Nice one but personally I like the one of you proposing better.
With the Christmas Blizzard of '09 hitting I was able to catch up on finishing some minis and to take pictures of the ones I have finished over the past two months. All of the stuff I have been working on lately has been for the Star Wars RPG campaign that I have been running for the last year.
I have always liked having a custom of my characters in RPG games and wanted to make customs for all my players. It helps players identify their character and fellow players on the battle field quicker, avoids confusion when you have multiples of the same fig on the table and it helps everyone connect to the characters better, at least in my opinion. I had to wait a couple of games to get an idea of what the characters were suppose to be like before I started and then it took a while to find the right pieces.
This first one is of the medic of the group, Cluade. The player had been using the base fig for his character but in the process of playing he had picked up a bigger gun and tended to carry a lot of gear. I had him pointing to show the fact that the player tends to act first and then if needed use his gun.
The Jedi of the group, O'dian, is a Pau'an and there isn't very many figs to chose from. The second challenge is that species is not known to be very dynamic in their actions and I wanted the hero figs to be in very intense action poses as possible. After careful consideration I went for as movement as possible for the species but still keeping it in character. Added to the fact that I wanted it to look like he was leading somewhat with his right side because the character lost his left eye in a lightsaber battle.
I can't take credit for this custom but included it because it is one of the characters in the game. This custom of the character Grem was made by my good friend nimzomitch from a couple of D&D figs that I picked up that I felt fit the description of the type of creature he wanted to play. It is a force sensitive species that can't talk. It has made for some great role-playing and the fig really does the character justice.
Klecser plays a Bothan Nobel named Ar'Ryn who is not afraid to let his blaster tip his arguments. I enjoyed making this one because of the detail to the hair color, the armor and creating a more dynamic pose to the original fig. When I was finished I thought about cutting it from the base and centering it more but I decided to wait. After thinking about it, his character and Grem spend a lot of time together so I took the left over pieces that nimzomitch didn't use and made a rough proxy of Grem that could be removed or added as needed. It balances out the look of the piece when it is there and it is not missing when it is gone.
I checked and the proxy piece fits on the other hero figs as well so it makes it easier to track that character in the game. Sometime it hangs from O'dian's arm, sits on Cluade's shoulders or hooks onto the other heroes.
The hero in the game is a Gand named Xextuss and since there is only one Gand fig so far I was limited on what I could use. With the sculpt of the fig it is really hard to make any major changes besides rotating it's head and maybe giving it a repaint. So I took the route of making additives to it that fit with the character. The player uses a heavy blaster rifle and has a hidden knife that folds out and can be used as a bayonet. The character also got ahold of a jetpack and has used it in many interesting and useful ways. With those changes it really made the fig come to life.
In the second game the players faced off with a raider gang on speeders and Xextuss got ahold of the leaders. It has been getting repaired this whole time but the next time they reach home it will be ready and so will the custom of it. I added some special modifications including an exhaust vent that can have fuel dumped into it so that it shoots flames, a targeting gun under the front and a harpoon and tow cable on the back. It should be interesting to see how these get played out in the game.
When placed together they look like the rough and ready team that they are.
Add in the major friendly NPCs that they work with all the time and it is quite the group of resistance fighters that has formed up already in the first year.
Besides the figs I wanted to make customs of the ships that the players own because space battle is an important part of the game as it is in the Star Wars movies.
The above is their main ship, The Horizon's Edge, and is the focal point of the story. They had to do some dirty deeds with some Hutts and jump through several hoops but I'm sure that they think it has been worth it. I took some of the Poketmodels I picked up cheap and kit bashed it together. After they made some changes to the ship I made further changes to the custom to reflect it.
The second ship that came into their grasps, the Trask-1, they encountered during a rescue in a nebula. It's based on a ship in the Starships of the Galaxy RPG book. This made it a challenge because I wanted it to look as close as possible to it and only had so many pieces to work from.
The last ship they gained was a TIE Prototype that they battled a Dark Jedi to gain and had engineers reverse engineer to find out it's secrets and then reconfigure to hid it's origins and renamed the Nexu's Fang. I took a TIE fighter Pocketmodel and cut it up into a shape that I felt made sense as a fighter still and then added some elements to change the profile slightly more.
So the crew already has the start of a small fleet of ships with different purposes. The Horizon's Edge acts the main ship, a mobile base that the other ships hook onto as well as their main heavy gun. The Trask-1 acts as a main shuttle and large fighter while the Nexu's Fang is a true fighter with a hyperdrive.
