Geek Creek TMNT Kitbashes and Photos
 

If I had 5% of the talent some of you lucky folks have I'd try my hand at painting, but instead I have my buddy Milt do it for me.



For a better sense of the extent to which heymilt transformed these toys, compare Mikey's unpainted neck peg in the following photo to the rest of his skin:



There's no way I could follow that, so I contented myself with gathering unlikely accessories and vehicles for my badass Turtles.

More in the second post...

First off, while they can't fit inside to utilize the turret bubble, the Turtles look pretty cool with the Acid Rain Stronghold, which is so convincingly weathered right out of the box (similar to 3A's World War Robot rust aesthetic) that it looks like something one would put together from assorted scraps and debris in a sewer, so...



I reckon it's an all-purpose sewer transport, but the fact that it transforms into a robot mode could also suggest it's an updated approach to Metalhead.

More unlikely choices from the 1:18 scale: the RDA Grinder from James Cameron's Avatar and G.I. Joe Retaliation Firefly's sled:



I've also been putting together lots of accessories, both because I want to maybe try to build a custom sewer eventually and just for the hell of it. In the next post you'll see some random weapons and things, plus a work-in-progress science lab station.

More in the next post...

Ninja Turtle motorpool:



And a very recent addition to my vehicle fleet, in the form of a garden toy I bought in Istanbul a few years ago for my Joes. Since it's designed to rest in a garden it's not a proper toy; there's no way to open it, so I can't place the Turtles inside, and they wouldn't fit in the front seats even if I could. But for background fodder it looks pretty cool.



A better sense of the scale:




Thanks for checking out my humble efforts, everybody, and keep browsing the thread for more posts, including tons of photos of my work-in-progress sewer set!

THAT VAN!! Ohh la la... So classic

Thanks! And for a lazy kitbasher like me, it was perfect, 'cause setting aside the fact that I can't place the Turtles inside it, it required no modification.

Found art has always been my favorite breed of "custom". :)

Yeah, that V dub can fits perfect!

Cool. Really like what you've done here--everything looks fantastic.

Follow you on Flickr, some of these pics aren't there, so despite toy not doing the paints, your photos are fantastic.

Thanks! Eventually I'm hoping to commission someone to customize a Cowabunga Carl van so I can actually place the Turtles inside their ride. :)


Thanks, man, much appreciated.


Thanks so much! Since my customizing efforts range from minor to nonexistent, I try to compensate with my photography to the extent that that's possible.

Thanks again, everybody!

Really like these, also enjoyed seeing if i could remember where the additional items came from. nice work :)

Thanks, Connor!

Can I ask: are TMNT figures readily available in Glasgow? I only ask because I traveled extensively for a few years, and it was always fascinating to see which toys were available in a given place. At the time I was mostly hunting G.I. Joe figures, and I assume TMNT is much more widely available than Joes. (For some reason, the most dominant toy everywhere I went was Ben 10).

My most surreal find was this pair of G.I. Joe Sigma 6 figures:


...in Islamabad.

Sweet find :)

TMNT toys are pretty common place in Glasgow, it used to be you could only really get them in comic shops initially (wayyy back first time round) but with the recent incarnations its pretty easy. spotted the stelth turtles going for cheap in a local B&M store* just not had any cash to buy them :(

*bargain/cut price store

That's cool that you have access; I know how discouraging it can be to live vicariously through friends online 'cause there are no toys within a hundred miles!

Meanwhile, I aim to slowly (ever so slowly) put together a gargantuan sewer lair for my Turtles. It's something I've thought about off and on for many years.

For the bare-bones structure of my sewer lair I intend to get some lightweight plywood "walls" and attach them to a thicker "floor" piece to create a simple room with three walls and no ceiling, much like the 2003 Sewer Lair, only considerably larger.

If I can figure out how to perform some basic weathering tricks I will dirty up these wooden bits as thoroughly as I can, but first I'll hit them with some of that spray paint that's textured. I'm hoping it'll look convincingly concrete-like.

I also hope to add some long, narrow pieces of PVC pipe to the walls. I'll probably paint the pipes to make 'em look rusty... this is, again, assuming I somehow learn to do any of this stuff with anything resembling competence.

Meanwhile, I'm already gathering secondary structure pieces.

First up, I bought the G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Pit/Mobile Command Center thing a few years ago as a poor substitute for all the bigass, badass playsets I missed out on when I was a lad... and the thing has just been gathering dust, so I'm taking it apart and using its pieces as random electrical sheds and panels and whatnot.

These, too, will benefit immensely from some weathering, but one can already get a sense of the potential, I think:



Again, there's a surprising amount of cool texture and detail that should convincingly suggest maintenance sheds or whatever.

Meanwhile, recently at the local thrift shop I spotted a big plastic bag filled with Tech Deck skating ramps. I always wanted some of these, but never enough to pay for them... and these were only $2 for the lot. Whoo-hoo!



More in the next post...

I'm considering using the skate ramps simply as elevated surfaces, rather than skate ramps.

Also for $2: a comically incomplete "Shellraiser" Turtle van, from the Nickelodeon cartoon. I had no interest whatsoever in this strange vehicle, but for $2, you bet I'll grab it!



The thing I dislike most is the wheels... and it occurred to me that, without the wheels, the vehicle might serve instead as yet another maintenance room or what-have-you. Again, it'll look much, much better weathered, but I like to think you can smell what I'm cooking:



Here it is on its side atop a skate ramp, behind another skate ramp, and with the computer console from the Rise of Cobra Pit bringing it all together as a workstation for Donatello:



I also paid a dollar for some random hunk of crap that had no business taking up space on the shelf (it's just a piece from some forgotten toy, and it can't possibly have any value or purpose to anyone but a dork like me):



It too has cool details that should pop nicely with the proper weathering. I'll probably use it as part of a wall rather than the floor, although it has some tools sculpted onto its surface (I really can't imagine what the hell this thing was originally), which might look goofy stuck to a "wall".

And now a hasty look at some of the props I'll use to make the place feel lived-in. First up, a Millennium Falcon ornament I got for fifty cents:



I'm gonna make a toy collector of Michelangelo, you see.

And some of the other props:



That's it for now, and it's likely there will be no further progress for a few months, 'cause I can't even afford to buy the spray paint and boards at the moment, and my highest priority right now is shipping more stuff to my long-suffering buddy heymilt so's he can paint it for me.

But eventually I'll build the primary structure, and along the way I'll keep an eye out for hunks of metal and such that can serve as sewer detail and debris, and someday, hopefully, I'll have a kickass lair for my Turtles!

Wow - those came out looking really good! Your friend did a marvelous job on the repaints, and those props work really well with the scenes you set up. Good work. :)

Thank you, pennydreadful! (Great username, incidentally).

That's alot of junk that could really turn into something awesome. It'd take some time mind you, but it could really come together, I'd go over to figurerealm, they have some excellent tutorials for weathering, and bringing out detail in sculpts.

Thanks for the suggestion!

No prob, that site helped me learn the basics, and one the years I've still managed to pick up tips from the tutorials.