Click on a Picture to See it Unscaled in a Separate Window
The donor for this head swap was a Katerina Witt Stars on Ice figure found on sale for $3. Her head was similarly warmed and removed from the cheap figure. The neck sculpting wasn't 100% compatible with GI Jane, so an Xacto knife was used to perform a little plastic surgery. After trimming the vestigial neck off the Witt sculpt, it could be attached to the GI Jane neck post by warming and a considerable amount of pushing and twisting.
The other pieces of customization on this figure are the patches on the suit. These were based on NASA photos, digitally scaled and modified for clarity, printed on an inkjet printer, and pasted to the suit. A more permanent solution involving transfer of the image to a cloth base is under experimentation. The resulting cloth patch would then be glued to the jumpsuit.
The first item on the shopping list is donor hair. If you've got another rooted hair figure you can shear, that's a good place to start. In this case a donor doll was purchased at a Dollar Store and was immediately scalped. You'll find that less is more in this case. The typical rooted hair doll has way too much hair in place to appear natural.
Next you need to decide how to attach the hair. A hot glue gun was used in this case, but it was a bit messy and left the hair lumpy. A small amount of expoxy would make for a more even glue coat. Rather than glue the hair directly to the figure's head, an intermediate layer was desired. The face portion of a 1:6 full face mask (that just happened to be laying about) was removed leaving the top, sides, and back intact. This was to be the foundation for the wig. A scaled stretch cap bought or made for the figure should work, too. A thin fabric like pantyhose would allow for less bulky hair.
The next step was to attach the hair in concentric rings around the head, starting at the edges and moving towards the crown. A small bead of glue was applied along the outer edge, and the hair was pressed into place along it. The hair should be placed to start at the bead and flow outward from the head. Once this set, another bead of glue was placed about quarter of an inch above the previous line. The hair was once again placed to flow outward and overlap the previous section of hair. This was repeated until just the bald crown remained.
The final tuft of hair is attached to produce the desired hair style across the forehead. To simulate bangs, leave the hair loose at the front and glue it's center at the crown. To create a clear forehead, glue the hair along the upper hairline so that it flows down over the face. When that's set, pull the hair back up and glue it to the crown to simulate the swept back tresses. Any visible scalp and glue at the crown can be touched up with the appropriately colored marker. All that's left is to trim and style the hair as desired.
The proper dimensions were determined by measuring a 1:1 laptop and dividing by six. A rectangle large enough to represent the fully opened 1:6 laptop was marked on the foam tray and cut out with an Xacto knife. The rectangle's longest dimension was marked to create two equal halves. The line marking that division was scored half way through from the back using the Xacto knife to create the hinged lid. Pieces of diskette lables were used to create a display area filled with overlapping rectangles.
The keyboard was created by scaling a picture of a laptop keyboard to the proper dimensions and printing it. The keyboard was then glued to the foam.
Balloons are cheap to the point of being disposable. The colors are varied. The "fabric characteristics are very good in scale, and the only thing you need to work with them are a pair of scissors. Be prepared to "waste" a few balloons as you experiment with just where to trim the holes for head, arms, or legs. If you don't like how something turns out, remove it (quickly with a scissor snip, or carefully for future use) and grab a new $0.05 balloon to try again.
The first figure sports a purple latex tube top and is known as Cold Water Jane for obvious reasons. This was the first balloon experiment, and came out better than expected. Just cut the neck and tip off of a smallish balloon, stretch the resulting bulging cylinder of latex over the torso, and roll the edges. A couple of small loom beads make for some anatomically exaggerated points of interest. Construction of the wig CW Jane is wearing is described above on this page.
The next figure is modeling a yellow latex tank top. To make one, proceed as above, but instead of trimming a single large hole at the tip of the balloon, trim a medium central hole with a smaller hole to each side. Put the figure's head through the central hole, then stretch the side holes over the figure's hands and arms. The same small loom beads serve as points of interest.
The tops seem to work out well, but what about leg wear? The next figure, known as Wonder Jane, sports baby blue tights made from two long skinny balloons stretched over her legs. These latex leg warmers don't require any cutting at all. A red tube top was added over the yellow tank top. By leaving the red edges unrolled, it appears to be a single yellow and red tank top. The points of interest on this figure were made from two small snips off of a rubber band, rather than the more exaggerated loom beads. The rest of WJ's ensemble comes from a Xena figure.
The next figure is a first pass at the character Trinity, from the movie Matrix. This figure's outfit is made soley from black balloons. One is used to fashion a tank top as described above. Two are used to fashion the upper legs and seat. The neck of each balloon form one pant leg. The remainder of these two balloons work together to form the seat of the pants. The dark sunglasses are custom made from two black plastic disks (made with a hole punch, then trimmed with scissors)super glued to a piece of copper wire, which was then coated with nail polish.