To truly make the game come to life with customs it is important that not all the customs are of just the heroes. I have been pulling in tons of my old customs to act as friendly and not so friendly NPCs, villains and creatures. Still sometimes I'll want to make a custom to make a NPC or villain really stand out if I don't have a fig or older custom that works.
One of the recent NPCs that played a major role was the Nelvannian leader Tozvos. He basically told the heroes that they were expected and were to help fight off a great evil. There wasn't much I could do to the pose due to the sculpt but I wanted the repose to show his leadership role and make him stand apart from the rest of his pack of hunters. I also change some of the color elements to denote his place in the tribe and it really worked well on the battle field to make him stand apart.
In between the group games I ran a solo adventure for the Jedi of the group so that he could have his Jedi trials and not take the focus of the entire group's time. I had him go to Dagobah, run into Yoda and fight a pair of "Near Sith" at the Dark Side Cave. If you are going to have Yoda appear and fight baddies then those baddies should stand out. Again there wasn't much I could do in the repose department so I went with adding some bushy flock to the the character to help represent the fact that he had been on Dagobah for too long.
While Yoda face off against the Swampy Dark Side Master, O'dian was facing off against his apprentice. I had created a different version but didn't like it. In the meantime my cat took off with it and I never found it again. So I had to make another one and it turned out better than the first. The body was from a D&D fig I had taken parts off before and I created the Scythe Saber to make her stand out. In the battle she took out O'dian's eye so I'm sure the player will remember the encounter for a long time.
I wanted her to have a nasty pet to help her fight the Jedi and using greenstuff I added to a Mastiff to give it more weapons such as added spike and a barbed tail. I gave it a simple paint and wash and it was finished. It didn't survive the encounter but the apprentice did which in game terms means that she will be back to fight another day.
Together they made a nasty combo. Even though the Sith mutated Mastiff was killed I'm sure she can make another so the custom will come in handy again in the near future.
Sometimes the idea for a villain will come from creating the stats, sometimes for the role I want it to fill and sometime from the extra fig I have on hand. Dr. Sladder is a case of all three.
I had an extra Lobot and I wanted to have a villian that the heroes would first encounter in his base while seeking shelter. I wanted the doctor to be a mad scientist type that was xenophobic and had most of his brain replace with a machine that allowed him to control other droids. I did a digital picture of the character an based on that design I created the fig.
To add to his character I wanted him to have a lackey like Igor is to Dr. Frankenstien so I repainted an R4 droid and named him R4-H8. When the evil Doctor would leave the room the his droid would stay behind to spy on them and it really help hinder what the heroes could say to the other NPCs. I expect some great droid vs. droid action in the near future between this guy and Ar'Ryn side kick droid.
These two will be the bane in the heroes side many times in the future and it will be interesting to see how the heroes deal with them.
Along with having villain and NPC customs, something I wanted to do with my campaign was to have custom villain ships. The first major story arc ended with the heroes tracking down a TIE Prototype factory only to realize that it wasn't a building but in fact a factory ship. Since this was the climax of the story and it had played a key role in the string of adventures I wanted to be sure that the ship really stood out.
I took some plastic containers, cut them to fit and taped them together. Then using spare parts from a Falcon model and other spare parts I kit bashed it together. I wanted the design to look like it was from the Empire but industrial as well. It had to have lots of guns, a massive ion gun, a bridge, engine section and a factory section with a hanger. This was the end result.
It was a great battle and everyone had a blast.
Pictures of the actual battle can be seen on the wiki of the campaign here-
community.wizards.com/wiki/The_Battle_of... The main page of the wiki is here-
community.wizards.com/wiki/The_Horizon\'...There is detailed notes on the characters, npcs, ships (with stats) and much more there. It is a work in progress but it is coming along nicely.
The final custom is one for a character I made for a D&D game that I hope starts soon. The player who runs Cluade in our game is going to run a 4E D&D set in Greyhawk. I'm looking forward to it and wanted to make my custom as I developed my character. I picked up a Heroclicks fig of Shaman (I think that's what it was) hovering with lighting around him, cut off all the lighting and then worked on the actual fig. The base is a Zayne Carric fig that I added a greenstuff backpack, beltbags, longerhair and a super weathered cloak to after I had reposed the whole thing. Then I gave it a paint job from top to bottom and when it was dry I added the lighting.
I took the extra bolts left over and fit them to a an empty base to make it look like strikes of lighting. I can't wait until the first game when I cast a lighting bolt and throw it on the table.
Hope you liked the update. I'll be working on more stuff as well as my RPG game for the seeable future, so if you don't see any new customs soon don't worry I'll have another major update sooner than later. Until then I hope everyone has a great new year in 2010.
