Tutorial on Custom Ohyja Survive Part 2

I don't know why i never said this before but I'll like to say to all my viewers: thank you very much for your support so far. I have daily hits of 50 and above these days and a lot more on days when i post new stuff up but hardly anyone commented on anything.

Although I get zero advertisement money since Adsense disapprove of my blog for some immutable reason which they refuse to divulge, I am still happy that many people see my blog as a sort-of good source for SIC customs :D If you guys wanted to post more comments on my pages would be really helpful to keep my motivation up! thanks again, guys!

And without further ado, here's Part 2 of the tutorial for Ohyja Survive custom. Bear in mind I am not following the Hero Saga's version though as I feel its not a Final form enough design so I supped it up with Mcfarlane's Medusa figure parts plus some enhancement of my own on his staff. Feel free to make your own modifications that will further make this figure a work of art :D

 

For this part of the tutorial, we will deal with his Shield and his Snake Appendages on his back. As the time I did this custom I was really not good at creating tutorials, I have not taken photos of some of the steps that should be taken but I will try to describe them in words as accurate and detailed as possible.

 

(3) Shield

 

For the shield, I used one of Ohyja's arm pads as the base. First I sand the metal arm pad to give the putty a little more hold on it. I then used epoxy putty to form a large base on the arm pad for later additional putty layers. I stick some metal wires to form support for later add ons, see photo below.

Once the putties has dried, I add on the top part of Ohyja's head which i have cut off earlier as a base for the shield, see photo below.

Then I start forming the actual shape of the shield's snake head and tail. Notice how the metal wires form support for the tail portion? I didn't take photo of a step whereby i stick small metal wires on the putty snake head where the fans are suppose to be before the putty dries. Once the snake head putty dried, I add putty fangs over the metal wires. The metal wires again act as support and prevent breakages in case the shield falls off.

Next, I started adding details to the snake head by forming nose, forehead and eyes. All these are done using my blade. First Add on pieces of putty on the snake head. Let it dry for 45 minutes before cutting the putty into the shapes you wanted. Its easier to cut the putty without your cuttings moving the putty about if you let the putty dry and harden at least for 45 minutes first. The time required for the hardening (not full hardening but partial) depends on what putty you uses. Some putties such as Tamiya's Quick Type dries faster).

I then add 'scales' over the shield's body, see photo below. The same technique described at the paragraph above applies.

And finally here is how it looks after completing the body and head of the shield. Those minute holes you see on the 'scales' are done by poking holes on the sides of the 'scales' with my pimple needle when the putty are half dried. the miniscule rectangle design you see on the snake head forehead is done with toothpick. I shave the head of the toothpick to form a small rectangle head instead of a sharp needle head.

Again due to my inexperience in designing tutorials i forgot to take a photo of the next step. really sorry about this. What I did next was to create the tail of the shield. I used a small plastic sheet cut it up in the shape of a tail and glue it on the putty and metal wire support already added onto the shield. This plastic sheet act as a base for me to add putty on top of it. Using the plastic sheet as base plus putty as compared to pure putty sculpt makes the tail stronger to prevent breakages yet slim enough to make it look good. I then form shapes on the tail using my toothpick and my blade.

I then add more details to the body by adding that gold trim design on it. That design was done using small thin plastic sheets glued onto the shield.

I also added some wheel designs on the underside of the shield. You can partially see this in the gallery part in part 3 of this tutorial.

Final thing to do is of course to paint the shield. Sanding is a must.

Color them are as follows:
1) Super Metallic Purple for the shield body
2) Metallic silver for the sides
3) Brass for the gold trims and eyes and
4) Use a liner pen to make black linins on the designs of the shield.

On hindsight, I should have made the shield larger ;p This serves a warning to all amatuer customisers. Sometimes you can get really too 'into' the custom creation itself you miss the big picture, literally for this case. I was so into how to create the shield shape and design i completely forgotten that it is a shield and not an ornament. It should be large imposing and usable ;p oh well next time perhaps.

(4) Snake Appendages.

Ok here are the steps, some of which are very crucial to follow in order to make the snake appendages structure to last. This means you need to build support on the Ohyja body itself so that if you hang those snakes on his body for prolonged period of time, the snakes won't start slouching, falling off or sloping to unwanted directions.

The way to achieve the above is to provide strong support from the body, not from the armor since the armor is made of soft rubber and wont hold nuts not to mention those snakes are quite long and heavy.

Again my apologies for not taking certain photos that explains what i did. I will try to describe them in words for you.

