Ninja Origins - Chaos Clan Ghost Ninja

The second member of my Chaos Clan, the Ghost Ninja is, as the name suggest a ghostly ninja, summoned by the Mahōtsukai to serve the Chaos Clan. Being undead, he is very hard to kill. Nearly invisible during the day, the Ghost Ninja's unearthly aura will make his skin glow brightly in the dark, making him unsuitable for covert operations. 

Some more info about the parts used after the pictures.

While I prefer the look with the hood down, different configurations are possible, going from all the way up to either top or bottom of the head covered.

And an attempt to show the glow in the dark effect without plunging him into full darkness:

Facing off against a Dragon Clan ninja equipped with ancestral Dragon Claws:

Standing at the side of his master, the powerful Mahōtsukai who brought him back to unlife.

Now for the build. Obviously, the main figure is the Masters of the WWE Universe Undertaker figure, without the armour and halberd. This figure already has a bit of an oriental look about him, with the beard and the hair, so I felt it was a good fit. 

The tunic is a repro vintage Ninjor tunic bought off ebay, with the sticker removed. I prefer to double wrap the ribbons around the  torso and tie them in the front, unlike the proper Ninjor way of tying them in the back.

The accessories are the energy trail parts that come with the Masters of the WWE Universe The Rock figure. They are a perfect colour match for the blue tattoos on the Undertaker's body and in fact look better on him than on The Rock.

Finally, the sword is from a Funko Mortal Kombat Scorpion. I painted the handle black (and varnished) and added some dark blue accents in the same shade as the blue tattoos, to tie it all together.

All in all, while a very simple custom, I think the various parts work amazingly well together to give him a dark, menacing look.

Remco Origins - DC Warlord

One of the things I was inspired to do by the upcoming MotU Origins range was to upgrade vintage knock off figures (preferably beaters) to the Origins buck so that they would look to be part of the same range. The first one to get such treatment is the Remco figure for DC's Warlord character. While a pretty great figure in his own right, I got one that wasn't in stellar condition, so I wouldn't feel too guilty about cutting it up to transfer as much detail as I could to one of the MotWWEU bodies.

I'll start by showing the result, before going into a bit more detail about the creation and parts used.

 

I initially started with the idea to make a direct 1 on 1 copy of the Remco figure, with reuse of the thin plastic cape and the original sword and not much else. It seemed a bit spartan by the time I got to that stage and I didn't like how the original cape looked on the new figure, so I decided to give it an upgrade with a full moulded plastic cape. The comic version of the character had a lot more accessories, including a pistol with holster and a sheathed dagger strapped to his leg. I looked in my spares for some suitable bits and came up with what you see.

The breakdown is as follows:
- MotWWEU Warrior body, with the chest tattoo removed
- Original Remco Warlord head, adapted to the origins neck system (I glued a carved down MotWWEU head inside the hollow, soft plastic Warlord head) and repainted
- Original Remco Warlord loincloth, with the inside adapted to the origins body
- Original Remco Warlord wristguards and boot cuffs, cut from the original figure and hollowed so they would fit over the Origins wrists/boots
- MotWEEU black boots with the laces removed
- Cape from the Funko Savage Age Superman, repainted to match the pattern from the original Warlord cape
- Sword is the original sword for this figure
- Holster and pistol from MOTUC Adora, I cut the holster from the belt, removed detail and glued it back on the other side, so it would sit on the right side. Pistolgrip is a bit small, but this weapon is the closest match I had to the Warlord's pistol
- Spare dagger leg ring comes from a Remco Conan figure
- Dagger is a curved lego sword, that actually fits really well in the hand and looks convincing enough as a curved dagger in this scale

Below a look at the DC comic reference and at the base Remco figure.

Picture before the black spots got a second coat to even out the shade

Ninja Origins - Chaos Clan Mahōtsukai

Another member from a different ninja clan, this one is from Chaos Clan and is a Mahōtsukai, a sorcerer. A skilled practitioner of the dark arts, not in the least the forbidden sorcery of Nekuromanshī, this prominent clan member commands forces that most adversary's will find hard to deal with. A word about parts that were used to make this custom follows after the pictures.

