Being a former seller and collector of action figures, I've decided to make a set of custom Sarah Connor Chronicles action figures from 3 3/4" GI Joes. Joes have always been my favorite and they're the easiest to customize since you can take them all apart and swap pieces around (not to mention I have lots of them). But as great as Joes are, there are still some obstacles. Not all pieces are interchangeable and there aren't many female parts to work with. I think it's going to be a fun challenge, though.

I'm making a set of 7 figures: Sarah, John, Cameron, Derek, Ellison, Charley, Cromartie

The huge task of sifting through hundreds of parts to select what I need is now done. Well, never say done until you actually start painting, but I think I'm done. Anyway, here's what I've assembled. Yeah, I know they don't look like much, but you'll just have to trust that I have a vision. And there's plenty more work to be done before these figures will be ready for painting.

Right now, I have issues with heads not fitting torsos on a few figures, which is a problem of mixing parts from the first 2 years of Joes with others (they changed the necks). I'll fix that by adding polymer clay to the base of John's and Charley's necks, and by grinding away some of Sarah's neck. You might also notice Cameron basically has no hair. I'll have to mold that (and if it works well, I might do Sarah's too since I'm not all that thrilled with what I've got now). I also need to cut/grind off some stuff from various parts.

As awesome as GI Joes are for customizing, the pitfall is that the body parts are generally loaded with weapons and gadgets that would look stupid for the characters. That's why Ellison, Charley and Cromartie ended up with the exact same lower bodies (choices are even more limited when you want shoes instead of boots and those particular legs only fit that particular abdomen) and why Derek and John have the same thighs and Sarah and Cameron have the same thighs.

So there it is - the early stages of making TSCC custom action figures. I've got Dremeling, sculpting and sanding to do next. And no doubt, I'll end up changing some parts during that process. Then I'll finally get to paint! In the end, they'll all look quite different than this:



So how did this come about? Well it was all due to cisaac's Ellison drabble "Want". In it, he has the line "When he was fifteen, he wanted to be a soldier. He wanted to drive a tank like his brother did. He wanted to be a hero and salute the flag. He would be G.I. Joe. Maybe be like that Roadblock character." And if you read the comments in that post, you'll see how that line snowballed into me doing this ;)

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