AGE APPROPRIATE WARNING

*ADULT SUPERVISION & PROPER SAFETY EQUIPMENT ARE REQUIRED WHEN UTILIZING THE TOOLS, PRODUCTS & TECHNIQUES DESCRIBED HERE ON OUR BLOG TO CREATE STAR WARS CUSTOMS.

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

NEW ITEMS ADDED TO "REBEL KID CREATIONS" STORE!

This latest batch of additions to the store is a mixed assortment of customizing fun. From unique heads and cool accessories to some army building offerings we hope you all enjoy this next grouping of goodies as much as we do.

First up is our favorite item, a multi-pack Space Pirate Gang Expansion Pack assortment filled with assorted pirate heads and a few accessories to help you to diversify your own personal custom pirate crew. This was a kit we wanted for ourselves at home and we added all the pieces we would want to see included in the expansion pack. Besides getting two generic male heads and a generic female pirate head, you also get a female head wearing a bandana, a female head wearing headphones and goggles, and a male pirate head with a mohawk of braids. Included with the heads are a peg leg and 8 braids that you can decorate your heads with. Having a quick and easy way to expand your pirate gang is a luxury that we have had at home for quite some time and we thought it would be fun to share the same opportunities with all of you. Some of these pirate heads are completely new even for us and were made specifically for their inclusion in this kit. 



SPACE PIRATE GANG
EXPANSION PACK






















The Jetpack has been added to Female Warrior Rebel Artist headcast listing and possibly may be available for sale alone but only for a limited time. At the very least it was nice to see the wings come through on the cast making it easier to paint at home. A blank version without the wings will likely be added to the store at some point in the future.



GRAFFITI
JETPACK





Adding this next item featuring our Slaver Queen headcast to the store was quite the process and something we are super excited for. This was our first 3D designed headcast made on our 3D printer at home that we later made a silicone mold of and casted in a flexible resin. Before we even started to design the headcast in Blender, we used a program called Meshroom that uses photogrammetry to take an already existing object and make it into 3D model that you can print on a 3D printer at home with just photos of the object. Since we had already hand sculpted the head in the past, we first took photos of what we already had on our shelf and generated a 3D model of the head. Then the model was improved in Blender before we settled on something we wanted to print and mold.  Expect a lot more headcasts to be added to the store in this way going forward. We love how great she looks painted!



SLAVER QUEEN
HEADCAST






This Phase II Clone Pilot head was such a hard piece to come by, so we made a mold of it for home use, but we soon realized it would be a great help to all the clone customizers out there.  We remolded it for more frequent use and now have it available on the store under Action Figure Headcasts.


PHASE II CLONE PILOT
HEADCAST





Our final offering is our Advanced Recon Commando Trooper Action Figure Kit that allows you to convert a standard Clone Trooper and transform it into an ARC Trooper saving the buyer a considerable amount of money when considering how much animated ARC Trooper action figures cost these days. Unlike a lot of ARC Trooper kits floating around out there that just offer the kama, forearms, shins, puldron, backpack and a helmet... with this kit, the weapons are included as well as an articulating rangefinder. Please refer to our popular YouTube video on how to use the kit.



ADVANCED RECON COMMANDO TROOPER
ACTION FIGURE KIT









The store includes Headcasts, Accessories, and Action Figure Kits. If you buy 4 or more items and use the promo code 798GT9 at checkout, you can get free shipping on your order!



Monday, September 6, 2021

"THE CLONE WARS" KALANI created by BX 3D Prints & "Customs for the Kid"

This 3D print model of Kalani was designed by @bx3dprints. We personally commissioned him to do this design because Kalani was a character we wanted to add to our shelf for many years now. When we saw he had produced a life-size design for the character, we asked if he could scale it down to 1:18th scale. He obliged our request and built us a printable model.

To make the print durable like a Hasbro figure, here at home we used Siraya Tech Tenascious resin mixed with some ANYCUBIC 3D Printer Resin, 405nm SLA UV-Curing Resin with High Precision and Quick Curing & Excellent Fluidity for LCD 3D Printing - 500ML/Grey in a 70:30 ratio to decrease brittleness in the print. Magnets were used at all points of articulation for maximum fluidity except for at the elbows where a Chinese food container wire was inserted through drilled holes at the center to facilitate the hinge joint.

Then after I laid down the base coats, I did the painstaking application of the paintwork adding all the filigree to the figure. Nerve wracking would be an understatement. In the end, I feel I achieved the symmetry I strived for. Seeing him on the shelf now is one of the coolest feelings I have experienced in quite some time. Just reminds me how rewarding this hobby truly is. 

Having chosen a name over an identification code, Kalani was an ST-series military strategic analysis and tactics droid of masculine programming who served as a general in the Confederacy of Independent Systems' Droid Army during the Clone Wars. In 20 BBY, Kalani was sent to the planet Onderon by Separatist leader Count Dooku to aid the appointed King, Sanjay Rash, in a civil war against a resistance movement, which threatened the Confederacy's control over the planet. However, after prolonged fighting and heavy loss of Separatist forces, Kalani assessed that to conquer the planet would take time, which did not interest Dooku, who ordered the immediate withdrawal of the Droid Army from the planet to the world of Agamar.

Standing 1.94 meters tall, the super tactical droid that would take on the name "Kalani" developed a personality, which enabled the droid, as happened with other units in his series, to choose not to answer to a number. Kalani was a cold and logical super tactical droid who was programmed by the Separatists to be a military commander. He was a competent battle tactician who had single-minded obsession in securing victory and producing results.