The Chaos Clan sorcerer faces off against a Dragon Clan warrior armed with Dragon Claws. Will these mystic weapons be enough to ward of the energy blasts of the Mahōtsukai?

Now about the creation of the figure. This one came about when I was buying some repro cloth parts on ebay (mostly Prince Adam vests and belts in various colours) and saw the seller had a repro Master Splinter robe from TMNT, among other things. I took a chance that it would be big enough to accommodate an Origins figure, thinking it might go well with the regular Triple H legs. It worked and screamed sorcerer robes to me, so after playing around with some possible bits to match the figure, this concept came about. The addition of the robe and belt adds to the 1980's feel in my opinion.

The breakdown is as follows:
- Head: adapted head from the Funko Mortal Kombat Raiden, with added paintjob. Hollowed out the bottom and glued in an o-ring for the neck peg.
- Torso: Finn Balor torso, with the black bits slightly repainted to match the Raiden head.
- Arms: ring version Cena. I feel the wrist protection looks very much Asian.
- Crotch, legs and feet: regular Triple H, with the logo removed.
- Robe: Reproduction TMNT Master Splinter robe from ebay.
- Belt: Reproduction Los Amos Prince Adam belt from ebay.
- Energy bolts: the energy bolts from Funko Mortal Kombat Raiden, but doubled up for extra effect (two on each hand)

Paint on this one is minimal. I repainted the head, though you could limit that to a minor touch-up of the bottom of the head where you carved off the neckstump if you wanted. The painting to the neck and shoulders of the torso could also be omitted.

Ninja Origins - Dragon Clan Ninja with Dragon Claws

As part of my Origins expansion theme drawing from other 1980's influences, I noticed I had various asian themed parts in the "bits" box and what could be more '80s than to add a Ninja-themed subcollection? So far I have decided on not one, but three different ninja clans to populate that theme and have a couple members of each underway in various stages of completion. The first completed figure is one I'm rather happy with, which is a Dragon Clan Ninja equipped with Dragon Claws. Breakdown of parts used and modifications made after the pictures.

I'm well pleased with the way this one came out and I feel the claws work well on him. A small breakdown of parts used and modifications made:
- Claws, torso and arms from the Triple H that came with the ring. The white paint on the wrists was removed with acetone.
- Crotch, legs and boots from Roman Reigns. I resculpted the boot tips to have the split toe shape, but I don't feel it adds much, so won't bother for future ones
- Ninja vest from Classics Ninjor,
- Skirt from Funko Mumm-Ra. I had this leftover from my Funko-Bandai Classics mashup custom and once painted black, it worked wonderfully to balance out the extra girth of the Classics vest. I added some wear and tear to the fringe. Vest and skirt complement each other really well.
- Head from Funko Mortal Kombat Raiden, with sculpted ninja cowl added. The neckstump was carved out and the bottom of the head hollowed out to accept the Origins neck peg. A small O-ring was glued inside the head, so it sits snugly on the peg and can be posed.
The rest is paint, to blend in the different parts.

Blackstar Classics - Filmation Blackstar Custom

Before the He-Man cartoon was conceived, Filmation created the shortlived Blackstar animated series, which would become a strong influence on the He-Man show, both in terms of world building and concepts, art style and animation as well as voice actors (Blackstar's nemesis Overlord was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer who would go on to be the voice of Skeletor). Certain animation sequences from Blackstar were recycled for He-Man and Blackstar himself was referenced through a subtle tribute in the form a golden statue of his likeness as an easter egg in scene. It would therefor stand to reason that I had to include a Filmation style Blackstar in my line-up of Filmation MOTU characters. I won't go further into Blackstar's story, I already did that for my 30mm version of him here. First, on to the eye candy, before I enter into some detail of the process to create this Blackstar.

