Custom Figure - Commander William T. Riker Season One

While many of my custom figures are updates to official Playmates Toys' releases with tweaks for better part choices or overall aesthetics, Commander Riker from the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was customized to fill a void left by Playmates.  After the first series of figures depicted the "Big Seven" (minus Doctor Crusher) in what was, at the time of release, their "current" Season Five look, the second series of figures was patterned after the characters' appearance in Seasons One and Two.  These releases featured some slight retooling of the torso molds to change the high collar back in to the low collar of the first two seasons.  But, apparently there wasn't money in the tooling budget for a new Commander Riker head sculpt without the beard.  So, while Picard, Data, Geordi, and Worf represent their look in Season One, Commander Riker sports his Season Two look.   

For the second wave of figures I can cut Playmates a little bit of slack.  Like all toy companies, they were relying on repaints and minor tooling changes to recoup some of the initial investment needed to get the line going.  But, like may other collectors, as the line continued I would have much rather seen figures like Commander Riker from Season One than figures from single episode appearances like Riker as a Malcorian from "First Contact" or Geordi LaForge as a Tarchannen III alien from "Identity Crisis".  

The real kicker came when Playmates decided to release a non-canonical series of "Starfleet Academy" figures and finally gave us an "Ensign Babyface" Riker head sculpt.  

Many other customizers have done a straightforward head swap of the Starfleet Academy Riker head on to the Season Two Riker body.  While effective, I simply hate the standard Riker body with its exaggerated "martini glass" physique, permanent phaser trigger finger, and Heisman pose hands.  

  

So, in an effort to create a Commander Riker that was standardized with the other figures I was working on, I set to work on finding the right combination of parts.  The head is, like everyone else, from the Starfleet Academy Cadet Riker figure.  Like my custom figures of Picard, Geordi, O'Brien, and Q from Season One, Riker uses the Season One and Two Captain Picard torso.  In accumulating enough of that figure to supply a body for all those customs, I realized that there was a variant in the figure release.  

The torso on the left features four distinctly sculpted rank pips.  The torso on the right features three sculpted pips and one that is painted on.  The torso on the right just required a quick swipe with some acetone to achieve a demotion to Commander, and it was all set for use with my Season One and (coming soon) Season Two Commander Riker custom figures. 

One of the things I distinctly remember about the Star Trek: The Next Generation figures made by Galoob is that Riker and Worf were taller than everyone else.  It makes sense - Jonathan Frakes is 6" 4' tall.  And so while the arms are the same one I used for Captain Picard, the upper legs were taken from Q to provide some additional height.  

The Geordi LaForge lower legs with the red piping around the yoke are not as tall as the legs I used for my Season Seven (coming soonish.... I'll get there eventually I promise) and other Riker figures that have plain black trousers.  For those Riker figures I found that the Chief O'Brien legs from the first series of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figures gave the necessary boost to achieve height without looking out of proportion.  I may someday go back and remake the figure with that combination of parts on the legs and paint the red piping myself, but at the time I was avoiding paint whenever possible.  

Overall I am pleased to have Number One from Season One properly depicted in my collection.  While the officially released Seasons One and Two Captain Picard was exceedingly inaccurate with the wrong style pants and the belt separating the torso from the waist, Commander Riker only features the belt as a holdover from the first series tooling.  As described earlier, the Seasons One and Two uniform was very clearly a jumpsuit and while the waist swivel does create a separation between the torso and the waist it still more closely resembles the hated spandex space suit of those first two seasons. 

Once again as a quick recap of how I made this figure:

-  Starfleet Academy Cadet Riker head 

-  Season one and two Captain Picard torso and arms

-  Q in Starfleet uniform waist and upper legs

-  Season one Geordi La Forge lower legs

-  Additional Season one and two Captain Picard for left shoulder

Custom Figure - Captain Jean-Luc Picard Season One

And now, as teased far too long, I will start posting my custom Star Trek Figures. 

While I attempted a few custom figures back in the mid - late 90's during the Playmates run, none of those early attempts were really successful enough for me to keep them in my collection.  The real genesis of my current custom figure collection, and by extension the idea for this blog, started with the Blu Ray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 2012.  

