Enter The Shredder : Custom Cartoon Accurate Toon Shredder

[TurtleManiac]

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My recent custom TMNT needed a Shredder to battle with, I've been slowly working on this for roughly a month and a half, finally finished today. I actually used the Toon Shredder release, I could have just used the original '88 Shredder release since they are basically the same figure, but the only reason I chose to use Toon Shredder is the arms/hands/fingers are bulkier, they used some kind of different plastic that makes Shredder look buffer, and even the shoulders appear to be wider, anyone else ever notice this? I used "Aves Apoxie Sculpt" to sculpt a new shirt and belt onto the figure, and also to modify the helmet/mask. The flaps hanging down under the belt and the cape are made of "Kneadatite Green Stuff". Cape is permanently attached, and the advantage of the cape is that it helps prevent the figure from falling, the '88 Shredder/Toon Shredder were always really hard to balance and would easily fall over, but the cape provides more support so that it won't fall. I decided to keep him in his original crazy stance, though I did unflex two fingers on his right hand that were clenched, so that way he could have all the fingers gripping the sword. The armor is a combination of original '88 Shredder armor, Super Shredder armor, and apoxie sculpt. The sword was rounded near the top edge and painted. The figure retains all of it's original articulation. Used Testors Enamel Paints and Tamiya Acrylic Paints to paint the figure. What do you think?

Update 1/27/15: Used flat clear coat on the skin tone because it was too glossy. Took all new pics to reflect this change.

[Drose18]

Awesome! I love it!

[KirkyMonster]

Looks Great!!! :tgrin:

[TheCanadiandrome]

Wow that's uber cool!

[TurtleTitan97]

That's awesome! :)

[Bauer536]

Great custom, dude!:tgrin:

[Eiko]

Really well done. :tcool:

[Powder]

Really nice work, I especially like the eyes.

[Walkabout]

Awesome, love your work!!!

[Discogod]

Looks good. Cape could do with a little smoothing, but otherwise I like it.

[TurtleManiac]

Awesome! I love it!

Looks Great!!! :tgrin:

Wow that's uber cool!

That's awesome! :)

Great custom, dude!:tgrin:

Really well done. :tcool:

Really nice work, I especially like the eyes.

Awesome, love your work!!!

Looks good. Cape could do with a little smoothing, but otherwise I like it.

Thank you all for the compliments! I really appreciate the positive feedback. I'm glad you like the eyes Powder, as the eyes are usually the hardest detail to paint, for me at least. As for the cape, Discogod, I did notice a few things like that after painting the figure, small things that I couldnt really notice with all the sculpt and sanding unpainted, but now that it's painted, I can see where it needs touch ups. "Kneadatite Green Stuff is a little harder to work with than "Aves Apoxie Sculpt", but it serves well for thin things such as capes because it dries kinda rubbery, this was actually my first time using it. I do soon plan to do all the small touch ups/sanding/sculpting that it needs, I'll post an updated pic on here once the figure is refined.

[Discogod]

TM, have you ever tried a blend of Apoxie and Kneadatite? I use it almost exclusively these days, you get the smoothness and ease of use of Apoxie but the rubbery durability of Kneadatite - basically all the advantages and few of the drawbacks of either material.

[TurtleManiac]

No Discogod I've never tried that method, I've sculpted them over eachother but I didn't even know it is possible to blend those 2 together for sculpting, is it a 50/50 blend and the same working time? What kind of sculpting would it be good for?

It's also worth mentioning that at first I was going to paint the helmet/armor silver, then I started thinking gray might look better since you can't really see silver in the cartoon, but I didn't want it too close to the color of the shirt, so I ultimately decided to go with light gray. I did paint the sword silver though.

[TMNT-Collector]

very nice job

[TurtleManiac]

very nice job

Thanks!

