Head Conversion Tutorial (updated with Part III - June 2019)

useful and fun!!! Thanks a lot for that continuation of the tutorial! (starlord makes a great animator showman lol)

Thank you blackpool. I'm very happy you liked the addendum, too!
This Star-Lord is a reconstituted figure (one of several where I have bought a few of the pieces from the boxed set and put them together) that doesn't have its own box so is usually lying around. So it is an easy go-to when I need a figure to use as an example or prop or to borrow a head (now that I've made it swappable).

Great choice, I recently grabbed him and he is very cool, very lifelike, the head has great potential... I started doing the same as you for some hot toys figures, waiting for a part out and grabbing only the most important bits, I made my harley quinn this way

Blackpool -- the problem with reconstituting figures is that if you end up choosing/having to buy a lot of parted-out pieces, in the end you will pay more for less (i.e., you might as well have bought the boxed set when it was still readily available and relatively lower in price). I learned that lesson recently with HT Anakin Skywalker (a figure I had not planned on getting, since I am not a fan of the Prequels by any measure -- and that is putting it very very positively).

Anyway, I've been converting more heads, including the one below (another thing I had not planned on getting). An odd little kitbash is coming up soon.

I fell into that trap with my HT Godfather, just getting the head, hands and gear cost me more than the boxed figure would have! I spread the cost, but, I was shocked when I found out my total spend.

CHEERS!

Rogerbee wrote:I fell into that trap with my HT Godfather, just getting the head, hands and gear cost me more than the boxed figure would have! I spread the cost, but, I was shocked when I found out my total spend.

I know your pain!

Very educational and useful, thanks!

I honestly wouldn't have known how important it was to heat the head, I really appreciate this tutorial because I see this in my future Thanks @GubernatorFan

Adeno wrote:Very educational and useful, thanks!

Thank you, glad you found it so!

Peaches wrote:I honestly wouldn't have known how important it was to heat the head, I really appreciate this tutorial because I see this in my future  Thanks @GubernatorFan

Thank you, glad it will come in useful!

this was helpful in my first de-necking! especially the tip of filling the head with sticky sponge
THANKS!!!!

teamweapon wrote:this was helpful in my first de-necking! especially the tip of filling the head with sticky sponge THANKS!!!!

You are very welcome, glad it worked out!

My bank account will not be thanking you, but I am.

Aria wrote:My bank account will not be thanking you, but I am.

You are very welcome! Glad it was helpful. And tell your bank account I am sorry.

Fantastic ! Thanks for showing, very helpful.I did it with the Rowan Atkinson Sculpt, because i need different emotions for a figure. Yes i know much work, but it was before we use the face App

Part III: "slides" 25-31
For Part I see post 1 above; for Part II see post 16 above

By popular demand, the tutorial is extended to address a slightly different type of head that is somewhat more difficult to modify than the examples in parts I and II above.















Why the silly storyline? Check out the Star Wars A Negative Body Image Story thread HERE.

Hope this was useful.

Ahhh, brilliantly done! Thanks so much for taking the plunge and trying this out. As always, excellent photos, easy to understand directions, and delightful humour. This is the tutorial I’ve been waiting for! :’D

I also appreciate how you cleverly avoided the mechno arm situation in that final pose.

Nicely done on the Anakin head. Having the pieces be separate, though glued together, makes the job that much easier.

skywalkersaga wrote:Ahhh, brilliantly done! Thanks so much for taking the plunge and trying this out.  As always, excellent photos, easy to understand directions, and delightful humour.  This is the tutorial I’ve been waiting for! :’D I also appreciate how you cleverly avoided the mechno arm situation in that final pose.

Thank you and you're welcome. It was bound to happen sometime -- on principle. Glad you found the humor delightful, too. And that clever avoidance of the mechno arm situation -- totally planned ahead! Actually sometimes one gets lucky without being clever. I noticed that in all the photos where it would show (here and in the photo story), I had inadvertently hidden it behind something else -- so when I remembered about it and looked, it was a relief.

Stryker2011 wrote:Nicely done on the Anakin head. Having the pieces be separate, though glued together, makes the job that much easier.

Thank you very much. Yes, it is a specific and in this instance helpful subset of head sculpt types -- HT does them this way to have more realistic hair. If the head and hair were one piece out of the mold, this would have been an entirely different story which would probably not have been told. Mind you, I did modify the head sculpt used to recreate your fireman in the New Superhero Revealed? thread that way (but that did not involve denecking)...

Problems with fitting the head onto the action figure's neck pin?

