Medieval Timeline upgrade modification

This is a combination of modifications, applied to what was originally a nearly 20-year old set by Dragon, Chris Johnston (Paul Walker) from Timeline (2003). The old Dragon set was probably nice for its time, although it is not quite on a par with more modern action figures in this scale, which have more realistic likeness and better articulation, and usually come with more accessories. Timeline was a pretty good film, and has been held up as the right way to do historical fiction (if you are going to be making up things, do that to made up historical settings and characters rather than distorting actual ones). I am somewhat surprised that it got this much attention in sixth scale, but glad it did. I just wish I had picked up more of these sets when they were more readily available. I finally got this one a few weeks ago, and decided to see what would happen if it were transferred to a better body and given a better head. (By the way, see those knots with a single loop? If anyone has a link to an image explaining how to tie them, please send it along. Thanks in advance.)



The body swap was easy enough, as the relatively loose clothing fit on a TBLeague M33. The boots presented a problem as they would not readily come off the Dragon body, restricted ankle articulation, and might not have fit easily on other feet (whether TBLeague or not). I went with the two-part molded ThreeZero boots from one of their Game of Thrones figures (Jon Snow?) at first. They worked great. The head was a bigger challenge. Ever since his untimely demise, Paul Walker has been rendered in sixth scale repeatedly, not always very successfully, but invariably in reference to his part in the Fast and Furious franchise. These all portray a more mature Paul Walker, with a shorter and neater hair, and more stubble. I ended up going with a GAC Toys head (or a knockoff of it), slightly repainting to make it match the TBLeague suntan skin tone and soften the stubble (in retrospect I may have overdone that, as Paul's character in Timeline does have a visible stubble). Of course, the big hurdle was the hair. I went from this (already repainted)...



to this mess...



to this (finished, apart from minor futzing).



There was no way I was going to be able to replicate the messy slightly curly hair in the film with real hair entirely accurately, but I decided it was close enough (it was not perfectly replicated with Dragon's sculpted hair either). The color is a little on the light side, but my next darker option was too warm a brown to work well. So I went with it. Here is the upgraded figure.









Overall, I was pleased with the poseability and stability of the figure, and the look seems ok. I ended up making one more change, from the ThreeZero boots to medieval/fantasy leather shoes from a POP or maybe CM set, as something more appropriate for someone dressed like a medieval peasant to wear. I think they are better for this purpose, although much less stable, as they curve up at the front. Here they are, although they are not very visible...





I doubt it is perfect or that I could improve much on it at present, but it is a nice example of the potential of so many of these old sets.

As always, what do you think?

#timeline #medieval #fiction #chrisjohnston #paulwalker #dragon #gactoys #tbleague #custom #kitbash #modification #hair

While i'm totally unfamiliar with the source material/movie, i'd say you did a great job on the figure, especially bringing up the patience to apply "real" hair. every damn time i try to do it "right" i end up cutting parts of a wig down to size, glue it on the shaven sculpt and call it a day with so-so results.

as for dragon stuff, it really stands the test of time. Although its a shame to admit, i got a few old ww2 figures stored in a cellar room(warm temperature all year round) that i lost interest of years ago. and even if i only check upon them once or so every year, theres no deterioration of any sorts,sculpts or clothes. same goes for a stack of spare uniforms and other stuff in the room next to it. no heating whatsoever, still holding together like new.

I remember seeing one of the Timeline figures in a comic shop just as I discovered the hobby and I still kick myself for not buying it then! I'd never seen a boxed figure in person before, or indeed, the show but I really liked the look of the fig and it really inspired me to start making my own so part of me would really like to find one again for old time's sake...if you pardon the pun! XD

As for yours, wow, real hair really makes such a difference, I love it!

