Customized TMNT movie action figures
 

ok, so basically I had a set of utterly horrendous tmnt movie figs. The mask ties were missing, they had no weapons or belts, and a lot of paint from masks/eyes/shell was worn off. I made new belts/straps from leather/vinyl, sculpted new mask ties, crafted new weapons from wood, twine, thread, and other brand sword/sais. I also did a few head swaps to better match the characters personalities. Finally I gave them all a fresh coat of paint that actually looks a little more realistic. I never could stand those ugly spots! i also gave them a Domino's pizza box which was ironically made from the (clean) cardboard of a REAL Domino's pizza box. i used markers to reproduce the logo. Let me know what you think :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...YZIE/tmnt1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...aphMikey-a.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...aphMikey-b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...eoDonnie-a.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...eoDonnie-b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ZIE/Donnie.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...YZIE/Mikey.jpg

Looks really good, nice job, like the weapons

Wow, those look great man! Awesome job.

My exact thoughts!

These are amazing. Oh my gosh.

That Dominos Pizza box just sells it for me!

Although, if I remember, weren't the action figures based more off the 2nd movie. In which case, the TMNT should be eating Pizza Hut!

Looks great man, nice job getting rid of the Movie 3 spots :-)

Great job on the customization! There is one thing though that caught my eye; are you going to wrap somehow Raph's prongs on the sai? If not that's cool :). Still awesome no matter what :D.

Actually wasn't it Ray's? or what ever place that Keno worked?

Awesome. But who has who's head?
http://tmnttoys.com/92figures/movie/movie.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...YZIE/tmnt1.jpg
Hmmm. Raph was Leo, Mike was Raph, Leo was Mike, and Donnie stays Donnie. :D
(Thanks to TMNTTOYS.com for the image.)

Mike - Raph
Leo - Mike
Don - Don
Raph - Leo

I'm pretty sure...

I totally forgot that Pizza Hut never actually appeared in the movie! By that time, Pizza Hut had the TMNT license and they pimped it shamelessly. The 2nd NES game and the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour featured Pizza Hut advertising prominently!

Wow , these look really good ! Great job .

Cowabunga !

Good to see ya here! I've already told you how much I love these customs, but it wouldn't hurt to say it again... They really are fantastic and make me want a set of super-articulated movie turtles...

freaking amazing! do want! lol! :D

These are REALLY solid. I'm gonna have to score a set of Movie TMNT to see if I can top this, although, I'm honestly not sure if I could!

These actually may be my favorite straight-repaint customs on this board.

The ONLY thing that bothers me is the "TCRI" ooze canister. For movie-accuracy, it should say "TGRI." If you don't mind me being nit-picky. :)

Navin Johnson, Donnie, koschei, Cowabunga Carl, Bmaga123, Jester, TMNT Canadian - thanks so much guys :)

Oldmanwinters- I loved the domino's box as well. While I saw all three movies in the theaters, the first one will always be the best in my opinion. I wanted to base them on the first movie.

Leonardo87- thanks! I tried to wrap them but it made them look too thick and odd, so I left them as is. Good catch ;)

Slap-Happy- for all who are curious here is the make up:
Raph- Leo's head, mikey's legs, raph body.
Leo- Mikey's head, with the rest leo.
Mikey- Raph's head and legs, mike's body.
Donnie- all Donnie.

Koenne- thank you!

Discogod- hey whats up brutha! Yeah, I took your advice and checked out the boards here. They are great! I've always been a big turtle fan since the 80's, just never got involved with much of the online fandom of it. Up until now I was just into my tmnt comic collection, movies, toons, art, and action figures. My passion for the turtles burns as feverishly as it did when I first laid eyes on them in 1985 :)

Psychoandy- thanks man! As Mikey would say, "Go for it!" I'd love to see your rendition. Yes they are pretty much a straight repaint, HOWEVER I did hand make leo's sword sheaths, mikey's nunchucks, don's bo, and all the belts and mask ties. The sculpts were so damn good I found no need to modify any of it, minus the head swaps I made. In all seriousness, they are probably some of the best children's action figure toy sculpts that I have ever seen. Sure there's companies like neca, sota, and such, but they are geared more towards the adult collector.
HaHA, you caught the TCRI/TGRI swap! I don’t mind your nit-pickiness at all. I totally get where you're coming from. While I LOVE the movie, I love the original comics even more, hence I stuck with the true origin of the ooze :)

Thank you everyone for taking the time to comment on my work. I hope you enjoyed viewing them as I did making them. I don’t know when, but I have plans for making "artist's" versions of the turtles sometime in the future. There are 16 artists for vol 1 of the turtles (not including inkers or lavigne/brown). I counted Eastman and Laird twice since they really have two versions. The earlier version (neca's version) and the later version like what I feel was a peter laird pioneered version starting in issue #12 (his first solo issue) and continued to progress until what you see in issue 50, which is more the standard now (IMO). At any rate...i will probably start off with a matt howarth version as I thought his take was very unique and interesting. You can see his style turtle in issue 41 and the one shot, the haunted pizza.

