AOTC Obi-Wan & ROTJ Endor Luke (Gentle Giant Busts)

[Yoda Man]

I took a long time off from customizing to focus on school, but over winter break I decided to dabble in it again just a little bit. I have a ton of unfinished and in-progress pieces from when I took a break back around 2008, and the first one I got around to was "The Witch" Buffy. I did the sculpt about 3 years ago, and just got around to painting it this week.

She's in the 12" scale and is my first full figure of this size. She's based on the scene at the start of the episode when Giles questions her decision to tryout as a cheerleader, and she's shrugging her shoulders while raising her eyebrow in a toying/playful manner. I used Sideshow parts from the Buffy line and sculpted the rest.

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: Cheerleader Buffy Statue "The Witch", Handmaiden Padme Bust "TPM"

My first Gentle Giant piece is of Queen Amidala in her Handmaiden disguise. This one's been sitting around for ages, and I never could figure out what to do with the sculpt. I spent forever trying to decide what to do with her arms and how to sculpt them, and eventually I just gave up on the piece. Re-approaching it, I decided that maybe she was better off armless after all. There really was no pose I could give her with arms that would add to the piece at all, so I thought it better to go the more traditional route of busts and make it armless. I know many are morally opposed to the original AOTC busts, but I still thought I'd share.

With flash:

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "A New Hope" Ceremonial Leia Bust

Just thought I'd share my most recent piece. I'm on spring break right now so I managed to get one more custom off of my to-do list. It's a Gentle Giant-style bust of Princess Leia from the end of Star Wars: A New Hope when she's wearing her Yavin ceremonial gown.

If anyone's interested, the bust is currently up on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/300872432346?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

 

[wax murderer]

Re: "A New Hope" Ceremonial Leia Bust

Ummm...you used the head sculpt from the GG"Slave Leia"as a base.Been working with it myself;tricky...PS

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "A New Hope" Ceremonial Leia Bust

Yes, that's correct. I used the whole Slave Leia bust as a base. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise. I sculpted all the clothes and some hair and then painted the entire thing. Here are some pics of it as I went along:

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "A New Hope" Ceremonial Leia Bust

Unfortunately the Elizabeth Swann bust I'm working on is taking longer than anticipated due to all the tiny details, so in the mean time I had the urge to bang out a quick custom. It's a bust of Hermione Granger from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and is based on her school robes outfit. The pose more or less comes from the promo poster for the film, and the hair sculpt is essentially a hodge podge of her various hair styles that year. It just always bugged me that Gentle Giant only made one Hermione bust, and we never got her in her Hogwarts attire. I used a Cho Chang bust as the base and used the arms and head from NECA's 12" Hermione. I kept it really simple and only sculpted and repainted where needed; unlike some of my other pieces, I wanted this piece to look company-made and fit in seamlessly with the other Gentle Giant pieces. I also kept the articulation in the wrists, so the bust does have the ability to change the way it holds the wand.


If anyone is interested, the bust is currently on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/300916529293?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

With flash

In-progress pic

 

[Cheungkinmen]

Re: "Order of the Phoenix" Hermione Bust

Hermione looks great!

 

[jabba_man]

Re: "Order of the Phoenix" Hermione Bust

wow! great work!

 

[TheFiend]

Yeah, I really like Hermione.

Sent from my LG-E739 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "Order of the Phoenix" Hermione Bust

Thanks for all the nice words, everyone! This really was one of my simpler pieces, but I think it turned out pretty well because of it. I'm hoping to work on a Fred and George (and maybe a Ron) next.

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "Order of the Phoenix" Hermione Bust

My most recent bust is based on Elizabeth Swann from "Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl." Elizabeth was the first custom bust I had ever made way back in 2007, so I thought it would be fun to have a second go at it. I've also since been collecting the NECA Pirates busts, and so I wanted to make an Elizabeth that would fit in with the others.

The head is from the 12" Zizzle Elizabeth figure and the torso is from Sideshow. It took forever to get the colors right on the hair and dress and to pull off some sort of likeness, but I'm finally finished and am pretty pleased overall. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it. I'll be working on a Pirate King Elizabeth next and will hopefully get an even better likeness then.

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: "Curse of the Black Pearl" Elizabeth Swann Bust

I tried something a little different this time around. As a big Disney fan, I really loved those fan-made hyper-realistic paintings of what Disney Princesses would look like in real life. I was inspired by them to make a series of busts (similar to Gentle Giant's work) that depict how the Princesses would realistically look. The goal was to sculpt the clothes and hair and paint the piece in a way that appears natural instead of cartoonish. It was also fun to finally do a custom that didn't have a set "appearance" (there's no human likeness I have to strive for and no detail can truly be "wrong") and just work on my sculpting and painting skills. I just greatly enjoyed getting to design and imagine how these women would appear in a realistic setting.

First up is Ariel, but I already have sketches and designs worked out for the other leading Disney ladies. If the idea is well-received, I currently have the parts to get started on Belle, Megara, Rapunzel, and Mulan.

With flash:

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: Realistic Disney Princesses: Ariel Bust

I got tired of waiting for Gentle Giant to make this, so my most recent custom bust is based on Princess Leia from the end of Empire Strikes Back. This is her "Bespin Escape" outfit from when she's running through Cloud City. I thought GG would make it when they got to Hoth Leia (using different molds to make a variant) or as a companion piece to Lando or Bespin Han. But since we still haven't gotten one, I'll just assume that we probably never will.

The bust is made primarily using the Hoth Leia bust from GG. The arms and head were repositioned, then I sculpted the missing parts of the jumpsuit and the hair. The bare hand with the Stormtrooper blaster came from the ANH Leia bust. Then I repainted it entirely.

Any comments on the final product would greatly be appreciated!

With my other ESB busts:

Preliminary work:

 

[Yoda Man]

Re: Bespin Escape Leia Bust

Getting back in to the customs game, albeit briefly. I started both of these busts back in August, but had to put them on hold while I went back to another semester of college. Finally got to finish them both up while on winter break. Neither are perfect or my favorites as they were my "easier" projects I had lined up, but I'm still proud of the results. I was going to make an Endor Han to go along with Luke, but ran out of time. The Luke is also rather irrelevant now that GG has announced their own version, but I still like my take on it.


Obi-Wan was made with an AOTC head, ANH body, and newly sculpted left arm

eBay link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/301061133357?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Luke was made from a ROTJ Luke with repositioned arms and new hands.

eBay link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/301058592555?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

 

[RavenEye]

Luke looks pissed lol