Final Finished Pics & At Home In My Mordor..:Turning Istvan figure into the LOTR Hammer Of Sauron.

The review of the figure...rubbish!(for today's standards) LOL Okay that's a bit harsh but there's a reason I got him for less than half price! All the armour, helmet, swords, shield and even the hands are diecast metal! It's obvious this was never going to work on a normal cheap standard ratchetless body, everything is far too heavy! The diecast gloves (this has to be a new company, what were they thinking?) can't hold any of the accessories, there are four hands included and out of the box they are useless. What looks like real chain mail isn't, not sure what it is, some kind of curly woven silver mesh, the tailoring is pretty rubbish tbh, I do like the look of the armour which is why I bought it with a custom build in mind, the helmet is blatantly LOTR movie Rohirrim in design which works for me since I plan to turn him into The Hammer Of Sauron (THOS) who was a Gondorian stretcher bearer who touched Sauron's mace and was  transformed into an evil butcher by it.








ARRIVED WITH HIS HEAD DETACHED AND A BROKEN PEG LOOSE IN THE BOX THAT DIDN'T BODE WELL...ALTHOUGH I'M NOT SURE IF IT EVEN BELONGS TO HIM...LOL











THE BAG/PURSE LOOKS LIKE IT'S FROM WW2 WHICH IS A BIT CONFUSING..SO DOES THE BELT.





CAPE'S LIKE A BEDSHEET..



ELASTIC BANDS ON PLASTIC ARMOUR STRETCH TERRIBLY SO WITH HEAVY DIECAST IT SEEMS A CRAZY CHOICE.





















Any redeeming qualities? Sure! The armour's gorgeous I just wish they'd made it out plastic tbh. The parts I won't be using for the custom build of THOS will be great for other builds.

Now let me introduce you to THOS, he was in a video game along with The Hand Of Sauron and The Tower Of Sauron, collectively known as the Black Captains. They're not cannon or lore but look too cool not to make, never even played the game lol.





















Some early ideas to make use of TMOS's extra faces that are wasted in a baggie in a box..







Who knows, maybe I could do a Chronicles Of Riddick Lord Marshal type of multiple faces or like an Indian god?

I wish Chronicles of Riddick were better represented in sixth-scale. There is that one Riddick figure I have. Anyway, this character is all new to me, and I look forward to seeing you transform and amplify this to make him.

GubernatorFan wrote:I wish Chronicles of Riddick were better represented in sixth-scale. There is that one Riddick figure I have. Anyway, this character is all new to me, and I look forward to seeing you transform and amplify this to make him.

Cheers! I agree about the lack of 1/6 characters from the Chronicles Of Riddick, so many damn gorgeous designs went into the Necromongers' armour! I've got as many as were released in 1/12 but it's not the same. This guy is LOTR though just to be clear and I'll use artistic licence to build my version of him with what I have starting with that armour.

I was lucky dodging this figure, which I had on the "interesting" list for a long time. But it really turned out quiet bad and too heavy, like you mentioned. I like this project and will be following!

Valiarde wrote:I was lucky dodging this figure, which I had on the "interesting" list for a long time. But it really turned out quiet bad and too heavy, like you mentioned. I like this project and will be following!

The body's better than I thought, not quality wise but at least design wise, the knees are ratcheted so I was wrong about that, the joints are nice and stiff (the neck's junk though). The gripping hands and skirt armour are actually plastic not metal but it's so hard you can't use them to hold the weapons anyway.















HAS A  RUBBER WAIST.







I tried out over 50 heads before I decided on a KO Thanos one, I wanted   a strong jaw and scars, well jaws don't get any stronger than his! LOL. Imagine him with white skin, Alice Cooper like make up and either black or red lines in his chin grooves so it looks like blood or a Punisher skull.











Boots are way too small, especially for that head.













STUFF I'M WORKING WITH FOR NOW











TOO TIGHT, ALREADY VERY THIN AND NOT FLEXIBLE AT ALL AS IT'S DIECAST



DREMEL WORK ALREADY LOL.





WORKING OUT PROPORTION CHALLENGES TO SOLVE..





ARMOUR WILL BE SPRAYED BLACK THEN HAVE THE HIGHLIGHTS POLISHED BACK TO METAL.

This should be another impressive build. You’re already off to a good start. Way to think outside the box for another way to use this figure. I’m doing something (not this particular character) with a massive figure that I received not that long ago to turn into something completely different, but it was my intent from the start (not going to give anything away until I can see if it actually works).