The first thing to do is to drill holes at the base of each snake appendages (see photo below on the part highlighted in red). I used 4 in total, feel free to use as many as you want but to me 4 is enough to avoid cluttering everything up and make it more fragile at Ohyja's back.

I got some unwanted leftover sprues from gundam kits that I used to make the connecting rods for the snakes to the Ohyja body. I cut off 4 rods from the sprues and glue them onto the drilled holes on the base of each snake appendages. Make sure the rods are long enough e.g. about 5 cm long. I let about 2 cm length of the rods to be embedded inside the snake appendages and glued them in, leaving 3 cm of those rods poking out of the snake appendages. Thse rods will then be connected to Ohyja's body via the holes i will drill. See below on how this is done.

Next,  we move onto Ohyja's body armors. Cut off those connector ports found on the back of Ohyja's armor. Since I got 2 spare armors, I get 4 ports (you can always replicate extra ports using putty with oyumaru resin, see my older tutorials on how to use oyumaru resins). I glued these ports onto the Ohyja's back like in the photo below:

I then drilled holes into the middle of each ports. These holes will act as conduit for the snakes to be connected to the body.

Now, as I have mentioned the Ohyja armor is soft rubber and can't support anything at all. So what needs to be done is to create support for the snake appendages using Ohyja's base body itself. I drilled holes on the exact same spot where the holes of Ohyja's armor are. I then glue the back of Ohyja's armor to the base body to prevent the holes from moving about thus unable to connect fully with the snake appendages. The 3cm rods poking out of the snake appendages are then pushed into the holes on Ohyja's armor and further into the holes on Ohyja's base body. Ohyja's base body are hard resin and are able to support those snake appendages. The added side benefit is that the snakes when conected to the body makes Ohjya's armor more secured and doesnt move about much. Note that the above can only be done with the two snake appendages connecting to the lower part of Ohyja's armor. the 2 snake appendages on the higher and outer part of Ohyja's armor will have no such support. However, thanks to the 2 lower snake appendages creating support for the Ohyja's armor itself, the upper 2 snake appendags when connected to the Ohyja armor became quite stable. To make it more stable, I glued 2 pieces of thicker plastic sheets with hole in the middle of each sheets beneath the Ohyja's armor to provide support for the rods on the snake appendages.

The result from the above modification are 4 snake appendages growing out of Ohjya's back to add to his poisonous arsenal! Each of the snakes are poseable and they can turn 360degree on Ohyja's body.

For color scheme, I used metallic silver as a base coat first. Then once the metallic silver layer dried i add on a super metallic purple layer on the snakes and brass on those collars on he snakes.  As usual, I used Mr Color paint for my customs. For the snake appendages, I drybrushed most of the metallic purple on them to avoid painting over the black/grey paint on the areas between the scales.

I would have love to have all 4 snake appendages to be pythons but unfortunately the Mcfarlane medusa only comes with 1 python head and the rest are regular snake heads ;p oh well

Stay tune for the final part of the tutorial and photo gallery next week ;D see ya!

Tutorial on Custom Ohjya Survive Part 1

Here is a tutorial of one of my earlier custom: Ohyja Survive!! :D

I didnt really like Ohyja Survive's design back when i first saw it in hero saga, i am somewhat dislike its purple scheme and i dont like snakes ;p

However, 2 things changed my mind: (1) i have finished my customd Taiga Survive and Zolda Survive and a 3rd Survive custom is in order and (2) I found a Mcfarlane's Snake woman toy figure for a cheap price of SGD15. It has a real nice sculpt and so full of those useful chains and snake appendages. Thats when i know how my own version of Ohjya survive will look like :D

The custom steps itself are pretty simple though tedious, and here they are:

First lets summarise the parts you need to resculpt/custom:
1) His head
2) His chest
3) His staff
4) His back (with snakes implant)
5) His shield
6) Shoulder thorns
I will be covering part (1) and (2) in this tutorial.

And here are the materials you will need:
1) An Ohyja figure
2) Spare Ohyja chest 2 sets (using 2 sets are actually optional but helps since it reduces sculptings, you can always use one and that works too just more putty required)
3) 2 sets of Ohyja's staff (no harm if you can't find two, just that you will either need to sculpt out the staff into a longer piece or don't change it at all)
4) Knight Survive lower legs and lower arms
5) Macfarlane Snake monster woman figure (see photo below ont the parts i needed, mainly the snake appendages, the head. Ignore that Metal Gear piece in the same photo which i ultimately didnt use)
6) A revoltech 8mm single joint (several if your ouja figures have elbow breakages ;p pls refer to my other tutorial on broken ryuki joints repairs) (you can buy these from hlj website :D)
7) Your tools: epoxy putty, toothpicks, blade, some small pieces of plastic sheets, metal wires, super glue, sandpaper, thinner, some brushes and of course Mr Color paint :D)

Without further ado, please see below for the tutorial :D

1) His head.