I forgot to put up comparison pics, there's original '88 Shredder on the left, my custom cartoon Shredder in the middle, and '92 Toon Shredder on the right:

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Shredder posing with the infamous villain Scratch, as well as some others:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7363/16192013990_a4f6efbfbb_o.jpg

[Scud]

Great work indeed. Love the comparison pic.
And I agree with the eyes, they are awesome.

~S~

[TurtleManiac]

Great work indeed. Love the comparison pic.
And I agree with the eyes, they are awesome.

~S~

Thanks! I'm quite pleased with it myself, I had been planning this custom for a while but never got around to it until now. I've got lots more planned!

[Andrew NDB]

I always forget how jarringly different the actual (original) Shredder figure is from how he appeared on the cartoon. How weird... why did that happen?

[TurtleManiac]

I always forget how jarringly different the actual (original) Shredder figure is from how he appeared on the cartoon. How weird... why did that happen?

I've always wondered that too, my guess is that since they also had the comics back at the time, they couldn't decide what universe to base the figures on, so they just went with something totally new and different? Almost all the original TMNT figures look very different from their cartoon appearance, but I think Shredder differs the most, being shirtless with blue helmet/armor.

[Discogod]

No Discogod I've never tried that method, I've sculpted them over eachother but I didn't even know it is possible to blend those 2 together for sculpting, is it a 50/50 blend and the same working time? What kind of sculpting would it be good for?

You can use a 50/50 blend, but as long as each part is equally mixed (as in 50/50 of Apoxie A & B) you can mix it in any quantity. More Apoxie and it's harder, easier to carve, more Kneadatite and it's slightly more flexible. Just use it as you would either compound on it's own - it'll be slightly stickier to start, but if you leave it 20-30 minutes it's a lot more workable. Working time's about the same, and it seems to hold detail a lot easier.

I use it for virtually everything - the armour & helmet on my recent Shredder was made using this blend.

[Andrew NDB]

I've always wondered that too, my guess is that since they also had the comics back at the time, they couldn't decide what universe to base the figures on

Which would suggest they might make a Shredder figure more like the Mirage Shredder. But he doesn't look anything like that, either. At all.

so they just went with something totally new and different?

Seems like it.

[TurtleManiac]

You can use a 50/50 blend, but as long as each part is equally mixed (as in 50/50 of Apoxie A & B) you can mix it in any quantity. More Apoxie and it's harder, easier to carve, more Kneadatite and it's slightly more flexible. Just use it as you would either compound on it's own - it'll be slightly stickier to start, but if you leave it 20-30 minutes it's a lot more workable. Working time's about the same, and it seems to hold detail a lot easier.

I use it for virtually everything - the armour & helmet on my recent Shredder was made using this blend.

Dang I wish I had known about that method before starting this project, probably would have worked well for the cape. Oh well, I'll use it for other projects. The cape was the biggest challenge in this, at first I was just gonna use the original cloth cape, and a cloth shirt with the original belt around it, but I decided not to use cloth in any of my future customs because I wanna be able to paint everything, and cloth can get faded, stained, torn etc. Here's a work in progress pic:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8039/7928357028_76d0605fb3.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/24478755@N08/7928357028/)
customshredderprepaint (http://www.flickr.com/photos/24478755@N08/7928357028/) by TurtlesinTime (http://www.flickr.com/people/24478755@N08/), on Flickr

[TurtleManiac]

Update 4/11/13: Repainted the helmet and armor again with a slightly lighter shade of gray. Probably not very noticable in the pics, but I'm glad I decided to change the color now because I'm planning to make toon Foot Soldiers with the same color for the armor. It was previously Tamiya Sky Grey but I changed it to Model Masters Light Ghost Gray. I think it looks more cartoon accurate that way and I think I will use this Gray for all metallic parts I paint later on in cartoon style excluding weapons, certain weapons and/or accessories can be silver, and I will use the other Gray for something else. I have replaced all the old pics with new ones to avoid confusion. I also made a toon Foot Soldier to hangout with Shredder. They both use mostly the same colors.

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