The Hero With No Fear (Sideshow TCW Anakin upgrade)

"This is Anakin Skywalker:

The most powerful Jedi of his generation. Perhaps of any generation. The fastest. The strongest. An unbeatable pilot. An unstoppable warrior. On the ground, in the air or sea or space, there is no one even close. He has not just power, not just skill, but dash: that rare, invaluable combination of boldness and grace. He is the best there is at what he does. The best there has ever been. And he knows it. HoloNet features call him the Hero With No Fear. And why not? What should he be afraid of?

Except—

Fear lives inside him anyway, chewing away the firewalls around his heart."

—Matthew Stover, Revenge of the Sith


So here he is.... early Clone Wars-style General Skywalker himself.

While I'm sure I'm hardly the first to do a kitbash like this, given how much the show and character mean to me, it's one I've been dying to put together for ages. It's probably one of the 'easiest' figures I've done, but was nonetheless held up for months due to a mix of indecisiveness about what direction I wanted to take this project, along with my inability to find some important pieces. Massive thank you to both Stryker and scalawag for helping me acquire certain extremely crucial parts for this one -- I'd not have been able to complete it otherwise!

List of parts:

- Hot Toys Anakin Skywalker headsculpt
- DAM Toys body -- don't remember exactly what type, but narrow-shouldered to accommodate the armour
- Sideshow General Anakin Skywalker clothing, armour, and lightsaber -- trousers re-tailored to fit the DAM body and to be more accurate to the animated version, as they were far too baggy, even on the original Sideshow body.
- Hot Toys Anakin boots and utility belt
- Extra gloved fist/grip hand + extra DAM wrist pegs


The 'photoshoot' is pretty basic, I know, but it's all I have the capability, time, tools, and space to do at this stage. I hadn't even intended to take pics of this figure yet, let alone post them, but when I was trying the headsculpt on it the other day, I couldn't resist. :3

Consider this just a little teaser for now....I have so many plans for this figure, and for my other WIPs to come! : )

Nicely done, S. Looks good. I think the few photos you’ve taken do justice to your bash.

Aww, cheers, Stryker -- makes me so happy to finally have him finished. Thank you again for all your help. :'')

He looks fantastic. Very nicely done. I am not a huge fan of The Clone Wars series, but I can appreciate the work that has gone in to get this looking right.

Paul

I agree, your bash looks great, and the photos are both stylish and evocative.

Indeed, he looks so real! Well, he is real, but looks so much alive, LOL

Looks great Always liked Anakins (and Obi's) merging of armor with the Jedi robes. Grats on getting your first done!

Thanks, everyone — appreciate the kind words.

GF, glad you like the vibe of the photos... I tried to capture some of the ‘noir-ish’ dramatic lighting that the show uses.

Peaches, that makes me so happy to know he looks ‘alive’ in these shots. Credit to the amazing HT sculpt — it is a stunningly beautiful piece of sculpture in its own right.

And yes, ravrohan, I agree, I enjoy their early Clone Wars armour, the way Obi-Wan’s so fittingly sets him up as this ‘white knight’ figure, and of course the way Anakin’s evokes aspects of Vader’s design. I chose to use this look to illustrate ‘the Hero With No Fear’ theme in large part because of that very tragic irony — because of Anakin’s immense ‘Fear of Loss’, it is not until after his fall, once he is imprisoned in the Vader suit, that he becomes this dark and twisted take on the title. He finally becomes ‘the Hero With No Fear’.... but only because he has nothing  left to lose. ;_;

While of course I knew the era and subject matter wouldn’t be everyone’s cuppa, I was nonetheless keen to share my interpretation here since this ongoing/planned TCW project is something I’ve had in the works for such a long time, and is what led me to seek out and join this forum.   Due to my indecisiveness and lack of experience when first starting out, the entire project had up til recently been moving at a rather glacial pace — so I thought that maybe if I took the plunge and finally starting posting about it, I’d be able to motivate myself to see it through. ;D

So, I appreciate the encouragement — a lot has been hinging on this figure, and I'm incredibly relieved it ‘works’. : )

very nice work, he looks great!

blackpool wrote:very nice work, he looks great!

