Ze-Mastor's Miniatures, Crafts and Toy Blog: October 2016

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Pirate Hats and accessories (for action figures) DIY Tutorial

It's Halloween time and everybody, including your action figures, wants to be a pirate! Arrr matey! If only pirate stuff were easily and cheaply available for any figure!

My collection of toy skeletons spend a lot of time wishing they were in Disneyland (like I do), so while I was making my Pirate Bar dollhouse, I also needed to come up with some pirate hats. An online discussion mentioned Assassin's Creed figures and accessories, and of course, there's the authorized "Pirates of the Caribbean" action figures based on the movies, but I am a cheapskate at heart, unwilling to buy figures just for the sake of stripping off their accessories, plus I have customizing skills aplenty. I wanted to try making my own pirate hats.

I tried cloth and leather, with disappointing results, so I tried Sculpey polymer clay. It was shockingly quick and easy and I really liked the results, so Sculpey was definitely a winner!

Proof of concept- making pirate hats

PIRATE HAT SCULPEY TUTORIAL

Step 1: Buy a package of Sculpey. You can also buy a multi-color pack at Michaels and download their 40% off coupon. Put a sheet of wax paper on your work area, and cut off a slice or two of Sculpey.

Step 1: Buy Sculpey. Slice.

Step 2: Roll the Sculpey slices into a ball, making sure that all of the bits and pieces mold together. Flatten the ball into a pancake. Use a rolling pin or a nearby can of WD-40 and roll the pancake to 1mm in thickness. 1/16" is acceptable for larger action figure heads.

Step 2: Roll into a ball and flatten it

Step 3: Making a hat form speeds up production considerably. This is a wooden bead that happens to be the right size, mounted on a bamboo stick.

Step 3: Make a hat form

Step 4: Put the flat, round Sculpey on the hat form. Press down slightly, and the hat crown will gradually form.

Step 4: Put Sculpey on form

Step 5: Refine the hat shape with additional pinching. Straighten out and trim the brim.

Step 5: Refine the hat shape

Step 6: Fold up 3 sides of the brim. It's surprisingly easy to make that perfect colonial-era tricorn hat!

Step 6: Fold up the brim

Step 7: Gently remove the hat from the hat form, and put it on a piece of foil. Place in the oven at low heat (about 200 degrees) for about 5 minutes. Babysit it so it doesn't burn.

Step 7: Bake!

Step 8: When it's fresh out of the oven, the hat will be hot! Put it on your action figure, and it will mold itself to the figure's head shape as it cools. Try not to burn your fingers doing this step. If the hat cracks, just make another one. Once the hat cools, you might want to paint on some matte acrylic clearcoat to provide a barrier, in case you're worried about a chemical reaction between the Sculpey and your action figure.

Step 8: Mold to exact figure's head

Step 9: Make a lot more! It takes about 5 or 10 minutes to make each hat. This method is really inexpensive, and you can custom make each hat for a specific head, without waiting for toy companies to manufacture them.

Disneyland, here we come! Arrrr!

PIRATE CUTLASS TUTORIAL

For a minimal investment, or just digging around in the tools and parts drawer, it's quick and easy to manufacture your own Pirate Cutlasses.

Step 1: Buy a package of plastic sword cocktail picks. You can get them at any party supply store, or even the dollar store. Then locate a cheap or free source of ABS plastic. I used an old Macbook tray. The plastic should be thin enough to trim with heavy duty kitchen shears.

Step 1: Buy sword shaped cocktail picks and find some ABS

Step 2: Use a pair of wire cutters to cut off the plastic sword blade. Then cut your piece of ABS to the shape of a cutlass blade. Use sandpaper to finish the edges. If you need a thicker blade, cut out 2 identical cutlass pieces from the sheet, and glue them together. Carve a peg at the bottom of the cutlass blade.

Step 2: cut off sword blade and shape replacement cutlass blade

Step 3: Use a power drill and drill a small hole in the party pick's sword hilt.

Step 3: Drill hole in hilt

Step 4: Use 5 minute epoxy to glue the new blade into the sword hilt. The peg-in-hole will give you a much stronger joint than simply gluing the 2 pieces together without any reinforcement.

Step 4: Glue new blade into hilt

Step 5: Paint the cutlass with your favorite primer. This step is optional.

Step 5: Paint with primer

Step 6: Paint the cutlass with its final color and allow it to dry. The use a matte clearcoat.