 Blackstar had a bunch of companions called Trobbits, a sort of play on "tree hobbits". The ones that were released with the '80s toys were very much true to their Filmation appearance and are a good size to go with the Classics figure. Only 6 out of the 7 were released though, so I will need to do a custom to complete the gang someday.

The construction of the figure uses parts of two different figures (though could have been done with one instead), a fes resin items from custom bits creators and some handsculpted/modified items. 

The breakdown is as follows:

- torso, loincloth and boots are from a Super 7 Ultimate Filmation He-Man;

- arms, hands and legs are from a Super 7 Filmation Triclops (though the ones from the He-Man figure could also be used;

- starsword and necklace are available in resin from Dark Dimensions Toy Empire, they also do the belt if you don't want to scratchbuild it;

- head is a resin cast of a Filmation Classics He-Man, with the hair resculpted with greenstuff and eyebrows thickened;

- belt buckle was sculpted by a mate, with some modifications by myself.

Regarding the construction, it's fairly straightforward from there. A few points of note:

To get rid of the curve in the lower side of the belt, I carefully sliced underneath the existing belt edge, starting from the middle, without removing it. Once you reach the sides where the edge is straight, just reglue the edge in a straight line and cut off the excess in the middle. Easy. I left a gap in the middle in the width of the belt buckle, so it would sit flush. If your blade is sharp enough, you can then tidy up the newly exposed bit of loincloth and continue the creases all the way up to the new belt edge.

Regarding the hair, it was built up in sections and layers, not all in one go. This is a minimalistic Filmation style, so you don't have to go very fine, broad strokes will do it.

The rest is paint. For this one, I painted the whole body, which is something I normally will go out of my way to avoid, as it means you always have to be careful for wear around the articulation. This is also why there are parts of two figures in there. My original plan was to use Triclops' body for this, as he already has a darker skintone. Several obstacles arose during construction however. First of, when you remove his armour, there is a rectangular block of plastic protruding from his chest and back that the armour slots onto. I carved that off and sanded it smooth. There was still a discoloration visible due to the colour of the plastic underneath, so I ended up repainting the whole torso. When everything was painted, it was type to put the head in place. I hadn't done so before starting as it being a resin cast, I was afraid I might not get it back off. First test, it sat on top of the neck like some sort of christmas decoration and he looked ridiculous. Turned out the Super 7 Triclops torso was more bulky and had a broader, taller neckstump than the other figures I had. So even after hollowing out the head more and getting it down as much as it could without carving up the neck itself, it was still sitting too high. In addition, due to the bulk of the chest, the necklace was also sitting too high and not flush with the shoulders/chest. So, with a somewhat heavy heart, I decided to pull it all back apart and use the He-Man torso instead. This meant switching out the modified loincloth again, as well as the arms and legs to keep the somewhat darker skintone. Luckily damage was minimal and I didn't have to repair much. The downside of the He-Man torso is I had to repaint it, as well as the shoulders this time, so in the end I painted the Triclops arms and legs as well to get an even colour. I left the hands bare though, as those need to grip weapons. So, long story short, this ended up being a lot more work than planned due to the Triclops body not working out in the end. If I were to start from scratch, I could just use the complete He-Man body as a base.

To conclude, a couple pictures of the two great heroes together. He-Man here is the Mattel version, which I now notice also has a darker skintone than the Super 7 one. 

And one final shot: the hero of Sagar with his Trobbit companions take up their place in the display case:

MOTU Classics - Leo Skeletor

The vintage  Leo Skeletor is, as most of you will know, the rarer India release with dark blue skin and black accessories. I'm not the first to do a Classics custom of him and I won't be the last. As customs go, this one wasn't very labour intensive. The main body is a Webstor body for that dark blue skintone. The accessories (chest harness, loincloth, staff and sword) were cast in flexible black resin by Barbarossa Customs. His stuff is great, so go check it out. Boots and feet got painted black. the head was a spare Skeletor head that was repainted. For the paintjob on the face, I took my inspiration from the excellent packaging art on the ReAction figure.