|
|
Tips
Making Parts and accs.
By me
Helmets
1.Cut a ping pong ball in half
2.Paint or cover it in fabric in the colour of your choice
3.Get an elastic and glue or staple the elastic to the half of a ping pong ball
Cowboy Hats
1.Cut a ping pong ball in half
2.Get some cardboard
3.With the cardboard cut a shape of a cowboy hat rim
4.Glue or tape the piece of cardboard onto the half ping pong ball
5.Paint or cover it in fabric in any colour you want
Pool Table
I've made a pool table for my Joes, by getting a right sized box then making holes in the corners for the pockets, glueing construction paper on the box to make it look like a pool table, cardboard tubes as legs, marbles for the balls, and straws as the sticks.
MAKING A SHOULDER HOLSTER
By Todd Tracy
The shoulder holster was pretty easy if you can run a threaded needle through fabric you can do it.I got all my material at wall-mart it works good but if I ever started producing them I'd use leather fabric like Cotsworld uses for thier German belts.In wall-marts fabric department their is little packaged fabrics.There is a type called 1/4" twill tap which is similar to what Cotworlds uses for it's web gear.If you have a larger fabric store by you, you can probably find something better. There is a real thin black tape I used this for the actual part of the holster that holds the gun.
step one: Actual Holster
Take the Bias Tape (any thin fabric that won't fray when you cut it) and cut out a circle about 3/4 inch in diameter,fold it in half this will be the basic shape for the holster. Get a 1/6 scale .45 or .38 and place it in the half folded circle to see how much you will need to cut away. With the proper size you need in mind keep it folded in half and with a pair of scissors cut out a basic outline of a holster. This is real easy because with this kind of shoulder holster it doesn't have to look real fancy my first attempt looks like a taco shell but once you get it all attached and place the weapon in it, it will look fine. Now with the fabric cut to shape and folded in half sew the two halves together around the outside edge 3/4 of the way around (leave about 1/4 open to put the gun in!)
Step 2: Shoulder loop.
Take your strip of twill tape and sew one to the inside of the holster at about the point where the holster opening is. Now take the twill tape and holster and rap it around your gi-joes shoulder to determine where you should cut the twill (to find how long it should be). Rap it around the top of the shoulder and make sure to make it big enough (so it doesn't ride down the shoulder). Once you have found the length and cut it make a loop and sew it to the holster right where the other end is (so you have the 2 ends of the twill sewn together). Make sure your loop is right before you sew so the twill doesn't fold over when placed on Joes shoulder.
Before you do step 3 take a look at a picture of a GI joe rubber shoulder holster to see how high on the loop to sew the twill that will go around the body. This will be the body loop.
Step 3: Body loop
Okay place the shoulder loop as it will be worn on Joe. Get out another piece of twill tape fabric. Slightly below the crest of the shoulder sew this new piece of twill to the twill that forms the shoulder loop. (Use plenty of thread on all sewing to hold everything together well). Now you have the shoulder loop on the Joe and the front of the body loop sewn on the shoulder loop. Rap the body twill underneath the opposite arm and around Joes back and bring it up the backside of the shoulder loop. You should see the basic shape of the shoulder holster now looks good doesn't it! Now cut the twill to the length right. If it's too tight you'll never get the shoulder holster on and if it's too loose it will sag and look terrible. Make it tight enough to look snappy but not too tight.
Step 4: attaching the shoulder loop at the back of Joe onto the shoulder loop.
After cutting the twill to length you have a few methods to attach it to the shoulder loop. You can get one of those little buttons like the one's on the Joe shirts or you can get a little metal loop and hook set and sew one to either end. I took the easy way out. I just sewed the two together. I know you're thinking well how do you put the holster on and take it off. If you make it right you can just slide it off. Slide the shoulder loop down the arm while simultaneously sliding the body loop down the torso and then the legs. To put it on do the opposite. Slide the body loop up the legs and up into place. Real easy.
Give it a try it is definitely worth the effort you can make them for all your adventure team joes too. Looks much like the vintage rubber ones but in fabric! Only takes about 1/2 hour frustration to make!
TAILORING A SOTW UNIFORM
By Roy Johnson
Take a piece of masking tape, and with the sticky side OUT (facingaway from Joe) wrap it once or twice securely at the most narrow part of the waist (while Joe is shirtless, and perhaps, pantsless too).Take the uniform blouse (thats military talk for jacket) and put it on him loosely. Press down on the front, near the button area, or where they'd be if the uni doesn't have them, then smooth the waist outward from the center.You'll now have a jacket that conforms nicely to the shape of the torso you use. In back the extra material can be neatly folded and secured with a web-belt. If you're like me you don't care much about the back of your figures (you cant see mine, they're in book cases with 5-6 figures per shelf) you can also secure the extra uniform fold by rolling a narrow piece of tape up and setting it in the crease, then flatten the folded over material against the tape...with practice you can do it pretty much invisibly.
TP PACK, VIETNAM
By Joe B.
This is for all us nobodies who have time but no skills at making personal accessories for our favorite 12" action figures. (You experts need not read further.)Are you doing Vietnam with figures? Do you have those M1 helmets with the rubber band to hold a bottle of insect repellent? Want to try your hand at making a 1/6th accessory or two? Well--what about toilet paper?Ok, stop laughing. One of the items often found stuck in the elastic camouflage band was a pack of toilet paper from a C-Ration condiments pack. If you have no skills whatsoever AND want to add a couple of these to your figure, try this--you'll need only a metric ruler, scissors, a gluestick, a piece of white writing paper and a piece of a brown paper grocery sack.Cut a piece of white paper 10mm wide and 60mm long. Measure in from one end about 5mm and fold there, then continue to fold the paper over and over the first part until it is all folded up.You should have a paper "pack" roughly 6mm wide and 10mm high, and about 1.8mm thick. A tiny bit of glue from a gluestick will secure the loose end in place and keep it together.Now cut a piece of brown paper 8mm wide and at least 40mm long (mainly to make it easier to handle). This piece is the "wrapper", which is simply a brown paper sleeve for the toilet tissue pack.Lay the white paper "pack" down in front of you like it was an unopened paperback book. Place one end of the brown paper horizontally across the white paper "pack" you made, so that about 1mm of white paper shows above and below the brown strip.Fold the brown paper once around the pack, get a bit of an overlap beyond the first end your folded around (judge this by eye) and cut the paper to size.Put a tiny dab of glue under this overlap and secure the brown paper sleeve in place.The end result is a good--and incredibly cheap!--imitation of the toilet tissue pack that shows up in the helmet bands of so many photos of GI's in Vietnam.Pry up the elastic band with one side of a pair of tweezers and slip the pack into the elastic camouflage band on your guy's helmet next to that 21st C bottle of insect repellent, and smile. You've begun to customize your figure!
Back to:
Licensed logos, images, etc. are copyright © by their respective owners.
