Zes's figure builds, customs & kitbashes (some NSFW)

Hello,

I've been lurking on these forums for a couple of years now before finally deciding to make an account. I'm not new to the whole 1/6-scale hobby, as I have been collecting Hot Toys since 2011, though I haven't really started actual kitbashing until 6-7 years ago. I've been commenting on threads here and there, but this will be my first proper post. I hope to go over some of the recent figure builds I've put together. With that brief introduction out of the way, let's get into the build itself.

Figure Build 1: WorldBox Yoga Outfit

For the most part, I predominantly collect TBLeague/Phicen bodies, like I assume many of you do based on the user pictures I've seen. I've been curious about the Worldbox female bodies and wondered if they were as good as the male bodies, which I consider to be the best male bodies currently available on the market. I was still on the fence about the Worldbox bodies until I saw Worldbox's preorder announcement for their yoga sets:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t6804-new-product-worldbox-1-6-long-short-sleeve-yoga-tops-yoga-pants-several-varieties?highlight=worldbox

I thought this outfit set looked pretty neat, and because the set allowed for a fully seamless look, I decided to get a few pieces. These actually sold out quite fast and are now difficult to get. I was undecided on what color combination I wanted to use, so I ended up getting a few different colors. My only complaint with this outfit set is that it's not as advertised—there's no thumbhole. Without the thumbhole, I can't go for a fully seamless look, as the wrist peg will be visible. So I was forced to use bracelets to hide the wrist peg. It's not a big deal, though, since the outfit set itself is high-quality.



For the Worldbox body itself, I was debating between the AT202 and AT203 bodies:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t5692-worldbox-girls-body-jointed-female-figure-at201-202?highlight=worldbox

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t6766-new-product-worldbox-at203-1-6-scale-female-figure-body-2-skin-tones?highlight=worldbox





I ended up going with the AT202 for now since it looked good in the promotional pictures. I'll probably build another yoga outfit figure using the AT203 in the future (stay tuned for that!). I also wanted to check out the Worldbox replacement chest pieces, so I picked one of them up. (Pale, E Cup)

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t6822-new-product-worldbox-1-6-female-body-interchangeable-bust-chest-piece-different-bust-sizes?highlight=worldbox



The assembly was self-explanatory. The body did not feel fragile at all, so no preheating of the joints before disassembly was required.





The hands provided by Worldbox were of noteworthy quality and are, in my opinion, much better than the hands offered by TBLeague. They also include different hand gestures other than the usual relaxed, gripping, and gun-holding hands.



Here's how the outfit ended up looking on the AT202 body. The top was a tight squeeze due to the large bust, but the overall fit was excellent. I went with the Light Apricot long-sleeved top and the Ochre Red yoga pants. With the base outfit completed and out of the way, I could then proceed to look at accessories.



I picked up a pair of 1/6-scale jade bracelets and a bunch of 1/6-scale metal rings from Taobao. They were from one of the smaller, handmade accessory shops. I forgot which shop exactly, but I'm sure it can be easily searched for. I bought 1/6-scale socks from Hasuki. Fire Girl Toys is usually my go-to when it comes to 1/6 scale stockings and socks, but I decided to give Hasuki a try. If anything, the packaging is nice. Lastly, I got a pair of sneakers from ChuWorks. ChuWorks is definitely the most premium when it comes to 1/6-scale sneakers. There's fabric on the shoe and real laces. It's not a solid piece of plastic like most 1/6 scale shoes. I think this pair cost me about $40 so it's definitely meant to be a more premium piece.







The shoes are pretty nice. I actually own a pair like that IRL. It's a very comfortable sneaker. The build is more or less complete at this point, but I decided to add a choker. Most 1/6-scale chokers are made of pleather and disintegrate over time. They also include a large clasp, which ends up making the neck look bulky, especially at the back. I decided to make my own choker using 3mm suede leather cord I bought on eBay. I cut it to size and then glued it in place. That way, I'm able to get an exact fit for the neck circumference.



At this point, I like to dial in the pose I want first before adding a head sculpt. I'm using two diecast sais that are from EdStar studios. The display base is from ZYToys (ZY3020). I swear by these things. They are ~$1 a pop and have a very small profile. And they're made of metal. I've ordered like 30 of these bases, and they are the only display bases I use. I would definitely recommend.