I didnt follow Hero Saga's Ohyja head version as i wanted his head to look more like a snake's.

So I cut off Snake woman's head and hollow out his face and stuff with my blade until all that was left was a snake-looking headdress. I then test it out on Ohyja's head. Note, I have removed Ohyja's eye mask revealing 2 translucent red orbs underneath. Cool. they will be useful. So I cut them off for later use ;p

Next, I start cutting up Ohyja's head. Those vent like designs near his ears are cut off to be used as designs for his headress later. The top of Ohyja's head will be used as part of Ohyja Survive's shield (see next part of the tutorial)

Each time i cut Outja's head out, I measure it with Ohyja's head piece and Ouja's neck piece to make sure I dont over do it or leave too little materials on Ohyja's head that i can't connect to Ohyja's neck properly later. Once Ohyja's head has been properly cut down to size, I don the Snake Queen's headress on Ohyja's head and glue them together. Next I used epoxy putty to fill in the gaps between the head dress and Ohyja's head. See photo below.

Next I replace Ohyja's eye mask on the head and those vent-like designs i cut off from Ohyja's head and glue them on like the photo below. I also started adding more sculpts on the head such as a crest like detail over his eye mask.

that small snake design found on the Queen Snake's headress was just too backwards to make it work so i cut that piece off and glue it further upfront on Ohyja's head (see photo above). I filled the gap between the headdress and that small snake design piece with putty (see photo below).

Since the headress' tail part  made the head's movement very restrictive (plus it hinders the snake appendages that I wanted to place on the back of his body later), I cut off the lower part of the tail as pictured in the photo below. I then drilled 2 holes, one in the middle of each of the cut off surface of the headdress. I used a revoltech 8mm single joint piece to connect the 2 headdress piece together. Thsi way the lower snake tail part of the headdress are able to move independently no matter which side the Ohyja's head turns. Helps a lot to allow more poseability for the head without being blocked by the snake appendages on Ohyja's back.

After everything's done and the putty has dried, use sand paper to sand as much of the surface as possible before painting them.

For the painting part, back then I didnt know what the heck is a primer so i didnt use one ;p What I did was I used the following colors for the following parts:
1) Super metallic purple for the headdress
2) Brass for the crest and small snake
3) Metallic silver and white for the top of head and mask\
4) Matt black to cover up other parts behind the headdress that doesnt follow the purple/silver/black theme of Ohyja's

Annnnd thats it for the head.


2) The Chest piece

I used 2 Ohyja chest piece to make this since I have a spare. Makes it easier so that i don't need to use putty to cover up the gap and make the figure too heavy.

First cut up the part highlighted in red i the photo below. For Piece A, cut the front of the chest piece out. For Piece B made cuttings along the red line The remaining front part of the chest for Piece B are to be removed and throw away.

 

 

 

Once that is done, glue the cut off front chest piece fron Piece A on the front of Piece B making the chest of Piece B to buldge out (see couple of photos below to know what I mean).

Use some light materials like rubber or the unneeded piece of Piece B as paddings and glue them on the middle front of the chest piece. Next, add putty over the paddings like the photo below. I used a pen to mark out how I want the design to look like on the putty for my next few layers of putty sculpt.

Now the next part involve a few layers of putty to be added on top of one another AFTER each layer has dried.

First add a thin layer of putty on the middle of the chest piece to form the mouth plate. Let the putty dry for about 1 hour plus. Use your blade and start cutting lines on the putty layer and then pluck out each of those line putties to form a grill-like design (see photo below). When the putty has dried sufficiently but not hardened fully, it is easy to cut shapes on the putty using your blade without causing the putty to go out of shape.

Next add a top layer over it to form the top part of the chest piece. Form 2 putty balls and put it on the part where the eyes are suppose to be. Remember those translucent red eyes i cut from Ohyja's head? Push these red eyes on top of the putty balls like the photo below. If you position it right, the putty ball will form a circle around the red eyes.

Before the upper layer of putty dries, use yourtoothpicks to form details on it like the photo below:

Notice I have a spare red eye that I add on the forehead of the chest piece as a design.

Now once everything dried. It is time to form the parts around the middle of the chest piece. Use putty to form up his abdomen's sides (see photo below).

