THX 1138 Figures

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I found an image of a mask online... I think it would be fairly easy to do. I'll take a crack at sculpting it and post my results. And according to the listing of the prop was covered in silverleaf which would be easy to do on a 1/6 figure; just bought a silverleaf pen earlier today :lol

THX-1138 Mask

I think the next hurdle is finding/making/modifying a helmet.

Those silver leaf pens can be a pain on larger surfaces. If you push and hold it down on a surface loads of it leaks out, then use a paintbrush :peace
 
I just experiemented with a spare head and found that out... it ended up being very streaky; but using a brush helped to smooth it out.

Not sure how much better it will be than a bright silver paint; so I'll do a couple of test runs on it.
 
I just experiemented with a spare head and found that out... it ended up being very streaky; but using a brush helped to smooth it out.

Not sure how much better it will be than a bright silver paint; so I'll do a couple of test runs on it.

Aye i'd like to figure out if you can thin the silver leaf paint out as it dries so fast.

Ive had some fairly decent results priming something white, then painting it with several washed down silver layers, then gloss it to death. Its still not as shiny as the leaf but its ok.
 
j. think a heat gun could heat it up enough to take the streaks out. might be tricky & if you were to try that .......try it on something besides your sculpt or a throw away sculpt just in case.......:dunno
 
Here's another revision... took down the cheeks and evened out the sculpt overall.

thxf.jpg

Also did a test with an extra head... this is a silverleaf pen with a gloss coat. Not as nice as I'd like. In person it looks a bit better than the photo... but not much.

thxg.jpg
 
Sculpt looks good now!

As for paint. I would just paint the head a dark gray and then drybrush the silver on it.
 
I just found out from my wife that you can get that silver leaf stuff in bottles, I guess we have some of gold kind.

Also I was telling Galatiboy recently that I used to have some Testors spray chrome, it was pretty good stuff especially if you polished up after a few coats then clear coated it, but its been like 20 years since I have seen the stuff, probably took it off the market for some reason.
 
Thanks EF :rock I'll have to give your idea a try.

Yeah, I remember that chrome paint... but haven't seen it in a long time. I bought a can of spray paint awhile back that was supposed to be chrome but the result was less than impressive :lol

Did your wife say where you can buy silver leaf in bottles from?
 
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I just found out from my wife that you can get that silver leaf stuff in bottles, I guess we have some of gold kind.

Also I was telling Galatiboy recently that I used to have some Testors spray chrome, it was pretty good stuff especially if you polished up after a few coats then clear coated it, but its been like 20 years since I have seen the stuff, probably took it off the market for some reason.

I found this on ebay

https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250631776497&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Looks like it might be a good bet.

A "good" chrome paint would probably be the best bet, but don't know of any and hav'nt used any,but would like to for a terminator endoskeleton repaint I'm planning.
 
The one I used was already painted. I haven't had a chance to modify it yet... but I plan on removing a few of the bumps and smoothing out the mold lines.
 
The silver leaf comes out nice, I am glad the chroming was fairly easy to solve.

Since I am working on a bunch of smaller projects right now, instead of a few big ones, I might try to squeeze in a little time to whip up a prototype outfit for this guy real soon.
 
Looking forward to what you come up with!

I haven't done any further work to the sculpt, but I'm hoping I will have time to do a few more refinements and then get it shipped off for casting. I think I'll get 10 or so done and then once they're back if anyone wants one they can contact me.

Around 5 or so have been spoken for already... so a few extra would be available.
 
The silver leaf comes out nice, I am glad the chroming was fairly easy to solve.

Since I am working on a bunch of smaller projects right now, instead of a few big ones, I might try to squeeze in a little time to whip up a prototype outfit for this guy real soon.

Looking froward to see what you come up with how much do you think a full out fit will cost to produce?

Looking forward to what you come up with!

I haven't done any further work to the sculpt, but I'm hoping I will have time to do a few more refinements and then get it shipped off for casting. I think I'll get 10 or so done and then once they're back if anyone wants one they can contact me.

Around 5 or so have been spoken for already... so a few extra would be available.

Think I will have one aswell,how much do you think it will cost unpainted?;)


Heres a few pics of my experimentations with the rub and buff silver leaf i bought.

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The first pics is just appiled then the other pics are dry and buffed up.

The only problem with it, is it does come off unless you seal it,but then that dulls the overall effect.
I also lenghtened my figures arms and legs by 10mm to give him a more oppressive feel as the actors in the film were tall gangly blokes.

I think one of them was johnny weisemuller (actor that played tarzan in the fifties).

I nearly melted my figure in the process but he survived:)

Still waiting on the helmet to come probably tuesday and will have to paint that. Plus I need to sew the jacket closed but is looking good might reduce the neck a bit.

Ideally I would like him the same size as my jaws figure but am not gunna find a another body that size or clothes to fit.

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Looking froward to see what you come up with how much do you think a full out fit will cost to produce?

If I did a replica of the jacket, pants, and holster for baton and mabee the belt, I would have to sort out something for belt buckles. I would estimate $25. The part of the jacket that is a bit harder to get right is the folded part on each side on the back from the shoulders to the waist that you can see in the picture below, because a screw up there will result in another piece in the failure bag.

An interesting thing happened today though, My wife reminded me I have a jacket that is exactly the same as the ones used in the film, It was my riding jacket from when i was in high school, so its been stashed somewhere in a box for the last 15 years which is the last time I owned a motor cycle, or a car for that matter :lol, but I am gonna try and dig it out.

PDVD_023.jpg



Also I found a 1/6th Hong Kong Traffic headquarters figure that has a perfect helmet I think. I was tempted to pick one up because it looked exactly like the cop that pulled over Sammo Hung in SPL: Sha Po Lang (One of the best martial arts movies ever BTW!) that was about to get beat down until Yen showed up, and I thought he would be a good punching bag for Sammo's character, since Yens character would be busy with Jacky Woo.:lol

Hers a link to the figure https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260574967553&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

It would need some black paint applied to parts of it, but it seems good, and the figure itself and other accessories seem like they could be useful for other things or just to resell.

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Did your wife say where you can buy silver leaf in bottles from?

She said she picked it up at Joann Fabrics, so it shouldn't be hard to find if you have some local craft stores that haven't decided to focus almost exclusively on the useless art of scrap booking....even jokingly refering to scrapbooking as an art made me die a little inside.:monkey4



THX 1138 is visually appealing but actual action figures might be a bit weak. If it was in a brick and mortar it would be a peg warmer for sure. 1:6 or not. If they did it as a limited run or con exclusive and had some superb packaging I can see the collectors getting all hot and bothered for it. I'd rather see affordable, well done Blade Runner figures first.

Why do people keep bringing up Blade Runner, its completely unrelated, not to mention that its not going to happen, sideshow has mentioned they have looked into getting the rights and it was pretty much a lost cause. There are dozens movies I would like to see figures in 1/6th scale for that probably wont happen either.

The Road Warrior
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly......Ones that don't cost $500-$1000+
Escape from New York
Once Upon a Time in China 1-3
Iron Monkey
Prodigal Son
Ong Bak
Mr. Vampire
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
House of Flying Daggers
Curse of the Golden Flower
SPL
Come Drink With Me
Evil Dead 2
Idiocracy
Office Space
Barbarella.....Ok, that was a joke :)

Not to mention Blade Runner

To be honest If more than just Enterbay and the few other companies that do smaller runs of expensive figures based on Asian martial arts films and they were more accessible, theres a good chance I would off load my Star Wars collection and collect those instead as my main focus.

Also the fact that THX1138 was a low budget and technically a flop of a film has little to do with merchandise sales, once a film has gained a cult status you never can tell what can happen, just look at the Evil Dead movies.

Also as an example Big Trouble in Little China was a complete flop, but gained a cult status and has had 7" licensed figures made for it recently and someone has plans to release larger scale figures in the near future, which I really hope happens because I am lucky enough to be involved with it .:pray: So apparently there must be enough of an interest in them, hell I just did an outfit job recently for a side character from the 70's Buck Rogers TV series for a licensed figure collection, who would have thought there would be enough interest in that, but there is apparently.
 
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