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The "ask Jin Saotome" Thread


Jin Saotome

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Jin, as a beginning customizer, I am really impressed with your skill, and let me say thanks for making that paint guide. Your advice is valued.

 

That said, do you have any advice regarding painting GI Joe 3 3/4" figs? Does your paint guide apply to them as well as ML? I find the joints can be harsh on paint.

 

 

I have one recommendation as well. I did up a Kup figure using Armada deluxe Prime's body, and Hoist's head. I painted it with auto touch up spray from wal mart auto dept., and I was amazed at the finish. Very even, metallic, (not reflective) and I CANNOT scratch it, and I've tried. Fully transformable, no scratches. It surprised me.

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1.) Ahh, you're wanting to do kinda like mold-casting with Archangel's face. Actually vasaline on the end of a Q-tip works great for releasing the milliput from the face (thin coat, and do a paint-test somewhere to make sure the vasaline doesn't take off the paint). Or you could paint some liquid latex over the face and then build on top of that so the whole mask peels off and sticks on the face well.

 

Yet another trick is buying shrink-wrap tubing from the electrical section of ace. Heat a section around his head so it conforms to his face and make your mask. When it's dry, carefully cut the shrink wrap tubing from the head and remove the mask.

 

Or cheat! Buy a Silver Surfer and steal his head. Widen the hole and make Archangle with removable heads, one with the mask and one without!

 

 

2.) Akuma? Well, he just came out that way. I mixed the right skin tones this time around, the beads were perfect, and the wash on his gi was great. Pratice, pratice, pratice!

 

 

3.) Gi Joes are cool because you can take them apart to paint them! After you paint the sections, use my superglue trick and coat the hips/hinges before you stick them back together. Since they're hard plastic the paint rub can get pretty bad, I've had to sand the joints and end up making them pretty loose for the paint to stay. It's just one of those things tho.

 

What brand of car touch-up paint is it? Is it PlastiCoat? Scratching when transforming is one of the major problems with Transformer customs, thanks for the tip! Find out the brand name for us please.

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The paint is called "Dupli-Color" I can't find the brand though; they switched to Plasti-Cote, which scratches on some surfaces, but not others.

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Hi Jin, alright I did a Multiple Man and now want a Strong Guy to go with him, but he has such a weird body with it being all big up top and small down below that I wanted to use a Hulk chest up and a Sabretooth abdomine down, but I can't figure out which Hulk had the joint that would work Iwas told one of the movie figs had it. Do you know which it was and does it sound like a good idea? On the MM I used a Gambit, but I'm wanting to redo it with a Deadpool spliced with the Gambit.

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Hmmm, eh... don't have any of the hulk movie figures to compare against Sabertooth really. However there's an easy way around that. Just pick a hulk figure (war hulk or smart hulk) with the waist swivel -and- the upper abdomen swivel. This way you can glue any waist to the upper body and still have the upper half turn.

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Jin, I want to make the crystal add ons like the Iceman that you have made. Could you help out? Also, I was wondering if the same type of crystal like substance will turn out well for Ghost Rider (like flames). I am a beginner customizer...a novice. Thanks!

 

May I say your WORKS ARE AWESOME!!

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Well you really can't 'make' the crystals, you have to buy the pieces. I found a new type of crystal ice stuff at Michaels, in the floral dept. It's shards of clear ice that go in the bottom of a vase. Not the big clunky shards but sharper ones. The Wedding ice table deco you get at Wal-mart works great too. Just use clear epoxy to adhere it or the gel epoxy so they don't slide around

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Hey! Jin, just wanted to let you know that the acetone worked perfect! Especially on my Sandtroopers, now all the "grime" doesn't look uniform! I was able to make eah spot different!

 

Anyway, my question is painting skin tones, and more-to-the-point, matching skin-tones. I've tried this so many times and I always end up on the wrong end of the spectrum...literally! I'm specically talking about DC Direct figures, the Hush series to be exact. I've tried various mixes of white, brown9s0, black, grey, red, and orange, plus "Flesh Tone" which really isn't it's namesake. Any thoughts or ideas?

 

Also, I've been using the Citadel paints (conviently my brother does the minitures so I've had access to them for a few years), so if you wanna give exact paint names I'll totally know what you're talking about. In fact, specifications would be great!

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My question is about ToyBiz's old WCW figures.

 

I basically want to use the upper half of the Raven figure(The one with the Daredevil t-shirt.), but want to put it on a bottom part that has pants(Jeans are perferred, but pants are fine.).

 

I was wondering if you knew of any figure that I could use to do this. I've never attempted to do anything like this before so something I could just pop open and re-glue sealed would be most welcomed.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you could give me.

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Ravage---

Flesh tones! Gah... hmmm... Ok, this is a toughie. Testors makes Skin tone Base, Skin tone Light, Skin tone Warm Tint, and a few others. You can mix the Base and the Warm tint to get a decent flesh tone that matches most marvel legends figures. Sometimes I need to mix a little bit of green in with the skin tones to get the right shade, oddly enough. Centaur Flesh from Testors is also a good tint. I don't really know how to help you in terms of mixing and matching flesh tones, other than buy a few different types and experiment.

