Gubernator's various new Star Wars customs (updated 27 September 2024)

Great, will check it out.

I find your creations very accomplished and worked.
You did research on costumes and accessories. It gives a very professional look to your figurines.

The painting looks so impressive, you can see complexity and depth in there but overall really coherent looks, and wonderful weathering on the armour. That’s a lot of fiddly priming & paint layers etc to get through! Looking forward to seeing how the fabric-manoeuvring works

French wrote:I find your creations very accomplished and worked.
You did research on costumes and accessories. It gives a very professional look to your figurines.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. The costumes are still in progress (some of them to be modified, others just placeholders), but I will be building on these, getting to something closer to screen accurate, hopefully.

Tanzenwolfe wrote:The painting looks so impressive, you can see complexity and depth in there but overall really coherent looks, and wonderful weathering on the armour. That’s a lot of fiddly priming & paint layers etc to get through! Looking forward to seeing how the fabric-manoeuvring works

Thank you, I'm so glad you liked it. It is perhaps a little easier to get aliens more or less right than humans. Yeah, priming and layers are key (whether or not I could have done better). I can't believe there was a time I thought I could get away without priming. I've started on some fabric work, but not a whole lot to show just yet.

Ah, how wonderful. You finish the projects you started. I should really take your example. The characters turned out really well. I like the red-skinned one best, the one with a friendly face like a turtle. The hands that match the alien races further enhance the small works of art.

Ephiane wrote:
Ah, how wonderful. You finish the projects you started. I should really take your example. The characters turned out really well. I like the red-skinned one best, the one with a friendly face like a turtle. The hands that match the alien races further enhance the small works of art.

Thank you very much for the kind words, Ephiane, but these are not finished yet. Just a little further on the way to completion than before or than others. I think you are referring to Nikto B (my second painting of such a head sculpt). And you remind me I have a few more hands to paint, too.

Part V - July 2024


First up, a minor advance on the Red Nikto C figure's clothing. While waiting for additional suitable garment pieces to arrive before modifying, I prepared and attached the neck flap or head covering, and set up the straps system (detachable, with velcro) under the breast plate.



Second, the 3D print that started it all, more than a year ago. This is probably my favorite alien from Jabba's palace, Squid Head (Quarren) or (the most prominent of several of these), Tessek. It is not the most screen-accurate of portraits, but the one I liked best. Although painting up the 3D print (from 3DPoisonHarleyCstms) took place a long time ago, this was a figure I wanted to show complete, and that took a long while to accomplish. The breastplate and the vambraces took a lot of effort to create from scratch, using metal pieces, magnets, leather cord, hockey tape (Pickle Monkey would be proud), and other materials. I also made the cloak, with its lining, collar, and velcro closure. It is not a masterpiece of tailoring by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it makes do.







Finally, another grail was Jabba's pet Kowakian "monkey-lizard," Salacious B. Crumb. I picked up first one, then another 3D printed model from Poison3DHarleyCstms, put them together (the cross-legged versions only required attaching the tail, but the other version had all the limbs separate), and painted them, some time ago. I was hoping at least one of the versions would lend itself to some custom articulation, but that proved difficult to do with the fine and brittle resin print. So I just resigned myself them being statues, although I gave them "real hair." Besides, by the time they were complete, we knew of Hot Toys' ROTJ C-3PO with its own articulated Salacious Crumb. Not certain I'd manage to get one loose, I ordered the whole set; then I did get a parted out figure, which encouraged me to modify it a bit. Apart from the limited articulation (neck, tail, arms at shoulders, legs at hips -- in all instances just swivel joints around an axis), the Hot Toys figure had not-so-fine hair sculpting, and an overly orange color to that hair. Like so many things in Star Wars, colors may have been manipulated and confused, but the on-screen appearance was that of a warm brown. Accordingly, I repainted the molded hair with a brown mixture, allowing some of the orange to show through a bit. I also darkened the area around the eyes, both to make them more screen accurate and to make them pop a bit more. While the articulation could have been much more extensive (Hasbro does this in 1/12 and 1/18 scale), I suppose I'm grateful it is there, given Hot Toys' history of providing unarticulated or underarticulated small figures: for example, their recent Baby Hulk only has a movable head.








