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Thread
: Discussion
Retro Figure (Vietnam Mold) Swaps and Breakdowns
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06-19-2021, 08:34 PM
HissHissFangFan
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Kansas
Posts: 981
Warning: Settle in. I should have doled this in parts throughout the week, but kept falling down the rabbit hole.
I’ve been messing around with the Stalker figure since I got him last Saturday, mainly exploring possibillities in an updated OG13 based on this new build figure. I don’t think Hasbro will ever get to re-releasing all 13 in this new build, but there’s a pretty good chance at least a few will be made.
It’s hard to tell who Hasbro will actually release in the new future (at this time, Stalker himself hasn’t actually been officially announced). I’d really like to wait out for at least one of two more figures released, but I guess it’s never too early to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t with past and current available parts.
20210613_164311 (1)
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
The first one I was eager to try was Hawk, as I previously posted elsewhere. Body and webgear would all be the same as provided with Stalker. Hands could have been repainted Stalker hands, but we found that MTF bare hands work great in terms of size and fit. Finding the right heads for these figures somewhat of a challenge, many of the smaller and medium size 25th/POC heads just won’t work visually on the new build due to the larger and taller body and bigger wide neck. I don’t have many MTF heads (only 3 actually), but all seem to be the right size for this figure. Above is the Hank head, with repainted hair (and eyebrows). Heads will sit real high on the new body without modification. You can drill the neck/torso hole for the neck dumbbell to sit lower and/or drill the hole head deeper. I drilled the hole deeper with a 3/8” diameter Dremel ball engraver. I also made the hole wider and deep at the neck to make removing/replacing easier and without heat.
No issues with painting encountered. I use Tamiya Dark Green on the body and it applied well with normal amount of coats, and didn’t loose the fine texture on the shirt and pants. Not much wear or rub at the main body with normal handling. Some text pictures below will start to indicate paint were, but that will be due to heavy handling due to part popping and replacement. At the knees, back elbows and shoulder undersides, I am getting complete paint rub off without specially treating those joints (sanding cutting), but is not abnormal. Most exposed joints at front elbows and top shoulders are actually holding up pretty well, with a little paint wear.
With Hawk testing down with good results, I imagine Grunt and Snake Eyes can be easily made from this figure. Axonrey has already done a good Snake Eyes, using the original 25th head. I was thinking that was the best choice of available heads due to it size, and I’m glad it worked well. I also saw HissTanker Zpartikuz use a really nice head sculpt from Gigabread on p32 of his custom thread. It looks about the right size for this body, but I’m not seeing a 1/18th version of it for sale right now. Personally, I’m gonna keep testing out figure parts for others, and a fully black painted figure at this time won’t be as useful a green one. I also think Hasbro will release this as a new figure in the next year—it’s freakin’ Snake Eyes (also something about a movie coming out in the future).
20210615_195035
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
Above is more testing of parts. The head is MTF I got from a prebuilt figure—looks like a “Dutch” head. The beefier parts of the new body work well for this head. Again, head sits high without Dremel work, but fine afterwards. Helmet is also MTF, which many have used for their MTF OG13. Personally, I don’t want to use vintage Hasbro helmets on a new OG13, and think this helmet works fine until we see if Hasbro makes a new redesign (which really could be very soon). Until then, I will be using this helmet going forward (it helps that I already got 3 spares already in hand currently).
Hands and lower arms are MTF, also from the prebuilt green MTF figure I have. Upper arms holes need to be dremeled deeper close up the gap, otherwise fits great (peg is not too wide or skinny). The arm is a little longer than the Retro parts (see pic from previous posts), but probably acceptable to most (I can almost live with it). Then there’s the issue of texture. Obviously the smooth MTF part won’t have that cool new knitted texture of the new build, but visually may not be apparent or distracting at most viewing distances. Since most of what’s visible is the rolled over part, you eyes might not have an issue with it. Also, in the future we can test out with maybe the knit texture can be subdued with techniques (maybe overpainting).
Belt is from Dollar General Duke, most associated with use with Zap, then Short-Fuse. I also use for my updated 25th Clutch and Flash, so I wanted to make sure it fits on this figure for future use. It’s a little tight and may need heating to safely get it on (by removing legs and sliding up on lower torso) to avoid snap or body custom paint wear, but belt fits fine and fairly easy to do. You save a step by not having to undo leg screws on this figure, but you’ll have to do that on the old figure from whom you got the belt.
Last is to address the 25th Clutch vest. Clutch is high on my list of to-do figures with this build, so I got to this pretty quickly. Not surprising, it’s a lousy fit. The chest is chest to bulky on all sides, and the small arm holes keep the arms hanging awkwardly out from the body (it looks worse in person—I turned the figure to the side a little to make it look less bad as part of my easy camera tricks). Vest is also really short, hence use of the belt to hide that, but then the belt distractingly low.
