Customizing Indy Figures
 

Just wondering how many are customizing or planning on customizing their Indy figures. Some have already swapped heads with the Crystal Skull Indy with its exceptionally articulated body and the Cairo Indy head for a better classic Indy. Some other ideas I had was to make an Indy in German Disguise when a good "hatless" classic Indy is released and to put some swastikas and emblems on my German soldiers. I really want the blond German guy who loses his hat trying to stop Indy from hijacking the truck. Monkey Man could use his motorcycle too, although we could potentially see this as a deluxe figure in a later release along with Indy and Henry with sidecar. What ideas do you have?

I have done a custom Cairo Indy as you mentioned:



I would eventually like to see the following:

Indy and Henry w/German motorcycle
Flying Wing Vehicle w/pilot and wheel chocks
Deluxe Indy w/elephant
Temple of Doom Rope Bridge "Battle Pack" w/Indy, Willie, Shorty, Mola Ram and Thuggee Warrior on bridge diorama
Raven Bar Marion
Toht
Dietrich
Belloq in White w/hat
Deluxe Mine Carts (one w/Thuggees, one with the heroes)

I was wondering if any of the 21st Century Toys Ultimate Soldier 1/32 scale figures could be used for customizing German soldiers. I would like to make a decent Dietrich that would stand out from the generic officers since they all look the same. I definitely want some more variety. I was disappointed that the deluxe 2-pack is the same as the regular carded figure just one has a darker shade of green tunic. That's the one I'm planning to use for Indy in disguise. The bazooka I will try to customize from an Ultimate Soldier since the one included with KOTCS Indy is a Russian RPG-7 and the one Indy uses in Raiders is actually a kitbash of 2 or 3 different bazookas, all of which were historically inacurate for the period. I hope Hasbro makes a Flying Wing and the tank from Last Crusade but who knows. Perhaps there are some other Ultimate Soldiers vehicles to use to customize.

All I've done so far is make the articulated Cairo Indy, like many others. I don't like the map room Indys head sculpt so I plan on getting a hatless Indy and making a real fabric turbin for him. But that's all I can think of so far.

One of the great "no-brainer" customs would be the German Messerschmitt 109 fighter plane from Last Crusade. Just buy and repaint one of the 21st Century Toy versions...Even comes with a 3 3/4" scale pilot!

"Well, they don't come any closer than that!" ;)

Has anybody done a head swap between the two Germans from the deluxe two-pack?

Yeah but they are basically the same, one has lighter colored hair. They are both the same figure.

Adds a little more variety to the ranks, though.

Not much but I did see a German Wermact soldier from 21st Century Ultimate Soldier that could possibly be used to replace the heads. You would have to remove the neck and dremel it to fit on the ball joint neck. Plus he comes with removeable hats.

Also Target has some figures called Bravo Team with a few different German soldiers and officers. I may get the one with the bazooka for Indy.

Ok, I've done a bit of customizing now, here's a custom Fedora I made since I'm gonna get the KOTCS Indy,





And my updated Cairo Indy

I picked up a second KOTCS jacket Indy and swapped out the head with the one from the deluxe Pitfall Indy. Instead of using tape like tnswman, I coated the balljoint on the neck with a layer of Liquitex clear coat to tighten up the joint and it worked great! I assume something like clear nail polish might also work. I also removed his jacket and put the bag on underneath it for a more authentic Raiders look. Here he is:

Very nice! That's what I'm planning to do, except I'll swap the KOTCS jacket for the Pitfall jacket, since the Pitfall jacket has a nice dusty/weathered look.

I made a custom ROTLA Indy too, it was the Indy w/idol, I was didpleased with his lack of a neck, so I got the ball joint wet, put hot melted glue in the indys head and put it back on the joint at the height I wanted his head to be, adn when the glue dried in a manner of secconds, ther it was! And I re did his belt, the holster was cracking off his belt so I removed the holster and whip holder and glued them to to a peacie of fabric and made the his new belt, I'm very pleased with it. :gun:

Wow! That KOTCS/Pitfall Indy figure looks amazing. I might be tempted to make one of those myself.(Despite already having 4 Indy figs.)

