TF Views

I'll add to this by saying that if you want to get good at the disassembling toys thing, find an expendably one you don't care about and... break it. Cracking open a toy will show you exactly how it all fits together and you'll be able to take apart other copies safely. And then there's the rare occasions when you successfully open it safely the first time. But that hardly ever happens.

From what I understand, the best known way to open up a 25A Joe figure is by hitting it just right with a hammer. Prying it open is also a method that some have tried. Both are potentially messy and probably not worth the effort unless you *really* want to switch arms between figures.

Dom
-thought it is harder to paint intact figures....

I'm down with head swaps, those are easy enough. I've also swapped legs and webgear when it made sense to, and no paint was involved. And I do understand doing basecoat and then details.

My problem is that I've attempted to do much of this stuff in the past and the results have been not so good. The problem has been that I'm just too damn impatient. I don't wait for things to dry before handling them, and things get ruined. I'm trying to be better about that, and thankfully a few successful paintjobs may be inspiring me towards doing that.

Shockwave wrote:I'll add to this by saying that if you want to get good at the disassembling toys thing, find an expendably one you don't care about and... break it. Cracking open a toy will show you exactly how it all fits together and you'll be able to take apart other copies safely. And then there's the rare occasions when you successfully open it safely the first time. But that hardly ever happens.

It's a question of tools. Most reliable methods of cracking apart 25th Joe figures involve a vice grip, several flathead screwdrivers, or chipping away for hours with a hobby knife. I have none of these. (I mean, I have a knife, but not the time to chip away at it.)

What sort of paint do you use? Games Workshop paints tend to dry pretty quickly. Spend a bit of money on the right paint and good brushes. (Seriously, cheap brushes can ruin even the best ideas using the best paints.)


Dom
-has yet to find a good white paint....

I'm using the cheapest hobby paints with "Acrylic" written on the bottle possible.

Spinning out of the fanfic thing (not quite sure where it should go, since this thread has moved on to the slightly more topical Help O6 Spend Time And Money On Customs subject, but Gomess said 'fanfic' in the Fandom thread. Dom can move it to wherever makes his head explode less) I just wanted to add my two cents: Fanfic can serve the same purpose as customs, in creating an example of something that is unlikely to be seen in official content, but could still be interesting. Take the Princess Celestia thing you mentioned. Yes, people like to joke about her being the true villain of the series and so forth, and people like to explore the concept, taking what (admittedly thin) precedent there is from the show and putting it into a narrative on paper to see how it would work. No one *actually* thinks Princess Celestia is evil or that it’s canon, and anyone who has convinced you that they do is a very persuasive troll. But jotting down a few pages of Twilight confronting her mentor only to learn the Awful Truth just to see how such a scenario *might* play out because I like the characters and they’re strong enough to carry such an effort regardless of the context is just harmless fun, no different than, say, you putting forward how you’d like to see the Movie Autobots portrayed as going on a globe-trotting genocidal rampage at the end of DOTM, because even though there’s no chance of the official content showing it, it’s an *interesting* idea within the context of the franchise. In fact, it’s exactly the same.

Yes, there are plenty of people who write *bad* fanfics that have little to do with the content they’re allegedly based on and exist more to aggrandize fan-characters and the ‘writers’ hiding behind them than to explore the concepts and characters from alternate angles not being done by the official avenues. But there are also plenty of people who make badly-done customs of action figures that have nothing to do with the line they’re based on and exist only to glorify in physical form aggrandized fan-characters and the ‘customizers’ behind them, and you certainly haven’t let that put you off of cutoms.

ShockTrek, I’m willing to go in with you on an hiring editor if you like, since it appears I need one as well.

BWprowl wrote:Yes, there are plenty of people who write *bad* fanfics that have little to do with the content they’re allegedly based on and exist more to aggrandize fan-characters and the ‘writers’ hiding behind them than to explore the concepts and characters from alternate angles not being done by the official avenues. But there are also plenty of people who make badly-done customs of action figures that have nothing to do with the line they’re based on and exist only to glorify in physical form aggrandized fan-characters and the ‘customizers’ behind them, and you certainly haven’t let that put you off of cutoms.

This is why it annoys me when Dom criticises fanfic "to" me, since- and I'm well aware he doesn't realise it- it's basically the same as telling me I'm a poor writer. He thinks fanfic is *so* inherently worthless, that I couldn't possibly do anything to make it worthwhile. I know, of course, that what Dom means is that I "should consider fanfic beneath me". But I don't.

In the end, though, what matters is his ultimate reaction; whether he's constructive in his criticism, or hell, even supportive. Prejudice is one thing, but letting it colour your opinion entirely ruins any chance at mature discussion. I'd like to think if Dom posted his latest custom my reaction wouldn't be WTF BRO WHY DID YOU SPEND MONEY JUST TO PAINT A RED TOY YELLOW

(And uh, just to set everyone at ease, since it was brought to my attention by a nameless party... I don't hate Dom or anything? Ok.)