Hope this was informative or fun.
As always, what do you think?

For Part VI, see HERE.

Tessek looks very very good!!! Great painting and clothes.

These are so much fun! Love your dedication to creating and/or modding your own SW aliens and critters....

Really nice painting skills Ian! well done.

They all look amazing!! What a difference between the original HT release and your mods. And those clothes!! Great job, Ian.

Wow, I love the little monkeys. I was already fascinated by these creatures when I saw them in the cinema. For me the secret star of the Jabba scene. Thanks for your report, otherwise I wouldn't have known it was available in 1:6. Yours are beautifully painted and hairy. Without trying to flatter you, better than HT's. You did a better job of distinguishing the dull leathery skin from the moist tongue and shiny eyes. Your real fur collar is really the cherry on the cake.

I like the fact that these were real dolls and not digitally created creatures that never existed physically. I think Jim Henson designed it?

That's what I was thinking, looking at the custom monkey-lizard "hairy version": it looks like it's coming from a Jim Henson film, Dark Crystal kinda style, more that SW.
There's some serious painting skills here, congrats and thanks for sharing !!

Wow! Nice work so far on Niko, and your Tessek turned out great; you did awesome work on the paint and costume. Like the paint ups and hairing on the Crumbs — aside from the overly big HT, the paint work all matches perfectly. I like the added hair as well.

Darth_Hogge wrote:Tessek looks very very good!!! Great painting and clothes.

Thank you very much!

skywalkersaga wrote:These are so much fun! Love your dedication to creating and/or modding your own SW aliens and critters....

Thanks Sky, I'm glad you like them. As you know from your own experience, it's hard to resist, when it's something you care about.

BAMComix wrote:Really nice painting skills Ian! well done.

Thank you very much, Dal.

Diana wrote:They all look amazing!! What a difference between the original HT release and your mods. And those clothes!! Great job, Ian.

Thank you, Diana, I'm glad you liked my attempt to improve on the HT -- wasn't sure if it wasn't too little/subtle or not. The most impressive piece of clothing, however, is probably the repurposed Gandalf robe.

Ephiane wrote:Wow, I love the little monkeys. I was already fascinated by these creatures when I saw them in the cinema. For me the secret star of the Jabba scene. Thanks for your report, otherwise I wouldn't have known it was available in 1:6. Yours are beautifully painted and hairy. Without trying to flatter you, better than HT's. You did a better job of distinguishing the dull leathery skin from the moist tongue and shiny eyes. Your real fur collar is really the cherry on the cake.

I like the fact that these were real dolls and not digitally created creatures that never existed physically. I think Jim Henson designed it?

Thank you very much, Ephiane. I guess now I have a pack of them, don't I. Crumb is a divisive character, annoying to some, endearing to others. Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) claimed he was his favorite character in the movie, despite Crumb plucking out his (robot) eye. The "hairy" Crumbs look a little better in hand and from a more reasonable distance than the zoom-in photos. Now you're making me wonder if I shouldn't add some hair to the modified HT version, too. It definitely needed some more contrast (hence, my repaint). I also like that Crumb wasn't a digital special effect. It looks like a Jim Henson creation, but actually wasn't, being the work of Tony McVey (who had earlier worked for Henson). Here are a couple of links: 1, 2.

Urushi wrote:That's what I was thinking, looking at the custom monkey-lizard "hairy version": it looks like it's coming from a Jim Henson film, Dark Crystal kinda style, more that SW.  
There's some serious painting skills here, congrats and thanks for sharing !!

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked them. I agree with the comparison, especially to Dark Crystal creatures. But see the response above on the designer (with links).

Stryker2012 wrote:Wow! Nice work so far on Niko, and your Tessek turned out great; you did awesome work on the paint and costume. Like the paint ups and hairing on the Crumbs — aside from the overly big HT, the paint work all matches perfectly. I like the added hair as well.