For the head sculpt, I'm using the Jeanne Alter head sculpt from LongShan:

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t4599-new-product-longshan-heavy-industry-1-6-joan-of-arc-die-cast-alloy-joan-of-arc-movable-figure-sl2021-06a?highlight=longshan



So when I buy head sculpts, all I look at is the face shape. I don't really care about the paintjob or the rooted hair; that can always be modified. As Jeanne Alter is an "evil" character in F/GO, this sculpt was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a sculpt that looked villainous, attractive, and had a "resting b**** face." Think "Mean Girls". The hair I'm using is a natural black saran hair obtained from Taobao.



The head sculpt was repainted and rerooted using an adhesive method similar to the technique described in the tutorial by GF.

Full disclosure: I don't paint and reroot these myself; they were painted by an artist based in Hong Kong by the name of HeadArtFactory. I've been working with this artist for 6-7 years now and have commissioned probably two dozen heads over the years. There are tons of artists that do 1/6 scale customs on the market, but HeadArtFactory is the artist I like the best since they have an aesthetic that I enjoy. Like with most artists, prices are high, but, in my opinion, you get what you pay for.





The hair is quite reflective, so it's a bit difficult to take a photo of it using flash. Here's a picture without flash. If you couldn't tell, I'm a complete amateur when it comes to taking photos. Sorry about that, haha. There's a bit of superglue residue from gluing the rooted hair that's visible near the forehead if you look closely, but other than that, I think it turned out well.



To conclude, I think Worldbox's yoga outfit set is excellent. The material used was pretty good (some kind of synthetic, not sure), and it was unusually expensive at $10 a pop. The price definitely reflects the quality. Since I'm using both a body and outfit set from Worldbox, it would be a no-brainer that everything should fit together properly. I think the outfit set accentuates the hourglass figure on the AT202, especially the large thighs. I wanted to build a modern, casual outfit figure for quite some time, so I'm glad to finally add that to the collection. My overall impression of WorldBox female bodies is that if having a seamless body is not absolutely essential, then a WorldBox body is better than TBLeague in every way except for articulation.

To answer why I bothered with commissioning a custom head, I'm a bit peculiar when it comes to 1/6 scale head sculpts. I have a background in miniature painting and garage kits, so I think most 1/6 scale female head sculpts on the market are not up to the standard that I am accustomed to. Except for maybe i8Toys; they're great. But yeah, as you'll see, every 1/6 scale female figure I own has a custom head sculpt.

P.S. GF, or another mod, I would like to write about the build for the following figure next, but I'd like to know if I need to censor the chest or if adding a NSFW disclaimer title is enough. The top is quite sheer, and the chest is somewhat visible.

Spoiler:

Now that was a pleasant read. I think you dis a great job in structuring your post and adding all the information anyone can ask for (and many pictures)

I really much like how the figure turned out, I love the 202 and the set looks very good.
And I can totally see why you pay for custom heads, that one looks badass cool on her especially with the sais.

Great "review" on your custom build.

Really nice bash, and clever way to hide all he joints using longer clothes. Excellent work

Nice job, Zes, and it's great to see your process. It certainly makes good sense, and you picked up some very appropriate pieces. That ring is the one that stood out the most to me, actually.
As for your next project, unless another Moderator thinks otherwise, I think it's ok, even if a little see-through. Just make sure you pixelate or otherwise obscure anything explicit, please.

Valiarde wrote:Now that was a pleasant read. I think you dis a great job in structuring your post and adding all the information anyone can ask for (and many pictures)

I really much like how the figure turned out, I love the 202 and the set looks very good.
And I can totally see why you pay for custom heads, that one looks badass cool on her especially with the sais.

Great "review" on your custom build.

BAMComix wrote:Really nice bash, and clever way to hide all he joints using longer clothes. Excellent work

Thanks, Valiarde and BAMComix; I appreciate it!

GubernatorFan wrote:Nice job, Zes, and it's great to see your process. It certainly makes good sense, and you picked up some very appropriate pieces. That ring is the one that stood out the most to me, actually.
As for your next project, unless another Moderator thinks otherwise, I think it's ok, even if a little see-through. Just make sure you pixelate or otherwise obscure anything explicit, please.

Cool, and of course, anything explicit will be pixelated, similar to the pictures of the Worldbox body in this thread.

I found the link for the rings on Taobao. Taobao's getting more and more user-unfriendly over the years for users not based in China, but, luckily, it was simple to find.

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=637854776597



They're about ~$3 a pop. The band is metal instead of plastic, like most 1/6 scale rings, and there's a nice assortment of colors.

Thanks for the extra info on the rings.

She is gorgeous!!! The transformation of the head is beautiful! You got a very good eye for sculpts.  

The yoga set is beautiful, too. Obviously and by nature a good match to that beautiful body. 
I still don't like the knee joints being visible under skin tight clothes... But boots with an attached knee pad (does that style have a name?) could cover that and I could justify it for my character...

