| I
made my 4.5 inch Kirk and Spock from A Piece of the Action before the ToyFare
exclusive Kirk figure was available, so if you start on these now you will
probably have much easier time of it than I did...
Here's
what I did - I started with the bodies from two Dixon Hill figures, one
from the single carded figure and one from the 2-pack. I used Dixon Hill
bodies from these two different sources since the paint job is different
on both, which is mighty convenient considering Kirk and Spock wore different
colored suits in the episode... As I recall the single carded Dixon Hill
figure has a dark bluish suit, and the Dixon Hill figure from the 2-pack
has a brown suit, which works great for Kirk and Spock. I boiled and popped
the heads off the two Dixon Hill figures, and replaced them with TOS Kirk
and Spock heads. (I boiled and popped and decapitated the Kirk and Spock
heads from the figures that came with TOS crew multi-pack...) I then used
a coping saw to cut the hats from the loose Dixon Hill heads, and a Dremel
to precisely grind both the hats and Kirk and Spock's heads so that the
hats could be cleanly and appropriately attached to the heads. I then superglued
the hats onto Kirk and Spock's heads, and painted them to match the hats
worn in the episode; light gray for Kirk and brown for Spock. (I personally
suggest gluing on the hats slightly crooked, so that they appear to be
jauntily cocked on the figure's heads...) Next I painted Kirk and Spock's
shirts very light blue and very light brown respectively, and I painted
and polka-dotted the ties to match those worn in the episode, and I similarly
painted little pocket handkerchiefs protruding from the pocket on the front
of each jacket, as on the actual costumes. I did not paint pinstripes on
the suits, which the actual costumes clearly have, since I am a shaky guy
and could never do a good job at it. But I did consult the episode extensively
to get the details as precise as possible on the hats, shirts, ties, etc.
And my work was done... Now that the ToyFare POTA Kirk figure is
on the scene, you can either be satisfied with it as is, or you can do
what I did which was to add the hat. Since Playmates in their infinite
cheapness didn't put the necessary hat on their POTA Kirk, you still need
to cut the hat off Dixon Hill and attach it to Kirk's ground down head.
Paint it (the hat) light gray, and you are in business. And of course you
can still do Spock as outlined above, using either the Dixon Hill body
like I did, or using the ToyFare POTA Kirk body with the suit painted brown
and Kirk's head replaced with Spock's. All this being done, a couple of
questions still remain. First, since the ToyFare POTA Kirk has the pinstripes
painted on the suit, but the custom POTA Spock doesn't, are you going to
be satisfied with this inconsistency? If so, god bless you. If not, you
are going to have to paint little pinstripes on Spock's suit, and I wish
you the best of luck with that... And second, are you going to be happy
to have these two excellent custom figures without their most essential
accessory - Tommy Guns???? If not, you will probably have to make the guns
out of clay or carve them out of wood, which is whole project unto itself.
But well worth it, I think... Good luck!. |
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Safety
