Converting newer Phicen seamless feet figures into regular figures

Earlier this year I got Phicen's s34 figure with seamless feet, and within the last week I got the Nefertiti/s43 body which also has seamless feet. I think the upcoming s42/s43's might be the nicest bodies Phicen's released in awhile, but like everyone else I'm not excited about the floppy feet. I decided I was going to try and convert the figure into a regular styled figure with peg and socket feet, but I would start with the s34 as a trial run, as I don't like it as much as the s43.

I've seen tutorials about converting Phicen's older seamless feet into regular feet, but the skeletal structure of the ankle area has changed since the previous seamless feet models. The new skeleton has a solid rod running all the way through the ankle, with a join that allows the foot to rotate. From what I can tell the earlier models had a kind of hollow structure for the ankle joint, as seen in this thread-

https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1872-tb-league-rubber-feet-replacement?highlight=converting+feet

The new ones don't have that two-pronged look holding the ankle joint in place. I took a hacksaw and cut off the foot right above where the joint attaches to the rod.





I forgot to take a picture of the ankle skeleton before cutting it, and I mangled the foot a little bit but you can see where I cut the rod just above the anklejoint. It should be simple enough to attach with super glue some kind of ball to imitate the non-seamless feet figures.



This is a picture of the 3d model I'm printing off with Shapeways. I measured the ball on another figure to be 1/4 inches wide, and the metal rod to be 1/8 inches thick, so hopefully this comes out of the printer correctly. If it's a bit too big I can cut or sand it down to size. I tried making a ball with sculpey and baking it, and while I got it to fit the clay ultimately crumbled under the pressure of sticking the peg into the foot and moving it around. I'm optimistic something more durable will ultimately be successful.

I placed my printing order yesterday, so it should be around 2 weeks or so before I actually get the pieces and try it out. I'll post more pictures when I do, as I thought someone else might like to try to do the same thing with their floppy feet figures.

A very promising beginning. Looking forward to the successful conclusion.

I’m excited to see how this turns out. You may end up with a bunch of requests for ankle balls if it does.

Yeah, this is a great idea! Something that had occured to me as a possibility, but I just didn't have the tools/wherewithal to attempt it. Thanks for being courageous and going ahead and doing it! I know TPB also did a seamless foot conversation a while back, though he actually created a 'foot' to go with it. The ankle ball peg is also a very good idea to make it even more versatile.

This is pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing your mod.

I'm sorry but i find the whole operation questionable. In that it does not appear to have been carried out under the most aseptic conditions I note ungloved hands no sterile field or proper operating theatre.

I assume the head was kept anesthetised throughout the procedure or that this was surgery performed on a cadaver !

All I can say is please no more monsters there will be enough about tonight (evil cackle ensues, oct 31st)

To be honest (joking aside) good job although I am assuming that the ball joints you are having made are steel how are you going to fix them in place?

Does Shapeways make stuff in steal? That would be cool if they did. If it’s resin, a good 2-part epoxy should work to affix them — but it would be tricky to use enough to make it adhere and not end up bulking out the ankle area.

For this order I ended up using a kind of hard plastic, as I figured that would work more effectively with superglue and the metal rod. Also, if the dimensions ended up not quite being accurate I would at least be able to sand or slice away parts of it to make it fit, whereas with metal I wasn't sure I would be able to do that.

Shapeways does offer a metal option, but I've yet to use it for anything so I don't know what the quality is like.

Successful ankle surgery!



This is the s34. Now I'm more motivated to actually make an outfit for this body at some point since she can stand up on her own now. She's using a pair of s28 feet. They look a little on the large side but I don't have any extra feet sets at the moment.



I got the ankle balls from Shapeways this morning. They're made out of a kind of tough plastic. The hole in the top ended up being a little too small so I had to take a hobby knife and carve out more space for the metal rod, but with a little superglue they seem to stay on just fine. I don't have any problems putting on or removing the feet.

Next up is to do my s43/Nefertiti body, although I'll need to buy some more spare feet from ebay.

Whoa, love this mad science and engineering! Well done!

Wow, it looks great!! Even better that she can stand up on her own! I'm super impressed. Keep up the good work!

That turned out excellent. Nice job.

This is awesome!! Thank you so much! The S43 has been giving me ideas like this actually...

Very cool! nice work!

Very well done! I'm glad you conquered this challenge. And the feet look fine.

Yeah, I didn't even notice the feet being 'too big', they look fine to me. Not every woman has tiny dainty feet.

I'm wowed by the courage and genius of this attempt!

Tried out converting an s04 seamless feet figure into a pegged foot version, and this one seems to have been successful too. I don't have any extra pale feet, so I had to use a pair of feet I painted brown. It would seem this method works for both and older and newer seamless feet figures.



It was a little trickier to glue the plastic balls to the skeleton because of the different ankle structure of the s04, but I was able to get them to stick after a few attempts. I only ordered to pairs of plastic balls from Shapeways, so I'll have to order some more before I can convert my Nefertiti body, which is up next.

Congratulations! Another successful surgery. And I'm sure she's grateful that she can stand.

Got my second batch of ball joints in the mail today, and performed another successful surgery on my s43/Nefertiti body. This time I made the holes in the ball a little bigger, and they slipped on perfectly.

This is what the foot looks like before cutting. I just slice the ankle off right above the head of the joint.




The tools I've been using. X-acto for slicing off the foot, and a hacksaw/wire cutters for cutting off the ankle joint. A dremel would probably cut the metal a lot faster, but I opted for the cheaper tool. I just used super glue to attach the balls to the metal, so far it's held up.




Here she is, happily standing on her own.







Standing next to the s34, which I did earlier. All in all, it's not a very complicated operation to do for those who like the seamless figures but want something that can stand on its own. I've attached the 3d file I used for the ball so you can get on printed off yourself if you like.

https://mega.nz/file/ITR3HKxZ#wguvQeMD35h8hisF8k2wsOePx0U0_vHF0rjHr_pOb9M

Beautifully done, once again. And it is ever so nice of you to make available your ball joint design to the rest of the community. Surely, karma points! So the hacksaw cuts through the steel lower legs? Then what is the role of the wire cutters? I've got some heavy-duty wire-cutters and wonder if they would do the job without recourse to a hacksaw.

I used the hacksaw to cut through enough of the metal to be able to use the wirecutters to finish it off. I could have just used the hacksaw, but it would have taken longer. The heavy duty wirecutters might work, but I will say I was pretty impressed with the strength of the metal. It certainly is durable.

gooboo wrote:I used the hacksaw to cut through enough of the metal to be able to use the wirecutters to finish it off. I could have just used the hacksaw, but it would have taken longer. The heavy duty wirecutters might work, but I will say I was pretty impressed with the strength of the metal. It certainly is durable.

Thank you for the clarification. Makes sense. Yes, I'm impressed with the strength of both the metal skeleton and of the silicone TPE flesh.

This is a pretty good guide to do the same, I applaud your ankle surgery skills.

Didn't notice this at first, but it seems like converting the figure from a seamless body might have shortened the figure a bit overall. Here it's standing next to an s28 and the Viking Woman body, and the VW body is noticeably taller now. I remember them being roughly the same heigh previously.



So yeah if you weren't crazy about how tall the figure is, this seems to reduce that problem somewhat. I like her new height now. Standing next to the VW body you really see how low it's lower legs are, and it looks a little odd to me.