Most people know my fave 80's cartoon is ThunderCats. Not that keen on the 2011 reboot but because of it there were a couple of Classics toys of the original 80's characters so I'm grateful to the recent show for likely prompting that. Ok so it's annoying you get Lion-O and Tygra in 8 inch scale then Lion-O (with a growly face he neeever had in the show) and Mumm-Ra in 6 inch scale. I just wanted one size scale and all the major characters. Oh well.. Make the best out of what we get I suppose. Anyways I really liked the figures but Mumm-Ra was bugging me. Something just seemed off. So I figured I'd tweak him a bit. Bit of paint here and there on the furry feet things, his face, helm crest and snakes and a bit of slightly messy black pen on some muscles to define them better (and look ever so slightly more cartoon-like). Hairdryer heat to the helm bandages to push them a bit down (for some reason they're all horizontally positioned on the toy when new). Got rid of the rubbery white bandages that just get in the way and restrict movement and replaced with actual fabric ones (with some double-sided tape stuff keeping them in place). I outlined the eyes in black pen and then added a dot of white paint to the red of the eyes. The dot was perhaps just a tiny bit big as you can't really see much of the red left from this photo (but you can in person). The amount of white in his eyes seemed to vary from scene to scene. I think as it is it's still making him look a lot more 'alive' (or ever-living, hehe) than the figure did originally. I can always redo it if it bugs me but I'm fine with it for now. Also I painted his crotch black so it's 'in darkness' but you can't see that anyways. Better than having any of that skin color peeking through when in certain poses.
Next up is the sorely-missing cape. I've got red and black fabrics for it (the black being used as quite an effective backdrop here, I should always use this kinda stuff to photograph figures rather than showing my table and wall). Just planning out the best way of doing it and once I get it working good I can re-use the stencil to make more of them I may put on eBay for anyone else who's annoyed at the lack of clape on a character who ALWAYS wore a cape.
Here's what the figure looks like out of the box (hope Cyberdrone don't mind me linking to his figure, I forgot to take a 'Before' photo)
[link]And I used images at
[link] for reference, mostly with the layout of the bandages.
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
Got the modern Mumm-Ra mummy today in the mail. Bit smaller than I thought. Oh well. A lot more articulated than the old figure. Added a couple white dots to his eyes to make him look more spooky and alive.
Man, it's a hell of a lot easier customising figures that don't transfoooorm and turn inside out...
Also printed out a few backdrops to use behind them to make my shelves look nicer (playing with that Superman and the print out of the sky gave me the idea). I've printed out Cat's Lair exterior, Mumm-Ra's tomb and the Berbil Village. Might print out Hook Mountain now I've just bought Snowman on ebay for 99p (£2.65 postage) with his shield and spear (no helmet). I may buy an old Battle Cat figure to paint up as Snowmeow. Snowman was one of two ThunderCats figures I originally had as a kid (the other being Mumm-Ra with the light up eyes).