a point (weathering, machine parts...wouldn't trust myself to paint a head-sculpt) and as for fabrics...forget sewing, but I can do simple mods and mimic things like the trooper masks. But time is literally money, particularly when you're usually working for yourself, so I need to be careful how much time I spend customizing toys.

Yeah totally - out of the box accurate is everyone's preference I'm sure. The reality though, is that they're almost NEVER like that. The new HT SW figures are like that so far as well, & it's pretty frustrating. I hear ya; time, money etc.. but I'm in no rush anyway. Customizing wise, a little at a time when I can afford to get things, & it'll be fun & far more satisfying in the end.

 

[canadaclone]

I wonder how armies of Clones would look together in one group....

 

[Sturtrup]

Thanks. I used what I had in my parts box, which was an old (i.e., really old, the old broad shouldered type) Truetype. I dremeled the arms and shoulders heavily for the armor to fit, plus I think I had to shave down the thighs and calves a bit as well.

Ok, I'll never do my stormtrooper!!!