106 replies to this topic

[TheHSBR]

I found a sculptor on ebay who does a lot of 1/6th scale stuff and I want to try to convince him to start making Trek custom heads. I think his scuplts are pretty good and really capture the likeness of the character. He also does a bunch of Jakks wrestling heads so I know he does smaller scale stuff as well. His price point is $25 for an unpainted head and I wanted to see if we could get a group together and present him with an option to do Trek stuff. He does commission work for $230 for each peiece but I just dont see how one person could foot that bill. So Im doing a poll to determine the viabilility of using this guy. Obviously we would have to determine as a group which characters but for right now Im basically looking for if you would be willing to pay $25 or $35 for a custom head in general.

Heres his website:
www.wantedactionfigure.com

[JMW326]

If it is a nicely sculpted head that fits nicely on the figure, I would be up for $25 for an unpainted head. I like painting them myself so I wouldn't pay any more than that.

[s8film40]

This is really interesting, It would depend on the character for me. I would prefer not to have to paint that small of detail so would go with painted, $35 is a little high though especially when you add on shipping from Hong Kong and buying a body for the head to get a complete figure. If it's the right character I'll go for it though.

[reverie]

It's a neat idea, and I do have a few spare figures laying around. For my money, it'd have to be painted, because I certainly can't do that. I guess it'd really depend on how well the finished product looked.. As for shipping, could it be cheaper if the guy in Hong Kong sent the heads to one person here, then they're distributed from there?

[data_2006]

Defeantly intrested!

[jason]

I think someone is already doing this check the custom thread

[thecapn]

I think someone is already doing this check the custom thread

Depends on what you want. This year is actually really a great one for Trek in 1/6 scale...nanjin (a member here) has been working on some custom Trek figures that he's making available of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy both from TOS and TWOK. I have my group from TOS on the way right now, I'm very excited! Dragon is also releasing their TNG figures...if all of it works out, that's 9 figures this year, more if you consider that Nanjin is planning on making additional uniforms (dress uniforms for TOS, landing party for TWOK, along with the Vulcan meditation robe and Medical outfit for McCoy). More info here:

TWOK
TOS

Also, if you guys do decide to do this, I'd throw in my hat to do some painting. It's one of my favorite things to do.

[JMW326]

I guess I should have asked this sooner but what scale are we talking about? DST scale, sideshow scale?

[reverie]

I assumed DST scale for some reason... that'd be the only scale I'd be interested in myself.

[VulcanFanatic]

7" heads would be nice. We could make a lot more Star Trek figures with just new heads, like a Tuvok head on a Geordi body. They were about the same height and race. just needs some paint for the uniform. How about an EMH on a Bashir body. "There are always possibilities"

[Artistix]

I would be interested. I would prefer mine painted.

[TheHSBR]

Im looking at the dst 7" scale. Im hoping for as little modding as possible but I cant guarentee the head wont require a little work to fit perfectly. If hes using a hard resin, boil and pop just wont work so something different would have to take its place. Maybe something more static like we saw in the Nemsis AA line.

[TheHSBR]

well i think we have enough support for this idea but please continue to post answers and ideas but im also going to open a thread on character selection. BTW...Im also not completely attached to this scupltor. I think his work is good from the pics on his site and the prices of $35 seem reasonable (if we can bypass the comission of 230 that would be even better). However, if you know of someone that does good work and is willing to participate that would be great too! basically this is just a guy I found on ebay and thought it was worth exploring.

[Gothneo]

I think $25 is steep. But that's because you can find sites that specialize in offering castings in 1/12th scale for about $6.

[TheHSBR]

Can anyone offer to do a shrink then cast? Ive never done casting before but am willing to try...its the shrinking process that concerns me being a beginner. If not does nayone know of an experienced person that might be able to work with us and be willing to contact them?

[s8film40]

Here's another idea. I came across this:
http://www.comicbook...lecting001.html
If we could get a digital 3D model of the heads we could just have them printed.
I'm sure there are other companies that do this but this is the first one I found:
http://www.shapeways.com/
If you look under the SciFi section they already have some ships available also.

[JMW326]

I have actually looked into this for my 3D models and know a couple of other 3D artists that have used sites like this to get a physical model made from a 3d model. It is usualy pretty pricey. The results can be nice unless they use the corn starch material to make the model which leads to some finish work as it is not perfectly smooth. Not a bad idea though.

[s8film40]

Actually looking at the pricing it doesn't look too bad. The white strong and flexible is priced at $1.50 per cubic cm so assuming a DST head is about 2 cubic cm it would be about $3 plus the $1.50 set up cost. It seems very cheap unless I'm missing something, looking at the pricing page here:http://www.shapeways.com/materials/

[JMW326]

Well according to that site it looks pretty cool and like you said, Not that expensive. I would be up for giving it a shot. Once a physical model is made then one of us can make a mould to do resin casting to make more.

[knightone]

At that price, we should just skip the molding and do a group buy with that company.