Thank you, blackpool! At some point when I have better lighting set-up, I'll try to incorporate that 'lightsaber fx' app you were mentioning in another thread. : )

He looks great! And the pictures are beautiful. I love the hard shadows and dramatic lighting, and the way the light hit the lightsabre against the black background really makes it glow and pop. Totally dig it.

ReverendSpooky wrote:He looks great!  And the pictures are beautiful.  I love the hard shadows and dramatic lighting, and the way the light hit the lightsabre against the black background really makes it glow and pop.  Totally dig it.

Thanks so much, Rev! Honoured you like the photos. And ahh, yeah, the lightsaber was a very pleasant surprise.... I hadn't been all that impressed with the Sideshow lightsabers until I saw this one backlit like that, and it practically glowed even without an LED light. Turned out to be such a nice effect, and I just sort of ran with it. :')

Very nice indeed. Not really into Star Wars but it does look great! I do have a few faves like Darth Vader and Yoda. Would have loved Mace if they didn't neuter his bad @$$ in the movies. :/

Aw, thanks, doodlehobby! You are so good at posing and photographing your figures, so it means a lot that you like these. : )

here is a quick try with a free app named "laser sword fx", it's available for iphones, don't know for androids...

There is a loss of definition, even more on this attempt as the app is basically set to work with landscape pictures, not portraits... (that was a quick test in a few seconds, rotating the picture before editing would have given a better result, stupid me was too rushy lol)

On this one I just set a blue lightsaber, and added another of their preset effects which makes the halo at the base of the saber...



There are other mobile apps to achieve the same thing, "lightsaber sfx", "sabre this", the quality varies, it needs some testing.

Oh, very cool, thank you for the example! It's nice to see how it would look! I'll try out the various apps as soon as I get a chance.

That is cool! Man, I'm still spinning from the smiling app, LOL

Nicely done!

CHEERS!

Thanks, Roger!

Apologies for dredging up this old thread, but I need some help finding something and didn't want to start an entirely new thread for it ... 

I'd like to upgrade the body on this kitbash, mainly because it was just a quick one to begin with and I used an old secondhand DamToys body which unfortunately has quite loose joints. It would be nice to be able to pose him in more dramatic action poses, so I'm looking for a new body. 

However, because of the outfit, I'm limited in terms of what I can use. I can't use a CooModel cause the chests on those are too large to fit the armour. I thought about a WorldBox body, but I'm not 100% certain the ankles would be compatible with the Hot Toys boots. I've obviously considered a tbleague body as well, but the issue is again compatibility with the HT boots [they have a built in peg rather than hollow space for a peg] and also my concern that the metal chest/shoulder armour might not fit a tbleague body. So my thought was to just a get a new DamToys body, since at least I'd be fairly certain of the fit. 

The only issue is that it seems like most of the loose/parted out military type Dam bodies out there these days have built-in necks. Again, not a dealbreaker since I could mod the sculpt to be neckless. However, the issue is the skintone matching, since the neck is visible on this figure. Does anyone know if the DamToys male skintone matches the Hot Toys male headsculpt skintone? 


The only DamToys body with a more narrow shoulder that I know of that doesn't have an attached neck is that one that is sold with an old Daryl Dixon head sculpt. But it's quite pricey -- 45 gbp or something like that -- and I'm trying to avoid spending that much on a jointed body. If it's the only option, I'll go for it, but thought I'd see if any of those parted out bodies might be useable first, just in case.

You could try the WorldBox AT025 - it’s a narrow shoulder body with removable ankle pegs and a removable neck.

Ah ok — so it definitely has one of those empty sockets for the ball peg to go in on the ankle ? It was a hard to ascertain from just the pics ...

Part of the problem in answering this question is that HT male skin tone varies -- both from sculpt to sculpt and more generally over time -- there used to be a bit of a pattern that they were a bit darker than TBLeague male "suntan," but now they are usually a bit lighter. WB025 is a good body, and I think we have it reviewed on here.

You have done I think , I’m just being forgetful . :3

You have to heat up the ankle and use a needle nose plier to pull the peg out.