 

Dark Phoenix---

I popped Iceman in half at the upper torso joint. Then I sanded/carved the lower torso joint down until it matched with the upper, and glued it there in place. This gets rid of the upper torso joint completly (don't forget to take out the little white joint in the middle) but doesn't really matter because you already have the abdomen and waist joint to make em bend and turn. Watch out because the lower torso will get very thin right above the abdomen bend-joint.

 

Punichu----

Wrestling figures... hmmm! I don't own any of Toybiz's old wrestling figures, and don't even know what scale they're in to tell you the truth! If they're 5" scale, there's a couple of XMen Evolution figures out there with jeans. I don't know what Raven looks like, or his scale so I really can't give ya any tips with that, sorry!

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So heres my question : What suggestions do you have in regard to retro fitting a swivel arm shoulder joint (up and down only) to a ball and socket joint (3 3/4' or Microman style)? Do you have any suggestions in regard creating an upper arm / mid bicep swivel joint (cut joint) as well?

 

Thanks in advance (i hope ) :-)

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Puddingstick---

Nope, Acetone only removes the paint, not the color of the plastic. Iceman only turned clear because he was clear to begin with. However you can get an iceman, turn him clear, then paint him with Tamiya clear Red and make your flash that way!

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Hey Jin, I am getting ready to start work on a U.S. agent custom. I wondered if you had any suggestions for making nice, clean, straight, evenly-spaced stripes. I was thinking of spraypainting his chest white, then taping it off and painting the figure black, and then somehow adding the red lines. Is this a good way to do this, or do you have a better idea?

 

Thanks, Bill

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Ok Jin, I have been a ardent fan of your customs... Always linking your site when something new pops up!

 

Anyway, what is the best way to fix a loose joint? I tried using a hairdryer and remove the joint and using nail polish and paint the parts before putting it back... Doesn't work... (that's the irritating Spider-Man 2 movie Superposeable Spidey for you)

 

I heard of the superglue trick. I wonder if you use this trick. If so, what is the best superglue to use? Because regular superglue leaves white residue. I heard of people recommending plastic glue by Tamiya but I'm not too sure.

 

If you have any other methods please kindly advise!

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OK Jin... I really like my Mega Man X and Zero figures, but the problem I have with X is that he's too tall, due to his legs being too long, through the thighs. I want to shorten his legs so that he's nice and stunty, and at least just shorter than Zero. I kinda don't want to cut a section out of the legs and attach the joint end to wherever I cut it off... I'd rather it looked seamless... basically meaning that my question is, how can I make a joint for X's new knees?

 

The style of figure I'm talking about is in this article. Have a look and see if you can help me out. They're simple hinge joints, as you can see in the pictures.

 

http://toynewsi.com/index.php?catid=141&itemid=3554

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Actually suntzu28, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. Are you talking about making a Microman Shoulder joint in a 6" scale?

 

raytecumseh----

There's a couple ways of doing this aside from actually painting the lines by hand. You can use masking tape, but making it bend around his muscle bulges is tough. Cheap stick-on pinstriping from an autoparts store works really well if you need to do thin stripes. Hobby shops carry pinstriping for those model cars/airplanes too. That's about all I can think of aside from hand-painting straight lines.

 

SpideyWeb----

Yep, I use the superglue trick on all my loose joints. Duro superglue works the best and it comes in the classic white and blue tube. The trick to avoid the white film is not to get your fingers, breath, or anything with moisture on it while it's drying. Work the joint back and forth to break up the glue so you don't end up with a permanent stuck joint. It works for me 99% of the time. Also heating your figure tends to loosen up the joints as I've noticed. Every time I have to wash a figure the joint end up looser than before I hit them with hot water.

 

 

TheBigBadWolfman---

 

Hmmm, a challenge! I don't own any of these figures so I don't know if the lower leg is hollow or not. If it is, you could try sinking the knee joint down into the lower leg farther. You would need to carve out the back of his lower legs so his knees would bend, and this also would allow the shin part to cover up his knee joint better like the Bandai model-kit-figures. I honestly don't mind the cut-joint in the thigh, but if you don't want to cut a piece out of there, try that. You could probably do this even if the leg was solid too.

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Actually suntzu28, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. Are you talking about making a Microman Shoulder joint in a 6" scale?

 

Yes...but not in 6'' scale . More or less 1:18th-1:24th scale (3 3/4'' Joe scale).

 

Id also like to duplicate the process for the hips but im sure that will be easy once ive done the shoulders.

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Sword sheathe.... Go buy some faux leather material at Wal-Mart, cut a rectangle, fold it over something about the width of the sword in question and glue the edges together. Make a strip for the belt and attach it. I like swiping the from the new LoTR figures myself, their new sheathes even have the straps that attach to the belt.

 

I don't know how you can cut into the shoulder and make it like the Microman versions. You'd have to actually cut the shoulders completely out, fill the body inside around the shoulders/neck with plasticwelder, then carve out the joints there. Next you'll need to find double-balljoints that would actually fit in there and to your biceps of the figure.

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