....just another post to express how much I like that great awesome work!!!! They look nice!!! Thanks for sharing!!!! :tgrin:

yes, same here...I wrote it in another thread already and just discovered that these movie figures had their own;)....so, congratulations, amigo!they are truly well done!I love the color job and I think you matched the faces just right....I especially enjoy looking at raphael here for some reason...

These might be my favorite repaint customs ever. If there is any chance you'd make more of those weapons for sale, please pm me!

These look way better than the originals. Great paint apps.

Just echoing what everyone else has said, those are fantastic!

WOW. Truly amazing.

Holy, beyond amazing... if you ever consider commisions, let us know! I have a spare set and would LOVE them to look like that. :tgrin:

these are absolutely fabulous dude! well done!

This is simply one of the best custom's that i have ever seen! They really look way better than the actual ones! Great, great job!

Great to see more customizer on our ranks Great customs, the best Movie Turtles repaint I ever saw, congratulations.

these look great! now im tempted to make a set of these myself

These are awesome!! Great work dude!!! I hope you use your sweet skills to do more customs!

first off, awesome job. these are some great customs.

with that said, id like to offer a bit of constructive critisism, mostly because these are -great-, but could be even greater imo:


1. change the bandanas tails a bit. You sculpted them yourself and they look great, but why not add a little difference to them? for instance make raphs longer and sharper, leos more "flow in the wind", etc etc

2. the wooden weapons. I personally think these are the weak points in the customs. Your sai and katana look great, but the bo staff and chux batons look so...bland. Why not detail them a bit? Add some wood sliver cracks, minor dents in the ends, put some grip tape on them, etc etc.

Also, a personal annoyance for me with nearly all incarnations of mikeys chux (these included): Standard practice with nunchaku is to have the length of the cord the width of the back of your hand, nearly every instance of chux i see have it 2-3x that length and it bothers me >.<

Also, maybe consider giving mikey metal baton and chain chux? Just a thought there.

Thanks! Oh I got another interesting custom turtle in the works as we speak. Stay tuned!

Thanks for the compliments! Constructive crits are always welcome as well.

With the bands I really wanted more of a realistic movie look (thin, long, & flexible) but I couldn't find any suitable material to achieve this so I had to go with a more generic version.
I did scar up the wooden weapons but the stain didn't set the way I expected. I thought it would be dark in the scars and regular everywhere else.
The length of the chuck string doesn't bother me.

If I could correct the stain and bands to what I described then I would be 100% happy. Th way they are now, I'm about 98% happy.
I'm always keeping an eye out for the right kind of material for the bands I want. If I ever find it I will probably fix them.

Awesome customs bro.

I have a curious little question that just popped into mind regarding these figures and how-to:

In my experience, paint likes to chip when bent, such as painting a rubber item...

these figures are very flexible, how were you able to avoid this being an issue?

are you just REALLY careful with handling them, or did you give them a coat/base of something? did you use a specific paint that handles flexible material well?

I ask cause im considering moving into customs myself, and this is a question that's popped up a few times in my head.

Wow, these look amazing! You are very talented and if you ever decide to do commissions like this I have some old raggy figures that I think you could make look reaaal nice.

I use citadel acrylic paint. It holds up pretty well and even tolerates slight flexing. I am still careful with all my customs though. Most custom figures can't tolerate daily play/abuse. You can still pose them frequently, just don't be too rough.

Thanks man. I do take commissions occasionally but I'm not very cheap. I put a lot of effort into customizing and it takes a lot of time. With my busy job and family, my hobby time is limited.

wow good job :D look almost realstic a bit :tgrin:

ill figures man; if you'd want to add more to the realism, Raph's dinged up shell would be a fine finishing touch.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr....swvKjWmKmoM%3D

thanks guys! wow, that is a great pic. there were a few little dings/scratches already on the shells, but i probably should've added a few more on raph.

They look awesome!! Are they all the same shade of green? I forget if they were all the same in the movie or not.

Yes they are the same shade of green just like the movie :)

sweet, I'll take a set! :P