Thank you for this beautiful presentation and all the detailed information! Sure speaks to my muse.

Great use case for a jointed body.
And yes, the head turned out great.

Thank you for the careful picture progress and so many details, I appreciate seeing the Worldbox bodies and how they adapt to clothing, heads and accessories etc. Those custom headsculpts look a bit dangerous, I imagine once you have one it’s difficult to restrain your wish for more - although probably a little scary for the wallet!

Looks good Zes! I look forward to what else you post. I am very intrigued by those rings, so thank you for posting the additional information!

those NB sneaks really do look amazing ive never heard of chu works before!
and upon looking on ali and ebay there were none to be found which is probably why!
can you still not order on toabao if you live in the UK i wonder???

Diana wrote:I still don't like the knee joints being visible under skin tight clothes... But boots with an attached knee pad (does that style have a name?) could cover that and I could justify it for my character...

I get what you mean. I tried fiddling with the yoga pants so they don't hug the body at the knees, but that was to no avail as they're skin-tight, as you said. Technically, knee pads could work with this outfit as a fitness/powerlifting knee pad to fit the whole "gym" theme.

teamweapon wrote:those NB sneaks really do look amazing ive never heard of chu works before!
and upon looking on ali and ebay there were none to be found which is probably why!
can you still not order on toabao if you live in the UK i wonder???

Not entirely sure, as I'm US-based. I order from Taobao through a proxy (Superbuy). I just checked, and most of the ChuWorks shoes are sold out, but they still have this NB pair and a few others. The ones that are sized "small" are for female figures.

She's deadly looking cool lady, good job.

Not sure how I missed this thread. Excellent work. They did a great job on the head sculpt, and your figure and presentation overall is excellent. Nice job.

Alright, now that I have some free time to write this, I figured I'd write about this next build that I teased in my original post.

Figure Build 2: i8Toys Nun Outfit

I picked up a TBLeague S52 after getting hyped up that it would be similar to a S42 but with detachable feet. Though it turned out that the body shape was quite different from the S42. Regardless, I had this body in storage for a while and was debating what I wanted to do with it.

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t6768-new-product-phicen-tbleague-s52-s53



This was the only case where I actually liked the head sculpt that came with the figure. Usually, TBLeague head sculpts are misses for me, but this one was surprisingly nice. So I opted to order the version with the head.

Fast forward a couple of months later, and i8Toys finally released their highly anticipated Zero outfit set. So I figured I might as well use that for the build. I specifically liked the pose holding the noose in the prototype pictures and wanted to replicate it. However, the outfit set did not come with 1/6 scale rope, so I'd have to figure that out on my own. I won't be using the Zero head sculpt, despite it looking fantastic, and am using that for a separate build. I wanted to use a lighter hair color for this build.



https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t7027-new-product-i8toys-1-6-healing-nun-set-zero-nsfw

So this outfit is based on one of those Nun Cosplay outfits that hit the cosplay scene in the past year. Many cosplayers have worn outfits similar to this set.





Regarding the S52 head, I like the face shape, but I wasn't a fan of the grey hair color. The eye decals on my head sculpt were also misaligned.



I sent that over to HeadartFactory, the same artist that worked on the head sculpt of my previous build. I specified I wanted blue eyes and this silk hair color called "Champagne Rose." Here's what the head sculpt looked like after the modification. One benefit of using this head is that I know it'll 100% fit on the S52 body.





The hair doesn't photograph well; it's more of a light rose color instead of blonde. Now that I have the head sculpt I can proceed with the build.



So, I have recently not been using stock TBLeague bodies. I bought my TBLeague bodies from a Japanese artist on Yahoo Auctions. He buys the bodies, does some "modifications," and sells them for about 3x the price. As I have a Yahoo Auctions account, I'm able to contact this artist directly and request what modifications I want specifically. Making a Yahoo Auctions account can be a hassle now as you need a Japanese phone number. I would link to this seller's page, but the images are pretty explicit, so I don't think I can do so.



With the recent talk of seamless bodies being censored, I am glad I'm able to buy from this artist. Though I am unsure of how the newly censored TBLeague bodies will affect this artist's work.

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t7732-now-censored-tbleague-phicen-and-other-seamless-bodies

To get back on track, there are a few different pieces I added to this build that were not part of the i8Toys outfit set. I had to buy different 1/6-scale heels because the ones included did not fit the S52's massive feet. I bought a black pair from goldenstreet_88 on Taobao. They also go by the name "ZoeDoll." For some reason, the heel pair of feet included with the S52 body is extremely loose. And I checked two different S52 bodies. Does anyone else have this issue?