2021-06-17_02-30-53
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
Picture above continues testing of stuff from previous testing. Progressing a Short Fuze concept felt right, using the head, helmet, and belt from previous. I forget his correct parts colors for the brown and black parts (but know it’s a weird combo of the two), so I went with leaving the parts unpainted for now. Besides a proper visor, just needed to test out some Zap/SF webgear.
I tested the Zap/DG Duke webgear and immediately did not like the results—more pics on that later. Instead, above pic uses the Renegades Tunnel Rat webgear, unpainted, also included with 7-Pack Resolute or late ROC City Strike Snake Eyes (v48). It has more beef to it as required for the beefier chest, and fits nice and tight (but not too tight). It can be slipped on after heating, or you can remove the arms by heating and place directly to the torso for fit placement. Downside is that arms will but stuck hanging away from the body, but this can be reduced by cutting away some of the torso under and just behind the arms (which may also help fitting the harness). I am finding that cutting torso at the sides under the arms is necessary for most uses for this figure build, even for Hawk and Stalker for simple better looking vanilla stances. Going back to this post’s first pic, both have the adjustment.
Continuing with Clutch, not having any of the bearded MTF heads on hand, I wanted to test the 25th Clutch head, which was a bit on the larger side on the 25th figures. I think it works out well here, and fits well with that MTF helmet. I did fill the helmet at the top with a little sculpting clay to make it sit taller and make the head look a little bigger and more is size with the MTF and Stalker head.
The vest is an MTF vest (86 version as I’ve seen it called), from my prebuilit green MTF figure, and my first use of this part for customs. I’m not a fan of where the holes in the vest are, and drilled one where I wanted the holster to fit. I may locate some of the other pouches similarly if I go forward with this vest. The vest sort of fits on the torso, but extremely hard to fasten both side of the vests. However even with only one side secured, the vest holds down naturally. In the pic you can see the left side sticking out at the pack, maybe not noticeable until I pointed it out.
The vest is a decent analog to the old vest and fits better, but IMO is way too bulky—out of place when considering what Stalker, Hawk, Grunt, Zap, SF will all look like (also makes Zap and SF under accessorized). Looking at the vest’s underside, I saw that it could be thinned out by carving out a lot of plastic at the back size. I did just that on the version pictured but the vest still looks bulky—this has more to do with the chest which is very wide and bulky, and the combo of the chest and vest is too much. If only there were another torso that could be used…
20210618_022401
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
Obviously, there is another chest available in the Retro Cobra Trooper figure released with Stalker in this same wave, whose chest is narrower and less pronounced—ideal for fixing the Clutch vest issue. However, the Stalker legs do not fit CT lower torso well at all. Because of the soft plastic of the t-bar and legs, the parts will fit and move. However, the legs look massive on the lower torso or the torso looks to small for the legs. The legs stick out at the front and back and especially on the sides. The sides sticking out is not so unusual to us as we’ve seen it for many years on the popular 50th/POC Snake Eyes and Cobra Trooper builds previous, but I was hoping to leave this design flaw behind on new builds. For Clutch, the MTF vest could conceivably conceal this somewhat, but another idea came to mind, shown later.
Since legs were swapped, I thought a picture showing various parts swapped between the two figures would be a good reference for later use. The CT legs on the Stalker torso don’t look bad from the front, but are freakishly too small when looking from the side. Arms seem to swap fine, but visually don’t make much sense for anything yet (maybe in the future?). Also, right hand on left figure is the smaller MTF padded glove hand that I think looks better on CT figure. Feet on the left figure also swapped for Stalker feet. I was testing out various improvements for CT just before this latest Clutch trials.
2021-06-18_04-40-06
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
Above are the same swapped figures from the back, mainly to shows the back harness of the City Snake Eyes/Renegades Tunnel Rat compared to 25thZap/DG Duke harness. The Zap harness doesn’t have much room for adjustment, and the harness will block the backpack hole. Although you may have noticed the Zap harness broken on the previous pic. This harness was a broken spare in my fodder bin, not broken by placing on this figure. But if it may struggle to get on this torso if it had problems on the old figure.
The DG Duke harness will probably work ok, despite potential breaking issues. The arms should be removed be heating and the harness warmed up prior to placing. In the end I prefer the Renegades Tunnel Rat gear because its bigger and will work with the backpack peg hole. It may be a little expensive to get this gear though, I was luck to have a spare TR (which I bought to have an additional TR figure stand and neck scarf).
2021-06-18_04-48-17
by
HissHissFangFang
, on Flickr
Side by side comparison of harnesses. Intermission time. I'm tired, you're tired. Go get a beverage. Or a nap before Act III/Reel 6, where we actually resolve the Clutch Endeavor…
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