Step 6: Paint with final colors and clearcoat

"Captain Bar" DIY Dollhouse becomes Pirate Bar
Miniature DIY Pirate Gachapon Machine
Polymer clay miniature coins for dioramas
Greek Mythology Vitruvian H.A.C.K.S. action figures
The Search for Dokuroman
October Toys Skeleton Warriors
A Collection of Toy Skeletons

Monday, October 17, 2016

"Captain Bar" DIY Dollhouse becomes Pirate Bar

It's been about a year since my last dollhouse project (Jazz and Blues Club) so I've been itching to do another building. Some of the more recent DIY offerings were "Fried Chicken and Beer", "Free Time Coffee" and "Sakura Sushi Bar", all available on Ali Express and Ebay. What eventually won out was "Captain Bar" (missing the possessive "'s"), a tiny shack that could be modified into a "Pirates of the Caribbean"- inspired skeleton pirate bar!

I ordered it from ebay for about $20, with shipping from China included. It took a bit less than 2 weeks to arrive. The box got banged-up a little, but the contents were fine.

"Captain Bar" DIY dollhouse box

One thing to note: There is no "brand name" anywhere on the box, or on the instruction manual. The box side panel mentions "Guangzhou Hongda Craft Co.", and it's likely that it's from the same company that makes "DIY Cuteroom" and "Know Me" dollhouse shops. The kit is not of Pakitoy quality, but is a definite step up from their original 2009-era European Miniatures Shop series. I would say that it's worth the $20.

Here's a look at the parts. The kit includes 3 LED lights, all connected to a small circuit board with 3 button batteries. The parts quality is generally OK, although the side walls were slightly warped. A clothes iron and a brick solved that problem. It comes with a bottle of white glue, but since the quality of the glue is unknown, I stayed with my tried-and-true favorite glues: Elmer's Wood Glue, Aileen's Tacky Glue, Loctite's 5 minute 2-part Epoxy, and E-6000. Different glues for different purposes.

"Captain Bar" DIY dollhouse box contents

I knew from the beginning that the building height of 6" was too short, so I planned on increasing the height of the building by 3/4", which would make it look less claustrophobic and also bring it to 1:18 scale.

It took a while for me to get started. I got sidetracked by other projects, writing other blog pages, absorbing new toy skeletons and new gachapon for my collection and playing pirate video games like Tropico 2 and Sid Meier's Pirates.

Here are some photos of the mid-point completion of the Captain Bar. I placed in some 1:18-ish skeletons to check for fit, and they ended up looking like they were having a lot of fun checking out their new place of business prior to opening.

Rement Pose and Boss Fight Vitruvian Hacks skeletons

Dokuroman is shocked at the size of the gachapon treasure chest.

Other mods:

Replaced the printed paper "wood" wallpaper with actual wood paneling.
Replaced the printed paper "stone" floors with stones cut from an egg carton, painted, varnished and grouted with spackling paste. This is a common dollhouse-making technique for exterior bricks and paving stones.
Replaced the beer mugs with pieces cut from a Bic pen, instead of using the included aquarium tubing.
Replaced the solid block treasure chest with a handmade wooden one that opens and closes and contains a pile of pieces o' eight.
Increased the height of the furniture by cutting new panels in plywood. Also re-did the barstools with a larger seat and made them higher to match the new furniture height.
Added 2 additional bottle racks and made more bottles.
Used a wood chisel to taper the wood barrels. The original instructions were to simply glue a stack of concentric discs together and I thought that looked awful.
Made a bunch of pirate cutlasses by cutting up a Macbook plastic tray, shaping them into a cutlass shape and gluing them to the hilts of cocktail party swords.
Pirate skull wall decor was made from a skull from a Halloween bracelet cut in half. Crossbones carved from basswood and painted.

Here are some photos of the Captain Bar (being renamed to "The Rusty Cutlass") at a later stage of completion. The photo taken at night looks pretty dramatic with a transparent Jade green October Toys skeleton.

"The Rusty Cutlass" Pirate bar at night

The instructions were vague about what to do with the wiring, circuit board and battery, so I built a "stone" chimney on the outside to hide all that stuff.

For some reason, a lot of the newer, inexpensive made-in-China DIY dollhouses do not have fronts, and a storefront is at least 50% of the charm of a dollhouse-sized shop. So, I cut up an MDF clipboard to provide a storefront. The same clipboard also provided the sides for the storefront piece as well as the 3/4" building height booster.

The larger pirate skull was a ceramic bead from the hobby store, and the smaller skull was cut from a Halloween skull bracelet.

The original store signage was simply a piece of printed paper to be pasted on wood. That wouldn't do, so I took a lot of influence from Disneyland's 3-dimensional attraction signs like "Peter Pan's Flight" and "Splash Mountain". I briefly considered making the scroll of heavy paper, or wood putty, but in the end, I used Sculpey polymer clay for its predictability, quick setting time and ease of use.

Outside, I placed my 2 pirate gachapon machines. I finally found a proper context in which to display them!

On the inside, I made use of a samurai sword gachapon. Since it did not have a removable blade, I made a small plaque and mounted it, to make it look like the pirates picked it up as a souvenir on a sailing trip to Japan. The posters were scanned from one of my books, "Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies".