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Stunning Yak Face (Saelt Marae) Custom By Sjefke

Posted by Paul | October 05, 2015 at 09:08 AM ET

Our very own Sjefke is at it again with another one of his impressive customizations. Now, he works on a character that Hasbro has egregiously ignored for much too long (unless they're saving it for a special vintage-inspired relaunch... wink, wink). Anyway, click through to see the magnificent touch of an artist's hand on a miniature work of art like this custom Yak Face action figure. Click through for more! Be careful, Sjefke, our friends at Yakface.com will want this!

Hey JTA

I'd like to share something I've been working off and on for a few weeks. Now I know Hasbro is rumored to be releasing an SA 3.75 YakFace soon (Paul Harrison's crystal ball is rarely inaccurate), but I scored a POTF2 YakFace in an auction, read the RDR and thought under the ridiculously huge mustache it's not a bad head sculpt. It just lacked detailing. After cutting off the whiskers and carving in detail, he actually looked pretty good. As insurance against a mishap, I casted a copy.

The body needed a complete makeover. Using just a The Corps action figure and a few spare ball joints, I got him to 14 POA. The only original parts are the head and neck, torso, leggings and white boots. He's such a mish-mash of parts, I'm coining the term "Franken-figure". The original hands are a cartoony disaster, so I sculpted new ones. Since I couldn't find any reference images of Yakface revealing his lower half, I decided to incorporate the original POTF2 leggings and feet

HARD GOODS
Head: POTF2 Yakface, detailed
Neck: POTF2 Yakface, ball peg added.
Shoulders: The Corps ball jointed shoulder inserted into the original Yakface torso.
Elbows: The Corps ball jointed elbows.
Wrists: Elbow ball joint from an Indian Jones Crystal Skull Native.
Hands: Original sculpt. Reference images are scarce.
Pelvis & legs: The Corps legs with swivel waist and hinged knees.
Ankles: Ball joints from the same Crystal Skull native.
Feet and leggings: Original POTF2 parts.

SOFT GOODS: Note; I do not sew. It's all fabric glue, people.
Neck: White nitrile attached to the base of the neck and the base of the head.
Pants: Nitrile glove material, tailored to the legs, glued only to the leggings.
Blue shirt sleeves: Nitrile glove material, tailored to the arms, glued to the torso.
Torso: Light tan fur from a Siamese cat key chain doll.
Cloak: Tan fabric.
Collar: Artificial fur from a cat toy.
Whiskers and hair: Nylon thread.

What I like about this figure is that most of the articulation is hidden behind soft goods, but not inhibited by them. This was done with nitrile glove material, cut and glued together with Loctite flexible glue, to make a pair of sleeves and a pair of pants. The pants are only glued at the bottom to the leggings, and the sleeves are only glued to the torso. This hides the articulation, but doesn't hinder full range of motion. Nitrile will take color well from a Sharpie marker, but if you don't handle it too much, it'll hold Vallejo paint too.

I was thrilled with the whiskers. I may go back and customize Mosep Binneed's and Tawss Khaa's whiskers this way too. This is done with plain old nylon thread. Make sure the individual strands are straight and don't have a curl in them. To get under the nose, cut it free from one side to the other. Lift up the nose and coat the underside with a thin layer of slow drying glue. This holds the thread in place. Unravel about 1.5 inches of thread and lay one strand (or a few) sparingly in the nose, hanging out about 1/2 inch on both sides. This helps with the symmetry. I was surprised with how little it took, before it got too full. When done, glue the nose back in place over the nylon and trim it up. Yakface also has thin hair in the creases of his ears, behind his head and IN his ears 😝, not to mention his wispy eyebrows.

That cloak was a challenge. I wanted it to lay just right on the figure, so I didn't use a standard, simple Jedi robe template. It literally took me ten tries to get it to look acceptable. Because he has such sloping shoulders, I needed to cut the cloth like a tee-pee. That meant making a 270 degree circular template and then have the arms in just the right spots. Ten tries! Since I don't sew, I used a thin line of Liquid Stitch fabric glue to hold everything together.

Thanks JTA

MTFBWY

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