Kalani believed in using overwhelming force to defeat his opponents. Kalani was willing to torture the Onderonian rebel leader Saw Gerrera for information and was programmed to lack empathy. Kalani recognized that General Tandin was the leader of the Onderonian resistance and was willing to kill him. After the Onderonians rose up in revolt against the Separatists, Kalani accepted Dooku's reasoning that it was not worth holding on to the planet. When King Rash protested, Kalani executed him without hesitance.

As a super tactical droid, Kalani was familiar with Separatist military strategies, tactics, and protocol. When the shutdown order was issued, Kalani suspected that it was Republic trick and countermanded the order. During the Age of the Empire, Kalani led a Separatist holdout on the planet Agamar. He was ignorant of the fact that the Clone Wars had ended and became obsessed with ending the conflict as a Separatist victory; not knowing that the former Separatist Alliance had ceased to exist.



"THE CLONE WARS"
KALANI
created by BX 3D Prints & "Customs for the Kid"





















SKILL LEVEL: ADVANCED





Wednesday, September 1, 2021

OLDER CUSTOM ACTION FIGURES GET A FACELIFT...QUITE LITERALLY

Not sure how many of you who are reading this make custom action figures yourselves, but here at our house there are always a few projects that catch our eye and not in a good way. We are all our own worst critics, but sometimes the eyesores are irritating enough that action is required to make a figure "display worthy". Every figure here in this post fell victim to being produced under a tight deadline that resulted in compromises that pained us at a later date. While we had the figures done in time for one of our episodes of "Customizing The Clone Wars", they didn't always live up to our standards of a truly completed figure. Unfortunately, when this happens, it could take months or even years before we have the chance to revisit the figure to tighten things up. Yeah, not the best situation. That is why we were really happy that we revisited these three figures and gave them the attention that they deserved.

The first two updates for Jocasta Nu and Old Daka only required some minor sculptural changes to the faces for us to walk away from the projects and finally consider them complete. I tackled that quite easily with a small amount of ProCreate sculpting medium that I creatively applied and then coated with some fresh paint.

For the last action figure pictured, we went a completely different route . In the episode of "Customizing The Clone Wars" that Dad created the action figure for, he openly admitted that the head was still a work in progress and was more a placeholder until he was able to get the likeness where he wanted it. After that we just got caught up in our self-assigned duty of constant content creation, and favored forging ahead to new things over retreading the past. Not that the projects would have ever been abandoned, as evidenced here, but just that they would sit a long time before we would start work on them again. 

That's why Dad was so happy when he saw the Prime Minister Almec head that was being sold by Watto's Scrapyard. Dad didn't have to take the time to sculpt a brand new head, he could just purchase it and paint it once it arrived in the mailbox. The sculpt was perfect and capped off the work that we had already done fantastically!

We can't begin to tell you how happy we were to get three figures updated in just under a month. The shelves in the Star Wars display room have never looked better!

We even made our latest Jocasta Nu headsculpt available to all of you as a 3.75" resin cast that can be purchased at the new Rebel Kid Creations store along with many of our other sculpts!

Click any picture below to learn more about each project.











https://rebelkidcreations.bigcartel.com/products

https://www.instagram.com/rebel_kid_creations




Saturday, August 7, 2021

TCW "DEATH WATCH LIEUTENANT" created by Customs for the Kid

This was a custom that Darth Daddy started and I finished.  Dad began by sculpting a screen accurate gauntlet onto a Clone Wars Death Watch Mandalorian with some ProCreate and added the pointed ends of wooden toothpicks to make the tips of the missiles. The head we purchased from Watto's Scrapyard and we have nothing but complimentary things to say about the sculpt of the head. Once Dad finished the figure's sculpt, he painted the base coats onto the figure and got the figure primed for additional paint applications.

Then I came in and added the wires of the gauntlet to the figure with cuttings from the datapad of Admiral Ackbar that I drilled and glued into place, drilled the helmet of the Death Watch figure and added a spare rangefinder that was part of an ARC Trooper casted kit that we used to finish the last detail before I completed Dad's paint job by adding in all the fine details to finish this collaboration.


THE CLONE WARS
 "DEATH WATCH LIEUTENANT"
created by Customs for the Kid























SKILL LEVEL:ADVANCED


PHASE II - PRE VIZSLA

Sunday, August 1, 2021

"ENFYS NEST - UNMASKED" created by Elias

To produce this particular custom it only took a headcast we painted from Watto's Scrapyard to add to an already existing custom that we made. The first version of the character that we made, just swapped the Vintage Collection Enfys Nest action figure helmet for the more detailed 5 poa head of Enfys Nest. For the swap we made a quick YouTube tutorial that outlined how even a beginner can accomplish the switch with little effort. The nice part about the Watto's Scrapyard head was that it required no modifications other than a well executed paint job to make our figure more complete than ever.

Because Hasbro never gave us a version of the figure that was unmasked, the Watto's Scrapyard offering gives us the ability to recreate one of the biggest surprise reveals related to Enfys Nest from the Solo film, her young face when she takes her helmet off. We highly recommend purchasing this head so you can upgrade your existing action figure to improve your collection at home.



"ENFYS NEST - UNMASKED"
created by Elias

















SKILL LEVEL: BEGINNER



The technique taught in this video will work on almost any action figure with a ball socket that is too big for the neck peg. If there are no soft goods, just pop the head on right away before the glue from your glue gun even dries. While the glue is drying, shift the head into all the positions you desire while on the neck peg to maintain the full range of motion.  It will end up with a perfect fit. Cut off the excess glue with an X-acto knife and you're done.