BWprowl wrote:Spinning out of the fanfic thing (not quite sure where it should go, since this thread has moved on to the slightly more topical Help O6 Spend Time And Money On Customs subject, but Gomess said 'fanfic' in the Fandom thread. Dom can move it to wherever makes his head explode less) I just wanted to add my two cents: Fanfic can serve the same purpose as customs, in creating an example of something that is unlikely to be seen in official content, but could still be interesting. Take the Princess Celestia thing you mentioned. Yes, people like to joke about her being the true villain of the series and so forth, and people like to explore the concept, taking what (admittedly thin) precedent there is from the show and putting it into a narrative on paper to see how it would work. No one *actually* thinks Princess Celestia is evil or that it’s canon, and anyone who has convinced you that they do is a very persuasive troll. But jotting down a few pages of Twilight confronting her mentor only to learn the Awful Truth just to see how such a scenario *might* play out because I like the characters and they’re strong enough to carry such an effort regardless of the context is just harmless fun, no different than, say, you putting forward how you’d like to see the Movie Autobots portrayed as going on a globe-trotting genocidal rampage at the end of DOTM, because even though there’s no chance of the official content showing it, it’s an *interesting* idea within the context of the franchise. In fact, it’s exactly the same.

Yes, there are plenty of people who write *bad* fanfics that have little to do with the content they’re allegedly based on and exist more to aggrandize fan-characters and the ‘writers’ hiding behind them than to explore the concepts and characters from alternate angles not being done by the official avenues. But there are also plenty of people who make badly-done customs of action figures that have nothing to do with the line they’re based on and exist only to glorify in physical form aggrandized fan-characters and the ‘customizers’ behind them, and you certainly haven’t let that put you off of cutoms.

ShockTrek, I’m willing to go in with you on an hiring editor if you like, since it appears I need one as well.

I was gonna make this point as well and in my case, IDW's ongoing is actually a pretty good example. It gave us stories featuring the characters with characterization based on their tech specs rather than the Sunbow series or the Marvel Comic. I had always wanted to see these kinds of stories done that used those characterizations. Now, with IDW we have those stories. But back in 1984 if I wanted that I would have had to write my own fanfic to accomplish that. And, in this case the original tech specs were different enough from the characterizations in the officially produced content that it would have warranted such fanfic. Granted, now I can just read IDW, but back in the day, I didn't have that option.

As for editing duty, sure why not, count me in.

Gomess wrote:

BWprowl wrote:Yes, there are plenty of people who write *bad* fanfics that have little to do with the content they’re allegedly based on and exist more to aggrandize fan-characters and the ‘writers’ hiding behind them than to explore the concepts and characters from alternate angles not being done by the official avenues. But there are also plenty of people who make badly-done customs of action figures that have nothing to do with the line they’re based on and exist only to glorify in physical form aggrandized fan-characters and the ‘customizers’ behind them, and you certainly haven’t let that put you off of cutoms.

This is why it annoys me when Dom criticises fanfic "to" me, since- and I'm well aware he doesn't realise it- it's basically the same as telling me I'm a poor writer. He thinks fanfic is *so* inherently worthless, that I couldn't possibly do anything to make it worthwhile. I know, of course, that what Dom means is that I "should consider fanfic beneath me". But I don't.

In the end, though, what matters is his ultimate reaction; whether he's constructive in his criticism, or hell, even supportive. Prejudice is one thing, but letting it colour your opinion entirely ruins any chance at mature discussion. I'd like to think if Dom posted his latest custom my reaction wouldn't be WTF BRO WHY DID YOU SPEND MONEY JUST TO PAINT A RED TOY YELLOW

(And uh, just to set everyone at ease, since it was brought to my attention by a nameless party... I don't hate Dom or anything? Ok.)

I think the real problem with that is that Dom places official content in too high regard. I get the impression that he thinks the only fiction that should be written should be from official sources. This actually becomes a problem with toy lines. And I could use his own collection to illustrate what I mean by that. He has customs of diaclone characters in Generations style displayed on a shelf next to officially produced toys. So, he basically has official content (the toys) being used for unofficial fan purposes. Unless of course he could cite some sort of officially produced content that has all of those characters standing next to each other. I seriously doubt said content exists. The police Sunstreaker alone would make that virtually impossible. So he basically has fanfic on display by virtue of having officially produced content next to unofficially produced content.

And here's the other problem with fanfic and toy lines: At one point I had all of my Classics style figures in a huge-ass battle scene on a shelf in my house. Now here I am using official content (again, the toys) for unofficial content (the battle scene). So what's the difference if I want to display a battle vs. if I bother to write down what's going on or why they're beating the crap out of each other to begin with? It's still an unofficial scenario that I made up and used those characters to make it happen.

I think Dom's real problem with fanfic is because most of the time the people writing fanfic tend to be self indulgent in the sense that they create unofficial "fan" characters and use said fanfic as an excuse to try to make them seem more bad ass. Or maybe to justify creating said character to begin with. It's like fans just use it to say "look at this awesome character I made! Isn't awesome? Please tell me it's awesome!"

Personally G, I'd still be interested in reading whatever you put together for a BW fanfic. It sounded like you had some interesting ideas.

Now I also kind of wonder what Dom's opinion on fanART is.