I thought of doing that exact thing but, on the Pitfall Indy, the bag is sculpted as part of the jacket and the strap for the bag is sculpted as part of the torso of the figure:(

So why not just cut the bag off the jacket, put the jacket on the much superior KOTCS body, and get rid of the Pitfall body? Or do you still want to save the Pitfall body?

LOL...I never thought of that:o

I still have the body...will have to give it a shot.

So, is swapping the heads as easy as popping them off and putting them on another body? And you have the option of making the joint tighter by using nail polish?

I'd be interested to see how the head of Cairo Indy would look put on the body of Crystal Skull Indy (with jacket). That's a custom I might consider doing if it would look good.

The Cairo Indy has a much smaller socket in the head, so it would require some additional work. I am sure you could enlarge the socket with a dremel or something. The Cairo Indy head does fit perfectly on the Raiders Indy w/idol though, with no modifications.

The deluxe heads (pitfall and temple trap) have an ever so slightly larger socket than the KOTCS heads. They do "pop" on to the bodies, and won't fall off, but they are rather loose...kind of lolling around if moved.

Billy, thank you so much for the run-down on the head sizes, which is invaluable knowledge when considering customs.

Putting Cairo Indy's head onto Temple Indy sounds tempting, but how does it look? There's still the no-neck problem, but I would think the face likeness would be better. I might try this, since I ended up with an extra Temple Indy. Would wanna buy an extra Cairo Indy, though, as I don't wanna ruin the one I have.

Also, do the deluxe heads fit snugly on the bodies for the basic Raiders figures?

Finally, do you just pull the heads off, or do you have to use the boil and pop method?

I know how to fix the neck problem, I did with mine, I just made th sockett a bit bigger with an exacto knife, filled the head sockett up with hot glue, got the ball joint wet (so the glue wouldn't stick to it) put the head back on at the height I wanted it to be, got it wet again, and bam, I had an Indy with a neck :p looks good and moves great.

Here are a couple of shots of the Cairo Indy head on the Temple Indy and vice versa:







You won't ruin either of these two figures swapping their heads. They pop right off and pop right on and right back on with no problems. No boiling, heating, taping, gluing, cutting, sawing, melting, or crying involved I promise.

And no, the deluxe heads do not fit on either of these figures at all without some sort of major modification. The ball joint on the neck of the two basic Raiders figures are way smaller than any of the other Indy figures.

The modification does look great, Billy. Thanks for posting the pix and info. I'm gonna pick up another Cairo Indy and go for it.

How about a Mystery of the Blues Indy with full beard? Should be easy enough to make.

Just don't forget the walkie-talkie.;)

Why is the Kairo Schwartzmann so black? Isn't he Arabian, or is he really African?

He's really an English stuntman. :gun:

Ok, so I got a second RPG Indy today, swapped out the body with the Deluxe Ark Indy's body, and used the same method as before (Liquitex clear coat) and gave him the Temple Trap Indy's head. I don't quite like this head as much as the Pitfall head, but I still think it looks pretty good overall:

Great work with that Cairo Indy! Looks fantastic. I can't wait to get more deluxe Indys so I can make a custom Cairo Indy figure.

Not really a custom figure, but:









A guy called "soloboy5" posted a link with instructions and downloadable images to make the crate over on the Cool Toy Review forums. His looks a lot better than mine, I still need to do a little touch up work on it.

Wow! That crate is frigging AWESOME!!!

very nice.....


I have thought about using the Marvel Figure Factory crates that came out a couple of years ago but I have lost all mine.


I am going to try this this weekend.

Does swapping the Cairo Indy head onto the Idol body fix the no neck problem?

I bought a single German soldier and 2 2-packs. To mix it up, I switched the heads from the figures from one of the 2-packs. Looking at them i wonder if they can be switched at the waist. I picked up a KOTCS hatless Indy to do a custom Cairo Indy and will do the same with the removeable hat version.

I think the cargo truck could be customized to look like the truck that Indy thought Marion was in when it exploded in Cairo. Remove the rack above the cab, the spare tires on the sides, fill some holes, repaint "primer red" and I think it would like very similar.

I noticed that the Pirates of the Carribean line looks compatible. Get a few of the cannibal chief for a dio, or even some of the Chinese pirates. Good call on the 21C 1/18 lines, though it is more for 4" figures. The original pilots and drivers are closer to 3 3/4".

Thanks, I'm not finished with it though. I still need to add the support pieces across the top and bottom of the sides and I think I am going to do the inside as well because the bare cardboard looks kind of tacky but I ran out of "wood" and have to print out some more. It fits perfectly in the back of the truck too. Hopefully I will get to work on it some more today. More pics when I am finished.


Not completely, but it is a slight improvement. I posted pics a few posts back, I'll try to take some more straight on pics today.

Just had an idea. You could also print out the crate on paper and glue it onto some balsa wood.

I swapped the jacket off the Pitfall Indy onto the regular Idol Indy. The color matches up perfectly. I had to remove the bag attached to the Pitfall jacket. For those who plan on doing this, be careful not to rip the jacket, mine ripped a little. It's still an improvement though, the plastic is softer, there is more detail, and it has the dusty paint. I put the Pitfall head on the deluxe horse Indy, and the Horse Indy head on the jacketless KOTCS Indy. I'm very tempted to buy another KOTCS Indy w/jacket and another Pitfall Indy to make a perfect Indy figure, but I'm a little uneasy about spending more money than I need to, especially after I already have 3 jacketed Indy figs.

Why didn't you put the Pitfall head and jacket on the KOTCS body in the first place? It seems to me that the "perfect Indy figure" is the first customization I'd want to make.

Here's a site that specializes in diecast:

http://www.diecastdirect.com/types/cars.htm

You can sort by decade (i.e. '30s) or scale (i.e. 1:18). If you sort by the former, make sure as you scan through the cars that you are looking for 1:18 scale. If you are sorting by the latter, look for cars from the '30s. I notice Maisto has a few in 1:18, from the '30s; that are reasonable: $29.99ish.

Can anyone identify some of the vehicles from the films; like Dietrich/Belloq's car in the truck/ark chase, the car Shortround was driving in TOD or any of the (several) vehicles from TLC?

I know this sounds kinda crazy, but has anyone tried cutting off the gunbelt on one figure and gluing it back together on another fig? I really like my Deluxe Horse Indy with the Pitfall head (perfect fit by the way, no tape), except for his lousy gunbelt. (It's really flimsy, soft plastic and the holster is almost all the way behind Indy.)

Funny you should mention that. My two German soldiers are being displayed on the same shelf as my Pirates figures. They're flanking Norrington and Beckett. :D

The Hasbro figures are a liiiiittle bigger than the Zizzle ones, though.

Does anyone have any suggestions for doing paint touch-ups? Like what kind of paint to use (I assume it's acrylic but I don't want to be wrong on that), how to remove paint from the figures, color suggestions, etc? I'd really appreciate it if you guys could make some suggestions, since you seem to be the experts when it comes to customs. I haven't done any modifications like this before, but I have an art background and could easily handle some paint touch-ups. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)

Yes, acrylic water-based paint is what you want to use.

Cool, that's what I thought. Any suggestions for removing already-applied paint?

I've found straight acetone to be the best way of easily removing factory paint on figures...just be very careful with it. I have used this to completely strip paint from Hasbro's 12" figure's heads.

You might get by with a little nail polish remover (which contains acetone) if you are just trying to remove a small area of paint, though it may require some extra elbow grease.

Where can I buy this "elbow grease"?

:p

Why do you want to remove the paint? Acrylic can be painted directly over it and it's much easier.

I want to make sure detail painting like the eyes and things are staying within the lines of the sculpt. The factory paint apps are really bad about being misaligned, and I figure a strip and repaint would be the best way to go. Also, I've seen one or two figures (which I passed over without buying) that have decent paint jobs except for one or two random splotches and smears on the base plastic. I dunno, I just figured it'd be good to know how to do it to expand my options for touch-ups. :hat: