Roxy Bisquaint

I was so bummed when Linda Hamilton dropped out of Dragon*Con. She was who I most wanted to see. Then Gigi Edgley dropped and the man was super bummed (that's who he most wanted to see). But since Summer's been making the con rounds, we kept hoping maybe she'd sign on at some point... and today, she did :)

Aside from just meeting her, I really want to get a picture of her holding my Cameron action figure to go along with the picture I got last year of Thomas Dekker holding my John Connor action figure. That would be SO fun.

Quick post to show this off:

You guys all saw how I made all the other figures, so I took almost no pictures of the process this time. If you missed it, I did post a few in-progress pics of Kyle. Painting his patchy whiskers and swooshes on his Nikes was pretty fun (tedious and scary, but fun). I think my favorite part of this whole project, though, was making Catherine's chrome finger (no, it doesn't retract).

I really wanted there to be a glaring reminder that Catherine isn't human, but something subtle enough that it wouldn't get in the way or be ridiculous. The chrome finger seemed perfect, especially since that's how she makes her first kill on the show. I have no idea how one of my half-baked plans actually worked out so well, but it did. I guess the plan wasn't bad, but doing it on such a tiny hand made me think I was sure to fail. It went perfectly, though.

To make that, I cut away one of her fingers with a razor blade, then used a 1/32" bit to drill down the back of the remaining stub, through her palm and into the depths of her wrist. The metal extension is a cut section of a diaper pin (better quality than a regular safety pin). I heated the pointy end and jammed it into the drilled whole, then used a grinder bit on the Dremel to smooth the cut end. With the addition of a little super sculpey, it blended fairly well with her hand. When it came time to paint it, I threw some silver on hand/finger to transition from flesh to chrome.

Anyway, enough rambling about all that. Here are Catherine Weaver, Kyle Reese and Riley Dawson...



( View close-ups of the individual figures >> )

All three of the new figures will be making their debut in the comical for The Good Wound this week.

Action figure Kyle is finished. Action figure Riley is finished. And action figure Catherine is finished. Yay! Since they need to sit for a while before I assemble them for pictures (want to make sure the paint is good and hard), I moved on to Cameron. Cameron?! You ask. Yeah, Cameron. I've always thought her hair was too big, so I decided to grind it down some.

No finished picture of her yet either (she's drying), but the operation was a success. Well, sort of. I still think her hair is too big, but I feared taking too much off or it might crack or have some other catastrophic failure. One of the things I learned going through this action figure making process a second time is that it's best to grind down the top and back of the head before sculpting on hair. I didn't do that with Cameron, but I did it with the new figures and it worked out well. Lesson learned.



So anyway, Cameron still has big hair, but I think it's improved. At least it's not such a lightbulb head now. And with a fresh coat of paint, it's a slightly lighter brown and not quite as shiny.

ETA: I just found a splinter of plastic embedded in my knuckle. I yanked it and now I have a bloody knuckle. I blame Cameron. This action figure making is hazardous! A few days ago I stabbed my finger with the tip of my pocket knife while I was whittling Catherine Weaver's hair. It was quite a sight when her face was suddenly covered in blood. :P

You already know I'm working on more TSCC action figures, so I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at Kyle. He's now ready for painting and I think I'm happy with him. I can't say my vision for Kyle, Riley or Catherine was as clear as it was for all the others since we don't see them as often (and really, we hardly ever see Kyle). But I'm satisfied with my work.

If I didn't care about being able to pose him (and I had more time), I'd probably try to actually sculpt him a trench coat. He wouldn't be able to sit down if I did that, though, and chances are it would break anyway. I considered cutting him one out of vinyl (like the cheesy ones they had for the original Star Wars action figures) but that would probably look, um, cheesy. So his trench gets the same treatment Derek's army surplus jacket got — it ends at the waist and you have to pretend it's a coat. You can do that for me, can't you? Cool, thanks.

Here's Kyle, ready for painting:



Three in-progress pictures can be found starting here.

By now you've all heard the super deluxe awesome news:

We got our full season.

I am delighted, ecstatic, overjoyed, jumping up and down, throwing confetti, dancing and celebrating. But I couldn't just keep it all to myself, so I woke the action figures and broke the news to them...




Three cheers to the hard-working team that brings us this amazing show.
HIP HIP HOORAY!
HIP HIP HOORAY!
HIP HIP HOORAY!
*claps* *cheers* *whistles*

So excited. So excited for season 2. Hey wait a minute! What's this? The action figures have already staked out the best spot on the couch! I may have to do something about that. They're not going to boss me around in my own house. Hmm. On second thought, they're looking pretty well armed. Maybe I'll just sit in the chair.

Here they are at long last... my custom Sarah Connor Chronicles action figures. I've made custom figures from 3 3/4" GI Joes before (which is what these are made from), but never anything this involved and never figures that were supposed to look like existing characters. It was a challenge and a half. But with a pile of GI Joe parts, a box of Super Sculpey, a Dremel Stylus with several grinding bits, lots of sandpaper, some razor blades, my trusty pocket knife, jars of paint, tiny brushes, a magnifying glass, sheer determination, gallons of coffee and a vision, I did it. And I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Special thanks to my husband, who patiently spent night after night alone on the couch watching reruns of Hogan's Heroes while I toiled away in my laboratory. Also to cisaac for inspiring this project with "Want", a short fic about Ellison. And everyone who cheered me along in the process.

Click images to enlarge.



The pride of man, of parents as well, makes us believe that anything we create, we can control. Whether from clay or from metal, it is in the nature of us to make our own monsters. Our children, our alloys, all, built from our own imperfect flesh. We animate them with magic, and never truly know what they will do. - from episode 1.04 "Heavy Metal"



If you'd like to post any of my TSCC action figure photos anywhere, feel free, but please credit me and link back to this post.

( View close-ups of the individual figures >> )

If you want to see know how I made these, you can backtrack through the whole process here:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Package Design
3 more characters made into action figures | Cameron gets a hair cut

Or take a cruise through my gallery of images from all the work on this project.

I finally finished up painting the figures yesterday. Oh the hell I've been through over the last few days, dealing with details and last minute problems. As some of you know, Sarah's lower legs kept breaking and it wasn't until I discovered a design flaw in the style of leg I'd been using that I was able to prevent it from happening again. I reshaped where they connect to the thighs and all is well. So even problematic Sarah is done... yay!

I've moved on to accessories now - picking through hundreds if not thousands of weapons, etc. (my God I have a lot of accessories) to find some realistic looking pistols, M16s and various other tidbits. There was not a single shotgun to be found, though. I may try to make one for Sarah, but I have my doubts I can pull off something so small (I suspect it'll end up breaking when I try to shape).

Oh and lookie what I got for our gang! How could I not buy that? This is what happens when I have no work to do for a week.

Anyway... photos of the finished figures will be coming within a day or two.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10: The Unveiling

Thanks to the split verdict of my poll, I went ahead and made a duplicate head for John so he can have both season 1 emo hair and season 2 short hair. The first order of business was to finish up the short hair look. To do that, I simply added a little tuft of Sculpey to the front.

Then it was time for head duplication. You've already seen how I had to alter his neck, so I won't bore you with that again. That's the part I was dreading most about making a second head, but it was actually a lot quicker and easier since I'd been through the process once before. What I will show you this time is where I got the head(s) from:



It comes from a stupid underwater Deep Six figure and those suckers are hard to crack open. I had to cut it apart and then use a hammer and 6-in-1 tool to smash it open the rest of the way. For some reason this second head was much more difficult to get to. But once it was out, ground down and neck neck base molded on, it was time for EMO HAIR SCULPTING. Yeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaaaa!



That was without a doubt the funnest part of this whole action figure process so far. I don't know if you guys like it, but I LOVE it. I think it's hilarious — just like John's hair was by the end of the season. After cooking the head to harden the hair, I did the usual shaping and here is the finished product:



After that, I assessed each figure and did some final prep work on everyone — added an EMT badge to Charley's shirt, sanded the military stripes off Ellison's legs, stuck some pockets on Derek's jacket and added a tuft to his hair, and I reshaped the soles of John's shoes to convert them from dress shoes to sneakers and sanded off his gloves (although I did those last 2 things to John after I took the photo below). And I think that's about it.



So guess what? It's finally painting time!
I'd like there to actually be some surprise to all this, so I probably won't show any of the painting process until they're done. Sit tight.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10: The Unveiling