******HOW DO YOU POST PICTURES?????************


OK, first, let me say this:

To make this (awesome) custom, you do NOT need...:

-Paint
-Modeling Putty
-Any V/R pieces
-Experience (This is my first custom so i didn't have any experience either lol)

What you DO need is:

-Superglue
-Xacto knife
-Clothes Pin
-Paper Clip (Use it to spread out the superglue)
-Tools(?)
-Scratch piece of cardboard as a "knifing" surface so you don't scratch your table or whatever while working
-x1 Reborn
-x1 Rebel Trooper (IE version)
-x1 Large Base Figure (optional...though i recommend it significantly).


OK. Lay out your cardboard piece and take out your Reborn and Rebel Trooper pieces. Take your Xacto knife and cut the Reborn's right arm so that his arm all the way up to his shoulder is cut cleanly off. Next cut a small part off from the same arm so that the cut-off piece looks like a right triangle like so (you should have three pieces now form the Reborn):



Now, move away the lightsaber-arm part (save it for later), leaving the triangle shaped part of the arm and the Reborn himself left on your cutting board. TURN the triangle arm piece 180 degrees. Note on the picture below that before (see above picture) there is a black mark on the triangle arm piece in the top-right. Now (below) it is on the bottom left.



Now, glue the piece in its current position to the Reborn's body; where his shoulder should have been. Try to get it to look as "normal" as possible (i.e.: making look like the piece was originally designed to fit there in that position)







Now, while you wait for his half-arm and body to dry together, take out the other part of his cut off arm (his lightsaber part). Cut the lightsaber about 1/5 ways down the blade, from the hilt.



Place these two pieces aside again. Now take out your clothes-pin and unhook the "pin" part. Cut this part in half, using a wire cutter and possibly a plier to hold the pin in place while it's been cut. NOTE: DANGEROUS to eyes so i strongly suggest wearing glasses and/or cutting inside a box so that when the piece is cut it wont fly everywhere and lose it immediately.



Place this cut-off pin part into the Reborn's arm (the part with the lightsaber hilt in his hand) and place about 1/2 of it into his arm. Use a plier to do so as it gives you much more leverage and grip than your own hands. Try to get it as straight as possible so that it won't poke out the other end later (you'll see how i FAILED at that part lol). NOTE: place the non-pointed side into the arm. The pointed side will go into the body later.



Now, force the arm into his body (assuming the glue has hardened by now). This part is slightly hard since you have to "eye" where the arm/body will meet before doing so that you will get the best fit possible. You'll see in my pictures below that a) The pin is poking out of his arm, and b) The match isnt so great. But hey, this is my first custom, not so bad IMHO







Now, here's the toughest part of the project. Take your not-so-lucky Rebel Trooper and the rest of the blade of the Reborn's lightsaber. You need to basically see where the Reborn's lightsaber hilt will impale the Trooper, so you need to place the two bases next to each other and see where his hilt/blade touches the Trooper. You might want to make a mental/pencil mark of this area. Place the blade in the back of his vest; try to "eye" it where the blade would come out. Now glue the blade there (this is the hardest part), keeping it straight and not falling over.









Now, let's bring this thing together! Once the glue dries on the Trooper, bring both bases on each figure together. Turn the bases accordingly so that the "impalement" looks "natural", if i may say so LOL. Place glue where the bases touch and where the lightsaber hilt touches the Trooper's chest...wait for it to dry...and VIOLA!! You have your very own impaled Rebel Trooper thanks to an Imperial infantry!













(Above): I've tried to get different pictures/angles of the finished project; note how the lightsaber looks (kind of) natural as in it's length/"straightness". The cool thing about these pieces is that they work perfectly for this project! The Trooper's pose (and facial expression) totally match his physical...umm...circumstances, and the Reborn's very short lightsaber becomes a normal sized lighsaber thanks to the Trooper's body!


OPTIONAL
===========
If you leave the custom above as it is, it's VERY fragile as it stands. To make it more sturdy take your large-based figure (i suggest taking one with small parts touching the actual base i.e.: Shyrack, togarian soldier, SHAD, compared to a bacta tank, LR-57 Droid, etc.) and cut off it base from the figure. Place the custom on the large base and glue accordingly.









And there you have it! If you have any Questions or comments, feel free to post!

thank you for this, I have only done one custmization my self and it was a learning process for sure. I see some tricks there I can use!


One suggestion I had for this that may make for at least one less cut was what I did for my yammosk and that was use a wood screw to drill (naturally a drill bit would have been easier but I broke all my small ones and have not bought any more) through the base of the body and slid the arm through.

VERY good tutorial! Well done. Using the safety pin was pretty smart, especially considering that it already has one sharp end. Paper clips are also good for pinning. And if you plan to do much with pinning, then I HIGHLY recommend buying a pinning kit from somebody like Citadel or Privateer Press. You can get a small kit with a hand drill, a small bit, and appropriately sized pin rods, all for like $10. You get enough pinning rod to last a REALLY long time.

I have found in many times though, with Star Wars minis, the use of a pin is not THAT necessary, as long as you're using good super glue. The plastic of these minis bond with just super glue a lot better than things like metal miniatures.

This is great though. We'll need to keep stuff like this around to help people see the easy ways to do customizing for their V Set pieces.

A subforum in Customs specifically for tutorials like this might be a good thing.

Of course, this site has a LOT of subforums as it is.

Edit: Forgot to say - nice job Creme!

That is quite funny. As soon as I get set up with a desk I am gonna start experimenting with customs.

Hehe, well, I suspect we'll be revamping the whole forums here at some point...at least we've had some talks behind the scenes, as we know this is something some folks complain about from time to time. I would definitely like to have it set up nicely to help people with building customs specifically for their V Set pieces though, and tutorials like this would be nice overall.

thanks guys! also, lobosteele, i'd be more than happy to help make tutorials for the V-set figures; though i must say that i'm a NEWBIE (have only made 2 1/2 customs so far...and i prefer to only deal with the U/C figs (mostly C) b/c i don't want to have to deal with messing up V/Rs )

Also, i've now made a clone guy being choked by a sith lord! i'll be posting that tutorial up soon

Well, I wasn't necessarily trying to burden you with make tutorials for all of them. I was just pointing out that this is a very good tutorial in general for the method of pinning figures. So it's something that we should likely hang onto, or keep a link for it or something.

I'm probably going to spend some time over the next couple months, putting together some good threads with links and pictures and all sorts of stuff, to try and help organize the V Set customization stuff.

lol reminds me of a custom I made a long while back. I had some extra heroclix and cut off a wolverines arms then stuck some other character on there and put his hand on the other side coming through. looked like he punched right through haha.

you should post those pics!

I wish

got lost as with other things when I moved. and its just coming to mind but it might have been Wolverine punching through a Hellfire Guard haha not sure.

I like the step by steps.