The white stockings provided by i8Toys were also a bit small, so I replaced them with a pair from Fire Girl Toys, my go-to when it comes to stockings.




Other than these minor issues, the test fit of the body went surprisingly well. There are few instances in this hobby where things would fit together perfectly. This is one of these rare cases. To be fair, I did scour the user comments regarding this i8Toys outfit set on Taobao, and I saw that a few customers managed to get a S42 body to wear the clothes successfully.



I also picked up a handmade 1/6 scale cross from Taobao, as well as the same type of ring I used in my last build.




Lastly, I need to source some 1/6-scale rope. I found two potential sources one from the SwToys Lady Adler and another from an old TBLeague Cowgirl figure. I ended up using the TBLeague one since the rope was thicker. I did have to redo the hangman's knot, which was...fun. Try typing "how to tie a noose" into google hah.



Here's the figure with everything put together. I'm really proud of how this one turned out. As I mentioned previously, there are a few instances where a custom fits together without any issue. I usually have to buy multiples of every outfit piece to find one that fits properly on the body I'm using.

Pretty cool. I don’t know how I feel about the repaint; she looks a little bored (or maybe stoned?). Overall, a nice figure.

Theboo-bomb wrote:She's deadly looking cool lady, good job.

Stryker2012 wrote:Pretty cool. I don’t know how I feel about the repaint; she looks a little bored (or maybe stoned?). Overall, a nice figure.

Thanks! I appreciate it! I did request an "apathetic" expression, but I think the stock head sculpt already had that kind of expression to begin with.

She looks creepy, and as far as I can tell, that is how she is supposed to look.
Also, a good example of a look on the brink of being explicit but not exactly explicit (if that makes sense).
Nicely done custom, overall.

Nice work on the figures!  I was wondering about the body makeup on these characters, and it's good to know an artist was adding something not normally in the box.  

Thanks for sharing these.

The look you were going for is not one that works for me, personally, but your customization worked out very well. I would have used a smaller-breasted body, but I suppose that's me missing the point. I like the repaint better than the original, and I assumed you were going for this otherwise disconcerting expression. The hassle of having to buy multiple pieces for the same thing until one fits is familiar, and you were indeed lucky with finding them first time you tried.

Interesting custom figures, although I don't really understand the attraction of this nun costumes. Possibly I'm just too old

I really like the repainted heads and the custom hair. Very well done.

Spartan06 wrote:Nice work on the figures!  I was wondering about the body makeup on these characters, and it's good to know an artist was adding something not normally in the box.  

Thanks for sharing these.

It's not just makeup; the silicone is also modified, and new silicone is added. It's more obvious with the "uncensored" pictures of the body, but I don't think I can post them.

GubernatorFan wrote:The look you were going for is not one that works for me, personally, but your customization worked out very well. I would have used a smaller-breasted body, but I suppose that's me missing the point. I like the repaint better than the original, and I assumed you were going for this otherwise disconcerting expression. The hassle of having to buy multiple pieces for the same thing until one fits is familiar, and you were indeed lucky with finding them first time you tried.

Yep, disconcerting sounds about right for these two figures. The next few customs I have will look more "regular." I have a Star Wars custom in the works that I think you'll like.

Randam Hajile wrote:Interesting custom figures, although I don't really understand the attraction of this nun costumes. Possibly I'm just too old

I really like the repainted heads and the custom hair. Very well done.

I don't get it either, but I just really liked how the i8Toys Zero looked in that pose holding the rope. And I had that outfit laying around since I bought the set for the Zero Head Sculpt, mostly.

Ha! The nun came out really well didn't she? I think when it comes to building a character, or kitbash we all have our own ideas of how to go about it. I think for the theme of the fig you were going for, your choices worked out well. Body shapes in figures is a lot like real life, not everyone will be happy with certain looks, but if you like it, then ts a win in my book . Nice work.

BAMComix wrote:Ha! The nun came out really well didn't she? I think when it comes to building a character, or kitbash we all have our own ideas of how to go about it. I think for the theme of the fig you were going for, your choices worked out well. Body shapes in figures is a lot like real life, not everyone will be happy with certain looks, but if you like it, then ts a win in my book . Nice work.

Thanks! Yeah, when this i8Toys set was released, I was scouring Taobao for in-hand pictures. I did not want to use a Worldbox body like in the promotional pics since the joints would be visible. It was interesting to see that they were selling the set bundled with an S42 body on Taobao. I took a look, and the proportions did look good, so I decided to go with the similar S52 body.

and it worked out beautifully in my opinion .