Very nice choices, Alex. By the way, the original head is from one of those youthful Chinese Buddhist monks figures! Funny they should have used it for this, although it was just as filler in the helmet.

Never really understood why some companies go the diecast route, specially in 1/6, it's always heavy, painted over (which sometimes looks awful) and most of the time the figures can't hold onto items. Anyway, with that out of the way I see what you mean when you said the armor looked similar, that's definitely interesting, this guy is gonna be looking awesome in no time.

Stryker2012 wrote:This should be another impressive build. You’re already off to a good start. Way to think outside the box for another way to use this figure. I’m doing something (not this particular character) with a massive figure that I received not that long ago to turn into something completely different, but it was my intent from the start (not going to give anything away until I can see if it actually works).

Let me guess you bought a KO Hulk to build  a Juggernaut?

GubernatorFan wrote:Very nice choices, Alex. By the way, the original head is from one of those youthful Chinese Buddhist monks figures! Funny they should have used it for this, although it was just as filler in the helmet.

That's funny because I saw Anakin in that head, similar to Crispy Anakin I made using a hairless unpainted Anakin sculpt from Ada Wong.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Never really understood why some companies go the diecast route, specially in 1/6, it's always heavy, painted over (which sometimes looks awful) and most of the time the figures can't hold onto items. Anyway, with that out of the way I see what you mean when you said the armor looked similar, that's definitely interesting, this guy is gonna be looking awesome in no time.

Cheers for the confidence! I agree about diecast, it also can turn to dust!

Using the smaller of the ko heads, hard to tell in the pics but it is smaller, enough not to cause proportion issues. Been working on the leg armour too and waist armour. Shin armour needed careful widening with a hammer over a screwdriver handle.

Nice progress. He's taking shape.

Amazing work!

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice progress. He's taking shape.

Getting there! Cheers!

BAMComix wrote:Amazing work!

Thanks but hardly amazing, if I'd hand sculpted and cast the armour myself I might take the compliment! More bashing (literally in this case) and bodging going on than anything else but I really appreciate your kind words!

Some tailoring, modding and painting..







weird articulation limiter to basically zero!

















MAYBE?

Liberate that articulation! I was just complaining about this in my HT Luke review. Anyway, you've got the right idea for sure. And I see how all this beautiful spray painting takes place, in that angle thingie.

GubernatorFan wrote:Liberate that articulation! I was just complaining about this in my HT Luke review. Anyway, you've got the right idea for sure. And I see how all this beautiful spray painting takes place, in that angle thingie.

LOL, it's actually two spraybooths connected together but tipped onto one's side as I needed the height for a gun project and most of my recent figures have been very tall so works for that too!  Not sure what you're referring to articulation wise? I'm guessing HT are using their single point joints unnecessarily on their SW figures again. Edit: you mean the feet of course..DOH!

I've been sanding the surface layer of black off the armour to reveal the lovely patterns in a nice contrast of silver on black, shown below with comparisons to just black.





MIGHT NEED TO RE-APPLY SOME BLACK ON LARGER PARTS LIKE THIS ONE

Beautiful job bringing out the hidden metal details, real improvement.

I feel like he can beat Malenia with one hand, I'd wish to ask him to help me for that rot girl

shovelchop81 wrote:

GubernatorFan wrote:Liberate that articulation! I was just complaining about this in my HT Luke review. Anyway, you've got the right idea for sure. And I see how all this beautiful spray painting takes place, in that angle thingie.

LOL, it's actually two spraybooths connected together but tipped onto one's side as I needed the height for a gun project and most of my recent figures have been very tall so works for that too!  Not sure what you're referring to articulation wise? I'm guessing HT are using their single point joints unnecessarily on their SW figures again. Edit: you mean the feet of course..DOH!

I've been sanding the surface layer of black off the armour to reveal the lovely patterns in a nice contrast of silver on black, shown below with comparisons to just black.

No, the ankles are fine, I'm most frustrated with the shoulders. Check it out.

I love what you've done with the paint and the highlights on the armor. I don't know how much of it you will leave for the final look, but the overall aspect is very cool and classy.

This is really looking cool, Alex. I like the choice of head for this guy. The paint really brings out many details that were hard to see before.

Ovy wrote:Beautiful job bringing out the hidden metal details, real improvement.

Kind of a shame the company don't do something similar to show off their own detail work, similar to Hasbro and Transformers, usually tons of detail but none of it picked out in paint.

lawlaw91 wrote:I feel like he can beat Malenia with one hand, I'd wish to ask him to help me for that rot girl

Ok, you have completely lost me there, must be game related? I know nothing about games except I'm useless. Ok, I googled it, that is one LONG sword!!

