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Hats, Helmets and Mask options


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Hey guys,

 

I wasn't sure exactly where to put this post...I thought about the Minimate Compatibility thread but I feel like it might deserve its own post here as its directly related to custom potential.

So I have been looking at making several customs that will require cowboy style hats (Tombstone's Earps and Holliday, Two-Gun Kid, The Shadow, Vampire Hunter D, Jonah Hex, Lone Ranger, Bravestarr, Young Guns). I've been on a real western kick lately and I realized looking through my collection and perusing Ivan's wonderful database that there are really not very many good hat options available. Most hats available (BttF3, Dollars Trilogy, Budd from Kill Bill, Logan, The Spirit) seem very compressed and small. The brims on most of these hats are very small but in many cases they have a stove pipe effect going on in the center where they look way too tall. I find the best overall looking hats to be The Man in Black or Angel Eye's from the Dollars Trilogy. 

So I have looked outside of the minimate hat options to try and find options for better hats. I have found some limited success with cowboy hats in Sun-Mate Western Playsets...they may be slightly oversized but they fit on the heads and look better than tragically small hats do. I know some 3 3/4" removable hats will work on mates (I used an Indiana Jones hat on my custom IJ) but I'm not aware of any real options there either. So does anyone have ideas or suggestions for good cowboy hat options? I wish there was someone 3d printing decent ones to buy.

In the past I have used Lego full face helmets or masks (Stormtroopers, Vader, Bug Bunny, etc.) because they will plug on to the neck peg and can pass as a decent option but that wont work with cowboy hats because the Lego head would have to be exposed and they don't match enough style wise to work. That being said does anyone have any neat usage of Lego heads/helmets to make characters or customs beyond the obvious Star Wars or Disney/Looney Tune characters?

Lastly I have 2 customs that require unique masks that I'm not sure the best way to tackle and I'm looking for suggestions. DC's Wild Dog, so basically a full cover hockey goalie mask, and Grifter which is a loose bandana style mask. I've looked at old Starting Lineup goalie figures as a possible option for Wild Dog and considered using actual fabric or maybe just paper to create grifters mask but I'm not sold on the best way.

Sorry this is so long and thanks for any feedback I can get guys!

 

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I got flooded out of my condo and my 3d printer collection is in storage. Could be 2 more months until I'm home and able to print again. If you don't find something better by then, we could maybe talk about printing you some hats. I have a basic design that should be fairly easy to customize into different styles. If you're in a rush, I could possibly upload to Shapeways but I don't know how much design time I will find between now and then either. Work and trying to get my condo fixed before my loss of use coverage ends is keeping me a little busy these days.

Maybe keep this in mind as a plan b if nothing better comes along.

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I’ve been trying to create a custom JSA sandman with his fedora. I was thinking a Howard Stark hat might work but it doesn’t look right to me. I’ve given up on an actual gas mask with fedora and was looking for a sticker type of thing.

long story short I’d be down with more classic hats for minimates as well!

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For GA Sandman, I chopped the gasmask part off a fireman and glued it to a fedora piece. That was more of a Sandman Mystery Theater look though.

For cowboy hats, the best source for them is the Back to the Future Three box set. There's lots of hats in there, and that one you can get relatively cheap (or at least you could the last time I was making cowboy customs).

For Wild Dog and Grifter, I would recommend decals/stickers. I have a Wild Dog decal that I made, but unfortunately it's on an old computer and I'm not sure I can get it working. Grifter I tried to make a decal of, but it was beyond my skill set, so I would second your request!

Finally, if you're looking for parts Shapeways is a good place to check. There's some great custom pieces on there, including ones for Judge Dredd, the Rocketeer, and various Masters of the Universe characters.

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Yeah absolutely thanks to everyone for all the suggestions! I'm going to try a few different options for my customs and I will be sure to post some pics when I get them done. I'm leaning towards waiting to see if I can get 3d printed hats that match source material better for my western customs but I have gotten some good ideas for Grifter's mask and my own attempt at a JSA Sandman (Thanks for bringing him up Minimike!). Wild Dog I actually have a loose Starting Lineup figure coming from ebay so I plan to try and see if that helmet might fit over a minimate head. In the mean time I'm working on more decal centric customs to at least finish some projects. If anyone knows of any good ST:TNG decals floating around let me know..

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45 minutes ago, hellpop said:

Have you ever gone to Luke's Minimate Factory blog? He had lots of decals there. I know he posted a pack with some Star Trek decals at some point. I'd strongly encourage you to dig back though his posts and tutorials, especially the ones on decals.

Here's the link:http://minimatefactory.com/

 

I believe someone put decals for practically every starfleet uniform variation in the decal thread on this forum. It's a minor grind to go through the whole thing but there is a ton of good stuff in there. I think there are less on minimate factory but Luke posted some First Contact specific stuff. Data with half his face missing for example.

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