How to customize Blade Gruts into Heavy Gruts?

[sir_tonyx]

I have an extra set of blade gruts I want to turn into heavy gruts and I also have a set of halberds I can use as weapons for the blade gruts to look like heavies, bet before I butcher my blades with incompetence, I want to ask for some advice. I've never done any customization or figure painting before and I am a bit cautious about how to proceed. Do I just cut off the blades with a sharp knife or small scissors and try to glue the halberds into their hands? But how to I reposition their hands? Do I dip the figures into hot water and try to mold them after that or how does it work? I tried looking through some of the sticky subjects here, but they deal mostly with using custom figures from other games or repainting existing figures, not remolding or remodeling them. Any advice would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[Crypto-Knight]

You can definitely boil plastic to reshape it, but I'd be afraid of putting the stickers on the bases into hot water. You can use a hair dryer or set them on your heater vent, and after reshaping them, run them under cold water for just a second to stiffen them. I'd use an x-acto knife for cutting the weapons off.
Hope this helps!

[RobWeaver]

Cut the swords off the figure very close to the hand. Now use a very small precision drill bit to drill out the hand. Slide the halberd in and you're ready. If you're careful, you can get away with a minimum of painting to cover the damage.
If you're really worried about messing them up, consider adding the halberd in another way. You could glue it to the figure's back, like it's carrying it slung. A tiny strip of aluminum foil for a sling and you're done. Or you could glue it to the base as if it had dropped the halberd and drawn its sword.

[sir_tonyx]

excellent tips! I think I will try drilling first. I was looking around on eBay to find a tool to drill the tiny holes and looks like a nail art drill might just fit the bill:



at least the drill looks tiny enough and it costs just 1 usd. I imagine you can always enlarge an existing hole with something else but the question is how to make a hole in the first place.

[RobWeaver]

That's exactly what you need! Drilling their hands out makes for a very natural looking hold.

[sir_tonyx]

thanks to user Rocktroll (who sent me the four molded weapons of Heavy Gruts) I was able to convert an extra set of Blade Gruts into Heavy Gruts and now they look like this:



although I had never done any modding before, it was super easy - I just cut off the original blades with a small pair of scissors, then drilled tiny holes with a small scredriver and just slid in the new weapons. only one grut's hand needed a bit of molding with hot water (second from right, his weapon would otherwise pointed too much towards the ground), the rest look fine to me as they are.

[Jonny Jon]

nice job!

[RobWeaver]

Perfect! I've known gamers who replaced all the cast spears and pikes in figures hands for fitted ones like you've done. More natural looking. You can also make spear heads by beating the end of a copper wire flat then trimming to shape with a pair of scissors. Great for making odd fantasy shapes.