Apart from the foamies solution illustrated above, you can check out additional ideas in the Neck Connector Adjustment Tutorials:
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1859-neck-connector-adjustment-tutorials

Part I in post 2 (replacement for a neck connector that is too loose in the head cavity)
Part II in post 13 (fixing a head connector that is too loose in the head cavity)

Have you ever denecked a head where the head and hair was all one piece?

ironman1188 wrote:Have you ever denecked a head where the head and hair was all one piece?

Yes, all the time. Look at the very first example. But I suspect you mean where there is long sculpted hair that covers the normal cut line at the back of the neck and an integral neck all parts of a single continuous sculpt. That I generally try to avoid, but it is doable -- especially if we are talking PVC rather than resin (that is just too messy and hazardous to one's health). I can't think of specific heads where I have done it, but the the front part works the same as above. The back part, on the outside, trace the hairline (where it meets the neck) with the cut, then whittle/dremel away the interior a bit (for any protruding hair you only really need the outside/easily visible surface), and paint over it as needed, just in case something shows.

GubernatorFan wrote:

ironman1188 wrote:Have you ever denecked a head where the head and hair was all one piece?

Yes, all the time. Look at the very first example. But I suspect you mean where there is long sculpted hair that covers the normal cut line at the back of the neck and an integral neck all parts of a single continuous sculpt. That I generally try to avoid, but it is doable -- especially if we are talking PVC rather than resin (that is just too messy and hazardous to one's health). I can't think of specific heads where I have done it, but the the front part works the same as above. The back part, on the outside, trace the hairline (where it meets the neck) with the cut, then whittle/dremel away the interior a bit (for any protruding hair you only really need the outside/easily visible surface), and paint over it as needed, just in case something shows.

Thanks!

I may be getting "adventurous" this weekend!

ironman1188 wrote:Thanks! I may be getting "adventurous" this weekend!

You are welcome. I wish I had an example I could find to show. But take your time, remember you can always cut more, but never less, and I think you'll be alright, even if it isn't the easiest mod. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Good luck.

Superb tutorial , very confidently done , and well explained . I don`t think I would be brave enough to do it personally , but you never know and it`s great to have such a good guide to follow if I ever did .

Chip wrote:Superb tutorial , very confidently done , and well explained . I don`t think I would be brave enough to do it personally , but you never know and it`s great to have such a good guide to follow if I ever did .

Get ahold of a cheap head sculpt with a neck for practice. I think you’ll find once you do it, it’s easier than you might think, as long as you keep heating the head up. Do it once, and then suddenly modding head sculpts in general doesn’t seem so terrifying anymore. Same with adding real hair; it’s a messy, ad time consuming process, but it gets easier the more you do it.

Stryker2011 wrote:

Chip wrote:Superb tutorial , very confidently done , and well explained . I don`t think I would be brave enough to do it personally , but you never know and it`s great to have such a good guide to follow if I ever did .

Get ahold of a cheap head sculpt with a neck for practice. I think you’ll find once you do it, it’s easier than you might think, as long as you keep heating the head up. Do it once, and then suddenly modding head sculpts in general doesn’t seem so terrifying anymore. Same with adding real hair; it’s a messy, ad time consuming process, but it gets easier the more you do it.

Agree with this. I did about three practice runs before I attempted to add hair to a headculpt, and it helped a lot. I made some common mistakes with the first try, and then had a chance to improve on it a couple times before I finally felt confident to do it on the actual head in question. It's a good way to get over one's fear of modd'ing. : )

Chip wrote:Superb tutorial , very confidently done , and well explained . I don`t think I would be brave enough to do it personally , but you never know and it`s great to have such a good guide to follow if I ever did .

Thank you very much. I hope it was informative and gave you ideas. And, like Stryker said, don't be intimidated, just take it slowly and it will work; can't hurt to try it out with a practice run. Good luck.

I had ago .

  I am fairly happy how it turned out too . This was my first attempt , I just threw caution to the wind and went for it . This is a Dragon head onto a Coomodel body . I did have spares of this head so it wouldn`t of been a total loss . But it went o.k , and not as hard as I thought . It`s not perfect , but I can live with it .   At least you know your time and shared techniques are helping us out Ian . Thank You .

Chip wrote:I had ago .

  I am fairly happy how it turned out too . This was my first attempt , I just threw caution to the wind and went for it . This is a Dragon head onto a Coomodel body . I did have spares of this head so it wouldn`t of been a total loss . But it went o.k , and not as hard as I thought . It`s not perfect , but I can live with it .   At least you know your time and shared techniques are helping us out Ian . Thank You .

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm very happy it has been helpful. As mentioned elsewhere, I like what you've done, and I think you're well on your way to make it perfect -- while I recognize that there may be some limitations imposed on you by the size and nature of the head sculpt and the neck.