At the time I remember thinking that it was odd to see people get excited about the release given how universally disliked the first season of Next Generation is.  And while I did not purchase the Blu Ray myself, it did cause me to go back and rewatch that first season on Netflix to see if it was a bad as I remembered.  Make no mistake - I loved those early episodes when they first aired, but as I grew older and would catch them in reruns over the years it's pretty clear that for every great episode like "Encounter at Farpoint" there is a "Code of Honor".

That being said, the first and second seasons were not as bad overall as I remember them being.  This got me thinking about how excited I was by The Next Generation in those early days and how much I enjoyed my small collection of Galoob figures.  As I started thinking about picking up the season one and two uniform figures from the Playmates line that I had skipped over when initially released, an idea popped in to my head.  I looked over my Playmates toys collection and thought about the childhood joy of those few Galoob figures, and I thought about how thrilled my six year old self would be to have so many figures at his disposal.  At that moment I decided not just to pick up those few missing figures, but to also pick up enough custom fodder to make them in to versions of the figures that corrected many of the "mistakes" I saw from Playmates Toys. 

And so, of course, I needed to start with Captain Jean Luc Picard.

The season one and two uniform Captain Picard figure features the same Picard head used on pretty much every Picard figure throughout the line.  The torso is shared with the season one and two Lieutenant Commander Data, and is pretty much spot on.  I had to look closely at a few different Picard figures to determine if it was a unique torso or the same as Data's because the fourth rank pip seems to be three-dimensional and not just painted on as is the case with many parts reuses.   I still can't tell if it's a slight retool or just extremely well painted, but it looks good enough for me not to be bothered by it so that's what counts. 

From the waist down the figure is a mess.  While the high collar added to the uniforms in season three was the most obvious improvement to the costume, there are other key details that I wanted to get right. 

Two of the biggest features of the season one and two uniforms are the fact that it is clearly a one piece jumpsuit, and the department color coded piping around the yokes on the hem of the pants.  Unfortunately, the retail release of Captain Picard in his first and second season uniform does not have either of these features.  

A main reason for the inaccuracy of the figure is that it reuses the waist and legs of the first series Picard figure.  The "captain's jacket" Picard figure has the belt molded on to the waist, and the very obvious bell bottom trousers instead of the triangular yoke.  So, in order to make myself an accurate season one and two Captain Picard it was time to boil and pop. 

The waist and upper legs came from a Voyager figure - I couldn't tell you which one but it was the same "buck" shared between Tuvok, Tom Paris, The Doctor, and Lieutenant Carey.  This waist piece removed the "belt" of the later Next Generation uniform, and added an extra point of articulation on the leg.  The lower legs came from season one Geordi La Forge to add the proper red piping around the yoke of the pants. 

One of my other complaints about the early Playmates' figures is the "action" poses that many figures are sculpted with.  While some like Riker and Worf are much more extreme than others, the later Deep Space Nine and Voyager figures really captured a good neutral and static stance without making the figures too straight and rigid.  I really didn't want to have to go through all the trouble of repainting the black Voyager uniform arms to match the command red of the Next Generation uniforms, especially if that meant painting articulated joints at the elbow that are notorious for causing paint rub.  Instead, I discovered that I could flip around an additional left shoulder and put it on the right shoulder joint to create a more neutral "arms at the side" pose.

Here is the final comparison between my custom figure (left) and the production figure (right).

Of course one of the other things that I learned during my journey back in to Star Trek figure collecting and customizing is that one can acquire figures very cheaply online.  My pretty standard guideline is that if I can't get a particular figure for less than $5 shipped, I'll wait until I can find it cheaper.  Of course a lot of times I'll get a larger lot of figures where the price per figure ends up being $5 or less.  

As a quick recap of how I made this figure:
-  Season one and two Captain Picard
-  Voyager male waist and upper legs
-  Season one Geordi La Forge lower legs
-  Additional Season one and two Captain Picard for left shoulder 

Let me know what you think in the comments!  

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!