Thank you very much, Mark, glad you liked them. I've ordered more clothing items to modify for this Nikto, so I guess he's slotted to be the next full figure, hopefully. Is the HT Crumb overly big, or are my resin 3D prints too small? As you know, I've been trying to figure out the correct size. In the interview I read linked in a response above (1), I saw that the real 1:1 prop is about 18 inches from his bottom (sans legs) to the "top of his fluff." Dividing this by 6 makes 3 inches, which is still slightly taller than HT's figure (though that is perhaps slightly slouching and I think it's neck is a tad short).

Looks like a fun little family of Crumbs, especially with the HT one being larger. Father, mother and their kid? Or father with two wives? And they adopted baby Hulk for extra fun.

And great work on Jabba's palace dwellers and their outfits. The Squid hHead is just something else.

Ian, when I compare the SS & HT Crumbs to my Leia figure, the HT seems WAY too big to me personally. Whether he’s more accurate, I don’t know p, but he didn’t appear that big to me in the film. Maybe the 18” of the actual prop is if they extend the legs as if he’s standing g and measure that way…? He always kind of seemed closer to a Capuchin Monkey size to me, so I will be sticking with the SS versions in my Jabba display.

Visisonor wrote:Looks like a fun little family of Crumbs, especially with the HT one being larger. Father, mother and their kid? Or father with two wives? And they adopted baby Hulk for extra fun.

And great work on Jabba's palace dwellers and their outfits. The Squid hHead is just something else.

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked them. I was thinking parent and children or teacher and students or boss and underlings.

Stryker2012 wrote:Ian, when I compare the SS & HT Crumbs to my Leia figure, the HT seems WAY too big to me personally. Whether he’s more accurate, I don’t know p, but he didn’t appear that big to me in the film. Maybe the 18” of the actual prop is if they extend the legs as if he’s standing g and measure that way…? He always kind of seemed closer to a Capuchin Monkey size to me, so I will be sticking with the SS versions in my Jabba display.

Thank you, Mark. I agree, absolute fact and apparent appearance can vary -- hence my repaint of the HT hair, which might have been close enough to the original color but did not seem to match what we saw on screen. From more reading, Crumb's "official height" is 70 cm = 28 inches, and that seems to agree with that interview I mentioned (although there that height was referencing the prop seated on a base); this is with legs. The 18 inches is without legs, from the derriere up. I think I will end up employing all 3 Crumbs, now that I have them (or 4, if I end up keeping the intact one from the C-3PO set). I do love the articulation, on principle, no matter how limited it actually is.

Woah, cool batch of customs! I'm quite impressed with how you painted the portraits on the Nikto & Quarren; they look great!

Zes wrote:Woah, cool batch of customs! I'm quite impressed with how you painted the portraits on the Nikto Quarren; they look great!

Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked them.

I loved your reduxes / creations , your painting skills are very professional . Well done .

Thank you very much, Chip, glad you liked them.

Part VI - August 2024

First, thanks to the positive feedback about the real hair, I decided to continue modifying the Hot Toys Salacious Crumb I had already partly repainted. As with the small 3D printed ones, I applied some real hair to the eartips, cheek ends, and around the collar. After trying to simply cover with real hair the crest-shaped tuft on top of the head, I decided it was too massive and the wrong shape, so I just scalped it off, repainted the top of the head, and created new, much more film-accurate tuft. I shaped it with some diluted hair gel/conditioner. It is still a little long, but basically the right shape. I also realized that the nails needed to be a lighter, more whitish color, and recolored them (which also matches my 3D printed ones).




Comparisons with the unmodified Hot Toys Salacious Crumb:



Hanging out with the kids:



I think in part because of the superior HT sculpt and larger figure size, the addition of real hair worked out better here than before.

Second, I finally got around to doing what I had been planning to do for years: to partly repaint Sideshow's Bib Fortuna. Sideshow's figure was certainly recognizable, even if the sculpt was a little soft and the paint application a little basic. I suppose it was pretty great by the standards of the time when it was produced. But I wanted the creases and wrinkles to show up more, the skin tone to be a little more sanguine -- which I did with some Vallejo Fresh Blood wash. The eyes were my point of departure, as I needed to remove the dreaded doll dot and also to turn the eyes from orange yellow to a warm red. They still ended up quite bright, but I think they are correct in low lighting, which is how we see Bib. In most of the photos it ended up looking too red, but it is less so in hand.






