Playmates Anatomy Lesson and Customs Primer

No... Not that kind of Playmate.  

Before I get in to the meat and potatoes of showing my own custom figures I wanted to present some of the things that I have learned in my own journey as a collector and customizer.  I have seen a few posts here and there out on the interwebs in which people are confused, or at least unfamiliar, with some of the tricks and techniques that are a customizer's bread and butter.  I am by no means an expert, and you won't see a whole lot of sculpting or intricate paint work on my figures.  But, there are a few simple things that I have learned over the years that I have seen make a huge difference in the level of satisfaction I have with my finished custom figures.  

One of the most fundamental techniques in customizing figures - especially Playmates 4.5" Star Trek figures - is the "boil and pop" method of figure deconstruction.

So how do you go from the figure on the left to the one on the right without breaking, discoloring, or otherwise wasting your custom fodder?  

Start with this.

This is the basis for my custom toolkit.  Before the Dremel, or the X-Acto, or any of the fancy paints or modeling products come out pretty much everything starts here.  The pot is old and beat up - not anything my wife or I cook in.  The mug just happened to be handy one day and I found it to be the perfect fit for 4.5" figures - I'll explain more later on why I don't just drop the figures right in the pot.  The fork could easily be replaced with a flat head screwdriver for the purpose it serves, but it's just become a part of the toolkit at this point.  Lastly the Leatherman is just the perfect size set of needle nose pliers as I will show later.

The basic idea behind "boil and pop" is that plastic becomes softer and more malleable when it is warm.  Softer and more malleable means you can pull joints and other connections apart to break the figure down in to pieces that can be swapped around as needed.  As it cools back down the plastic returns to its original shape and consistency.  But, a word of caution - I don't know all the chemistry behind it but I do know that too much heat can cause the plastic to discolor and too much direct heat can (obviously) melt it.  

This is where the mug comes in.  My preferred method (your mileage may vary) is to heat the water in the pot to a boil and then scoop out a mug full.  I drop the figure in the mug for 2-3 minutes and then pull it out to begin whatever deconstruction is needed.  

Head swaps are one of the most basic customs, and for a while I would try to just pull out the head and then shove it back in to the body I was swapping it on to.  It worked well for some figures, but others were more difficult.  What I eventually realized is that the arms are a lot easier to pull out at the shoulder joint then trying to pull off the head.  

Once the arms are pulled out I submerge the figure back in to the mug of hot water so that the internal torso connections and neck post can soak and soften up.  I then use the needle nose pliers in the empty shoulder joint to pry open the torso.  Lying the figure on its side gives a nice flat surface where the shoulder joint is, and then a few quick hits on the counter top uses the wedge of the needle nose pliers to pop the torso open.

At this point you've got the torso completely separated and can swap out arms, the head, and everything from the waist down.  But if you need to go further, you can keep pulling the figure apart at the hips, elbows, and knees.  This is where the fork (or flat head screwdriver) come in.

The elbow and knee joints are held together with a small pin.  The upper leg and upper arm have notch that the elbow or knee fits in to, and then a pin goes through to secure the parts together.  By shoving the fork or screwdriver head in between that notch and the lower part you can pry them apart and pull them free from the pin.  

Reconnecting new parts is just a matter of putting everything back in place and then dunking back in hot water to soften up enough until you can push the pins back through all three holes to secure everything.  

As you will see once I start to post my custom figures, switching out the lower legs can increase or decrease the overall height of the figure based on what combination of parts you use.  Some figures, like Harry Kim and Chakotay, have short legs.  Other figures, like Q in Next Generation Starfleet uniform and DS9 O'Brien, have longer legs.  

One of the reasons that I have been customizing Playmates figures is that the large number of figures released over the course of the line offers a huge library of parts to start from.  The other reason is that they are relatively cheap to acquire on the secondary market.  If you are just getting started with customizing you can pick up a figure for $2 or $3 that you can perfect your techniques on without worrying about destroying a $10 - $15 investment.  

If you have any questions or need any further explanation I will be happy to answer them in the comments!

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog!  

I have been a Star Trek fan my entire life.  While I don't have a specific memory of the first time that I saw an episode or movie, I know that I was watching re-runs of the original series with my dad as soon as I could sit up on my own.  I know that I have seen old pictures from a Christmas in the early '80s with Star Trek coloring books that have art from Star Trek the Animated Series on them, and I vaguely remember watching animated epsisodes on Nickelodeon or some other cable network.  But it was when Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987 that I truly became a Star Trek fan (Trekkie, Trekker, whatever) in my own right.

In 1987 my toy world was changing.  G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was at its height, but other mainstays of my toy box were on their way out.  The retail presence of Star Wars and The Power of the Force had all but faded away as was Masters of the Universe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were still a few years away from their dominance.  But luckily for me, about halfway through the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation a line of action figures came out from Galoob toys.

I got all of the Enterprise crew, and these figures became the center of my play time.  I built a bridge playset for them out of Construx (another great 80s toy line) and used various GI Joe and Star Wars figures in place of missing characters like Counselor Troi and Doctor Crusher.  By the summer of 1988, with the break until season 2 on TV and lack of retailer support for the Galoob line meaning that a planned second series of toys never got made, my childhood attention span had moved on to whatever the next big thing was on TV and in the toy aisles.

Fast forward to 1992.  On a trip to Toys R Us in the late summer or early fall I came across a lone figure surrounded by empty pegs...

It seems almost impossible to believe in our modern world of tweeting and live blogging from Toy Fair and SDCC, websites showcasing every stage of development from licensing agreements to painted prototypes, and figures making their way on to eBay before scheduled releases, that there was a time when one could walk in to a toy store and be surprised by something.  But there I was in the action figure section of Toys R us with a lone Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge figure that represented a brand new line of Star Trek toys that, before that day, I had no idea were coming out.

Whereas Galoob had never done an action figure line before it got the license for Star Trek toys, this new line of toys was made by Playmates Toys.  The same Playmayes toys that dominated the action figure aisles of the late '80s and early '90s with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  That shared parentage was most apparent in this first wave of Star Trek: The Next Generation figures with the ripped uniform of Commander Riker, the opening access panels of Lieutenant Commander Data, and the beefed up musculature of Worf, Gowron, and the Ferengi.  

Nevertheless, that first purchase of Geordi LaForge would be the beginning of what would define my toy collecting until Playmates lost the Star Trek license in 1999.  

A lot has happened in both the world of Star Trek and in the toy world since 1999.  The rise and fall of Art Asylum and Diamond Select Toys, as well as the failure of Playmates toys to relaunch a Star Trek line with the 2009 reboot, could fill their own blog posts.  

One day they may.  

But for now I just wanted to give you a bit of a glimpse in to my history with Star Trek and its associated toys to put the posts that will follow in to some context.