For the fangs of the chest piece, I used 2 small pieces of plastic sheet and glue them on the top part of the putty layer and then add some putty over the plastic sheets, see photo below. This is actually a very bad way to form those fangs but I was young and unseasoned so yea. The better way to do this is before the upper layer of putty dries, stick 2 piece of wires on the part where the fangsare suppose to be. Let everything dry. Add super glue on the wires to make sure they stay in place. Once the superglue dried, add putty over the wires to form the fangs. This way the fangs are easier to be sculpted on and you wont afraid of future breakages if the figure call on his chest.

One more detail to work on the chest piece is to form those 'wedges' that sticks out from either side of Ohyja's 'breasts'. I cut slits into the sides of the 'breasts'. Then I stick and glue in 2 pieces of plastic sheets to form the 'wedges' and then add putty over it. Voila, see photo below ( i didnt have a pre-painted photo of those wedges so a post-painted photo will just have to do).


Now once everything has dried, use sandpaper to sand everything (except the fangs or you will break them off ;p).

Add on the following color themes:
1) Super Metallic Purple on the overall chest piece.
2) Metallic silver over the grilled mask and other parts of the chest (see photo above).
3) Brass over the linings (see photo above again)

Aaannnd we are done with the chest. See the photos below:

Remember to cover the whole body with a topcoat.

Next Part coming up in a week or so ;D

The Age of Shock! ;p

 

Shocker Rider custom was one of my earliest custom. It didnt involve a lot of resculpt, just adding tiny wires on his belt and some spikes on his knee pad. Back then my putty manipulation ability was incredibly low and hence sculpting those stupid spikes were a pain in the ***. Anyway i had fun and then i had more fun when i made this silly comic below. Sorry about all these wierd cartoon fillers, no custom tutorial for a while now as really busy with stuff for the last 1 month or so. Hopefully I can get tutorials up soon :)

S.I.C Baoh wins!! ;p

This cartoon sums up what i think about Bandai's 15th anniversary SIC renewal ichigo set ;p Seriously they could have done it better.

 

Tutorial Custom Kiwami Hibiki Kurenai

So I bought a Tamashii Nation 2009 Autumn Lucky Draw exclusive KIWAMI Hibiki Kurenai just before Chinese New Year. Love it to bits so shiny and red like cherry haha. A friend of mine found out i have one and he kept asking me to sell it to him which i wont ;p So i did the next best thing, I custom one and sold it to him for RM55 (with his knowledge that its a custom of course ;D).

Its a very simple custom but certain steps and precautions still need to be maintained and i will share it with you here :)

1) First step; use a hairdryer and blow the figure for 20 seconds, pull out all the joints as seen below. Pls be gentle especially for the elbow joints.

2) Sand the entire figure to prepare it for painting. Please be careful with the knee and elbow joints while sanding it.

3) Normally i would have sprayed the figure with a primer layer but i didnt this time. The reason being primer will clog up the elbow and knee joints making it more susceptible to breakage. So I skipped the primer layer and straight away paint a Mr Color super metallic silver layer over the whole figure EXCEPT for his knee and elbow joints. I did this twice i.e. 2 layers of silver to make sure its very shiny.The silver layers will make the next layer shines a lot better.

4) Repaint the eyes, belt and the top of his head right below his demon head crest matt black.

5) I test my clear red/ slightly orange paint mixture (i mix clear red with a bit of clear orange together) to see if its similar to the original kiwami hibiki kurenai by painting it on the head first and compare it to the real hibiki kurenai. Looks good so i continued with that mix for the entire body ;p

 6) I also painted the lines on his stick metallic silver

7) After the clear red/orange layer dried. I then use metallic silver paint to touch up any overlap clear red paint.

8) For the elbow and knee joints, I used matt red to color over them in just one thin layer so that the paint wont clog up the joints and make it susceptible to breakage when you move them.

9) Spray a layer of gloss top coat over the figure to protect the paint.

MAKE SURE TO ALLOW EACH LAYER OF PAINT TO DRY PROPERLY BEFORE ADDING THE NEXT!!

Well thats about all you need to do to make your own KIWAMI hibiki kurenai :) simple just need a lot of patience to paint it properly :)

Please enjoy the rest of the photo gallery

Here you can see the custom hibiki kurenai with the original hibiki :)

Here is a comparison between the custom and the real thing. The one on the right is the real one ;)

Happy Holidays everyone! :D

No im not leaving for good ;p haha! Just gonna be on a break for Chinese New Year until mid February :D I'll be back! In the meantime being very busy doing repairs on SIC figures for a friend :) learnt some new tricks to repair them too hehehe

In the meantime, here is to a very Happy Chinese New Year and To my non-chinese friends, Happy Holidays!!!!