Third, I received a couple more 3D-printed Jabba goons from Matt (Poison3DHarleyCstms on Etsy), namely Brock Starsher (really, just his helmet) and Ishi Tib (head with three pairs of hands). I primed them immediately and set to work.



The Brock Starsher helmet was seemingly easy, being black, but I ended up using different blacks and different varnishes for different areas, leaving the hosing relatively matte and the whole thing a metallic look, with some different textures and some gunmetal and oily steel highlights for contrast.



Here it is, on a body clad in something completely unrelated.



Back to Ishi Tib -- which is actually the name of a species, and there were two or three in Jabba's palace, one of them a female; unless there was just one and the costume changed in different shots. The actual mask used in the film was perhaps a sort of beige-ish green, though the low lighting and Lucas color magic made little of that clear. Online sources told me Ishi Tib were bluish or greenish, so I decided to start with a blue under-layer on top of the black primer.



Then came a fairly complex "green" layer, as I tried to avoid using much actual green. The color is for the most part a mixture of Vallejo's Olive Brown, Olive Grey, Olive Drab, and some flesh tones. Then there were some washes with darker variations and some blue. I used satin varnish to get a somewhat shinier skin, as these are an amphibian species -- they were nicknamed Starfish during production, although they seem to combine a bird, snail, and toad in the design. The eyes (yellow with black pupils) and some other appropriate spots were given a glossy varnish.




Once again, this is simply a placeholder outfit (from Kenner/Hasbro, with undersized sleeves), which is not really appropriate for the character's.



Here's the provisional Ishi Tib with the provisional Brock Starsher in something closer to his actual outfit (except for those short-sleeved Kenner/Hasbro clothes).



To be honest, I'm not in love with the original design of either Ishi Tib or Brock Starsher, but I was happy to get the chance to begin building my custom versions of both, to add to my Jabba goons.

I hope this was of some use or interest.

As always, what do you think?

Wow, your mods continue to impress! Especially like the Salacious Crumb hairing job and the Bib Fortuna upgrade. Nicely done.

Awesome to see some of my files being used and painted! (ishi Tib)
Matt from Poison3DHarleyCstms is a cool dude

They look awesome mate!

I've got a few Jabba goons coming in the next few months. I'm sure Poison3DHarleyCstms will add them to his store

Holy cow you've gotten so good at this! They all look fantastic and if I try to point anything out my mind goes "but that guy looked just as good! And THAT one! And..." 

That dreaded doll dot... 

High quality paint jobs again.
Even in placeholder outfits they look great.
And apparently "looks better with real hair" is applicable to non-humans as well

Diana wrote:

That dreaded doll dot... 

Never understood the point of that. Why not just make it glossy, even on dolls???

skywalkersaga wrote:Wow, your mods continue to impress! Especially like the Salacious Crumb hairing job and the Bib Fortuna upgrade. Nicely done.

Thank you very much, Sky, I'm glad you liked it.

Patreon_3DXFiles wrote:Awesome to see some of my files being used and painted! (ishi Tib)
Matt from Poison3DHarleyCstms is a cool dude

They look awesome mate!

I've got a few Jabba goons coming in the next few months. I'm sure Poison3DHarleyCstms will add them to his store

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. And I'm grateful for you making the file, which turned out so well -- I was comparing to the mask used in the film, and you got everything down right. Glad Matt picked up this one, and will check out any future ones. I was just browsing his items, as he has a sale, and looked up your files, which all look excellent.

Diana wrote:Holy cow you've gotten so good at this! They all look fantastic and if I try to point anything out my mind goes "but that guy looked just as good! And THAT one! And..." 

That dreaded doll dot... 

Thank you very much, Diana, glad you liked them. And that you find my obsession with (eradicating) the doll dot funny.

Visisonor wrote:High quality paint jobs again.
Even in placeholder outfits they look great.
And apparently "looks better with real hair" is applicable to non-humans as well

Thank you very much, I'm delighted you liked them. Apparently yes, and with the bigger size and -- let's face it -- more careful application on my part, the newest hair addition looks better than the previous ones.