GubernatorFan wrote:

shovelchop81 wrote:

GubernatorFan wrote:Liberate that articulation! I was just complaining about this in my HT Luke review. Anyway, you've got the right idea for sure. And I see how all this beautiful spray painting takes place, in that angle thingie.

LOL, it's actually two spraybooths connected together but tipped onto one's side as I needed the height for a gun project and most of my recent figures have been very tall so works for that too!  Not sure what you're referring to articulation wise? I'm guessing HT are using their single point joints unnecessarily on their SW figures again. Edit: you mean the feet of course..DOH!

I've been sanding the surface layer of black off the armour to reveal the lovely patterns in a nice contrast of silver on black, shown below with comparisons to just black.

No, the ankles are fine, I'm most frustrated with the shoulders. Check it out.

I love what you've done with the paint and the highlights on the armor. I don't know how much of it you will leave for the final look, but the overall aspect is very cool and classy.

Cheers! I was actually talking about the ankles on this guy that I think you were initially referring to.

Stryker2012 wrote:This is really looking cool, Alex. I like the choice of head for this guy. The paint really brings out many details that were hard to see before.

Yeah it's great detail work, wasted the way they ship the figure though.

He's sort of in a 'mock build' state right now, one of the bloody pauldrons is missing thanks to damn Pepper! I'll find it at some point. Gone through loads of 1/6 gloves to try and find 1) a pair 2) black 3) can pass for fantasy/medieval 4) are large enough 5) can hold melee weapons without obvious trigger fingers. Ended up with only one pair that ticked all the boxes, the problem is I'd already painted them beige for some other long forgotten custom build years ago, probably SW or historical. So out with the acetone free nail polish remover...just started, need to get the toothbrush and scribing tools out as well.

























I'll add armour to them later.

LOL Pepper. And some people complain their pets are not interested in their hobbies! Lucky you!
Looks beautiful. If you left it at this, it would be almost as good as complete. Not sure how exactly it should be, but from a purely design point of view, the upper leg armor seems surprisingly clean cut compared to the ornate knee and lower leg armor. Then again, it will probably be partly covered up.

GubernatorFan wrote:LOL Pepper. And some people complain their pets are not interested in their hobbies! Lucky you!
Looks beautiful. If you left it at this, it would be almost as good as complete. Not sure how exactly it should be, but from a purely design point of view, the upper leg armor seems surprisingly clean cut compared to the ornate knee and lower leg armor. Then again, it will probably be partly covered up.

Found the pauldron so that saves me skinning a cat! Face needs painting, weapons need making, there will be bits that partially cover the thigh armour (bare in mind the set didn't come with any) and they match the simpler parts of the existing armour. Useful historical fact: Knights, Noblemen etc.. did not waste money on decorating parts you parts wouldn't see, like the hipside of a knife's hilt or a sword's scabbard etc... and decorated armour could basically only be afforded by kings and very high status knights, Bishops etc.. The armour would cost more than the average castle, even a decent sword could cost as much as a house.
Tod goes over it in many of his videos, can't remember which ones but they all might interest you.
https://www.youtube.com/@tods_workshop/videos

I've gone for a sort of Clive Barker tortured soul type of look for him as touching Sauron's mace after the battle turned him from a kind stretcher bearer who couldn't understand the thirst for war into  a bloodthirsty sadist who decided if man liked war so much he would bring it to them forever. So his face looks almost shredded then stuck back together badly with never healing wounds almost like even the idea of medical care for the wounded is now a non-existent abstract to his new reality. I've ben thinking of cutting off the visor but leaving the nose guard of the metal helmet to make him a bit closer to the game character's design now that I have a hs and paint job that I think could pull off a visorless look and not just be another wraith (as much as I love them, got 18 at least over all lol) and also not be so human looking but more twisted like The Mouth Of Sauron. Painted some black and silver on the helmet and armour too.

























I HAVEN'T DONE ANY CLEAR COATS ON ANYTHING YET, STILL WORKING OUT WHAT SHOULD BE MATTE AND WHAT SHOULD BE GLOSS.

I'll probably soften those black parts under and around his eyes with some violet to make it more bruised looking and less like Darth Maul which was not a conscious decision..

Glad to hear you don’t have to skin Pepper. The idea of the shredded face is pretty interesting, and the progress looks good.

Yes, better a skinned servant of Sauron than a skinned cat.

Fantastic armour transformation, and looking forward to seeing how you go with the face. Fingers crossed for no more Pepper mischief, although cat-sense may be at work to defeat the emerging evil....?