Tjolnir wrote:While i'm totally unfamiliar with the source material/movie, i'd say you did a great job on the figure, especially bringing up the patience to apply "real" hair. every damn time i try to do it "right" i end up cutting parts of a wig down to size, glue it on the shaven sculpt and call it a day with so-so results.

as for dragon stuff, it really stands the test of time. Although its a shame to admit, i got a few old ww2 figures stored in a cellar room(warm temperature all year round) that i lost interest of years ago. and even if i only check upon them once or so every year, theres no deterioration of any sorts,sculpts or clothes. same goes for a stack of spare uniforms and other stuff in the room next to it. no heating whatsoever, still holding together like new.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it. And this is good news. I was wondering how well the pleather jacket would hold up down the line (although it had so far, but it was sealed in its box).

Lynkhart wrote:I remember seeing one of the Timeline figures in a comic shop just as I discovered the hobby and I still kick myself for not buying it then! I'd never seen a boxed figure in person before, or indeed, the show but I really liked the look of the fig and it really inspired me to start making my own so part of me would really like to find one again for old time's sake...if you pardon the pun! XD

As for yours, wow, real hair really makes such a difference, I love it!

Well, in this case these figures deserve a lot of credit for launching you on your path of being one of the most inventive and successful creators in our hobby. I also wish I had looked into these figures much sooner. Now they are not so readily available, with the relative exception of this one. And thank you very much for the kind words, I'm glad you liked it.

I also don't know the source material, but he was totally worth the totally awesome upgrade!
Great job once again with the hair! and weirdly enough the entire outfit looks like it received an upgrade, too! Can't just be the boots... weird.

Although I only saw the movie once (personally didn’t like it all that much), I think he turned out pretty good. Those feet that you chose, I believe are from CooModel (they are the same ones that came on the Knightmare knights that I recently posted about, and are indeed awkwardly unstable).

That's a very nice upgrade of this very old figure. Great work, GF!

I bought the "Chris" and "Kate" figures of the Timeline series some years ago, when I was hunting for cheap medieval clothing. I also expected that the pleather jacket of Chris' outfit would degrade rapidly, but I recently got it out of my parts bin and found no damage at all. Kudos to DID for that. Also, Kate's gown is actually quite nicely tailored. If you can find it for a few bucks, it is definitively worth buying.

Diana wrote:I also don't know the source material, but he was totally worth the totally awesome upgrade!
Great job once again with the hair! and weirdly enough the entire outfit looks like it received an upgrade, too! Can't just be the boots... weird.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it. It occurs to me that the outfit could use some weathering (I think technically it is called distressing when it comes to fabrics), but I'm happy it works.

Stryker2011 wrote:Although I only saw the movie once (personally didn’t like it all that much), I think he turned out pretty good. Those feet that you chose, I believe are from CooModel (they are the same ones that came on the Knightmare knights that I recently posted about, and are indeed awkwardly unstable).

Thank you very much, glad you liked it. Yes, those are the ones, thanks for confirming. I've gotten a few of those pieces parted out. They look right, but the design is not very successful in practical terms.

Randam Hajile wrote:That's a very nice upgrade of this very old figure. Great work, GF!

I bought the "Chris" and "Kate" figures of the Timeline series some years ago, when I was hunting for cheap medieval clothing. I also expected that the pleather jacket of Chris' outfit would degrade rapidly, but I recently got it out of my parts bin and found no damage at all. Kudos to DID for that. Also, Kate's gown is actually quite nicely tailored. If you can find it for a few bucks, it is definitively worth buying.  

Thank you very much, Ralf, glad you liked them. Glad you got a couple of the figures (I know they also made Arnaud, and I imagine they would have also made Gerald Butler's character and Lady Claire). Thanks for confirming that the pleather holds up, and for the recommendation. I should keep an eye out for them.

I am in the same camp as stryker - saw the movie only once and it was ok. But i did read the book which i really liked (was a ling time ago though) but most of his books are very good imo.

Anyway i love the real hair! Big fan, one of my long time projects is to put real hair on each of my heads

I think you did a great job. Do you reuse bodies or does this figure will keep the seamless forever? I often find them a bit to precious for full clothed 'nongrail' figures

Valiarde wrote:I am in the same camp as stryker - saw the movie only once and it was ok. But i did read the book which i really liked (was a ling time ago though) but most of his books are very good imo.

Anyway i love the real hair! Big fan, one of my long time projects is to put real hair on each of my heads

I think you did a great job. Do you reuse bodies or does this figure will keep the seamless forever? I often find them a bit to precious for full clothed 'nongrail' figures

Thank you very much, I'm very glad you liked it. In principle, I'd be tempted to go with real hair as often as possible, although when it comes to shorter hair, that is usually unnecessary and often inadvisable (for my skills, anyway). But my ability to sculpt realistic hair would fall far short of ideal, so real hair it is. If HT had done his hair, perhaps sculpted hair would have really been better, but they didn't.

The vast majority of my kitbashes are not necessarily intended to be permanent in all details -- so they are not wedded to specific bodies or even head sculpts (if they are troopers especially). That said, once I've put them together, they might stay that way for weeks or months or years -- assuming I do not mean for them to remain put together forever. Paul's body used here was last given a change of clothes when I reviewed the Top Toys Bucky head and outfit set; another one I did last week but haven't posted yet was not changed since the David character I had put together for last year's Valentine's Day. Even if I keep a character together, like you, I feel that most figures that are going to constantly appear fully covered (no knees or elbows or shoulders showing) are just fine on more traditional hard-plastic open-jointed bodies, and that I should save the seamless ones for where they would make more of a difference visually. So this set up is not likely to stay on this body forever. Part of the reason I put it together with a seamless body now was to simply to see if it would fit.

GubernatorFan wrote:

Valiarde wrote:...I think you did a great job. Do you reuse bodies or does this figure will keep the seamless forever? I often find them a bit to precious for full clothed 'nongrail' figures

... Part of the reason I put it together with a seamless body now was to simply to see if it would fit.

All in the name of research.

But of course there is the aspect of pose stability. TBL bodies can't be beat, except for the range of wrist movement. There they can easily be beat.

Diana wrote:All in the name of research.

But of course there is the aspect of pose stability. TBL bodies can't be beat, except for the range of wrist movement. There they can easily be beat.

Absolutely true. The TBLeague body has excellent poseability and articulation and, since it fits comfortably within the relatively loose garments here, this is not really impeded. So in that sense it is really not "wasted" here. The second set of improved footwear did make the figure much more difficult to balance, but otherwise the swap worked very well. Dragon's choice of plastic weapons rather than cast metal was also fortunate, although it is true that the range of wrist movement is a bit less on TBLeague bodies than some more conventional ones.

What I really like about this board is that there are so many users doing stuff in the name of research! It is a great source of information and inspiration

Looks amazing now, it's amazing what a good body and head does to some old clothes. Really like the messy hair.

Theboo-bomb wrote:Looks amazing now, it's amazing what a good body and head does to some old clothes. Really like the messy hair.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked the upgrade. The hair is not quite accurate to the source, but certainly real enough.

Nice, had no idea they made a figure for this movie, I only remember some dude dropping a grenade on some medeival dudes.

Might be your best hairjob yet I think, not just long hair but a medium length dashing scoundrel hairstyle. You could also use him for Star Wars characters.

Ovy wrote:Nice, had no idea they made a figure for this movie, I only remember some dude dropping a grenade on some medeival dudes.

Might be your best hairjob yet I think, not just long hair but a medium length dashing scoundrel hairstyle. You could also use him for Star Wars characters.

Thank you very much, even if I think you're too kind. I'm just glad it is passable. Speaking of Star Wars, this guy's screen appearance was a bit Farmboy Luke-ish, with slightly curly clumpier hair. Perhaps I should have whittled away at the scalp. But yes, I think he is usable.