cylonchaney's custom figures

[cylonchaney]

I think I'm about done with the Cobra trooper design. I might build a bigger army though.

CC is still a work in progress. I've got some nice shiny silver paint for his head.

 

Kicking myself. One of them has a split helmet that I printed a replacement for but forgot to replace.

Edited July 6, 2025 by cylonchaney

[Padrino]

love this! I wish army builders at this scope was a thing towards the end. I may seek you out for a 3d printing tutorial if things don't turn around soon.

 

[Navaan]

On 7/6/2025 at 10:18 AM, cylonchaney said:

Thanks everyone!

Honestly, you should start. I used to think I could never do anything like the amazing customizers on this board. I still don't when it comes to 2d art but slowly improving. It's good for your mind and soul to pick up hobbies and challenges that you are not good at.  It feels really good when your skills improve. Even if you think you'll never be "good". Once you have even a little skill, you'll be able to start creating characters that only you want. Your first custom, no matter how crappy, feels good.

There are 3d printers ranging in price from $100 to $10 000+. Various materials can be used an quality varies greatly. I have a number of them but they are all very cheap low end machines. It is another hobby of mine to try to mod and tune low end machines to perform as higher end ones. One could just buy a better quality printer and fiddle much less.

I already want to redo Slaughter and better line up the arm holes with the back.

That's the whole point of it. For a lot of customs, you can just print on a square the same size as the chest front (and/ or back). Sometimes you need better coverage and Luke's wrap around template has your back. Slaughter was my first time to need it. I'm also pleased that it perfectly fit my Blockman torso. I finally named my figure. Very original and creative name eh? LOL

I like to think that Bodicker survived, changed his ways, and moved to Wisconsin to start a family.  One of the greatest bad guy roles and performances ever IMHO.

PS Kurtwood Smith also played the President of the Federation in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country.

They're getting holsters now.

 

You're right. Definitely need to get past my hesitancy and just... try. My friends can 3D print things for me, I just need to figure out the template from Luke and poke my artist friends, as I mentioned elsewhere. I used to be able to draw, but more Bugs and Wile E vs Minimate stuff.

That said!

The Cobra chest pieces look dope, and love CC's jacket. Have you thought about giving the troopers web gear? Any thoughts or plans for Vipers? I am about to try to make a couple of Crimson Guards, but we'll see how those efforts go. xD

If you want other vehicles, check out the Sigma 6 mission pack stuff! Your Stinger is better than any of that oversculpted and busy stuff from the line, in my opinion, but there are some cool designs, at least. 

[cylonchaney]

2 hours ago, Navaan said:

You're right. Definitely need to get past my hesitancy and just... try. My friends can 3D print things for me, I just need to figure out the template from Luke and poke my artist friends, as I mentioned elsewhere. I used to be able to draw, but more Bugs and Wile E vs Minimate stuff.

That said!

The Cobra chest pieces look dope, and love CC's jacket. Have you thought about giving the troopers web gear? Any thoughts or plans for Vipers? I am about to try to make a couple of Crimson Guards, but we'll see how those efforts go. xD

If you want other vehicles, check out the Sigma 6 mission pack stuff! Your Stinger is better than any of that oversculpted and busy stuff from the line, in my opinion, but there are some cool designs, at least. 

Only the steering wheel is mine. LOL

That Stinger is a freebie found on 3d print file sharing sites. Classifed scale downscaled to fit Minimates. I had trouble printing the downscaled steering wheel so made an easier to print version of my own. There's a link to the Stinger in a pinned 3d Print Files thread here as well as some other stuff that scales well for Minimates.

Those Cobra chests are ripped off DC Minimate musculature (2 versions) and a modified Cobra logo I found on Google. An example of something I wouldn't share because the muscles are a direct rip off of someone else's work. I don't have a problem doing this for one off customs for myself. But it's not cool if you're going to sell or share them. 

There's a generic male and female chest around that are the base of many a free sticker. I think Luke created and shared them originally for this purpose and are good to use them for your own work. I'd share work where I used those. My Stature chest would be an example.

I have no plans to expand my Cobra roster. But I might make a rather large army of these same Cobra troopers. I think I'm done for now though.

With dual holsters now and my latest hat, I'm thinking of maybe doing a Lone Ranger. The Clayton Moore version from my childhood. Such a wholesome hero! LOL I've also thought for years of designing a Minimate horse. Maybe this project will finally give me enough reason. Trying to see if I can print a serviceable revolver tomorrow.  

 

[cylonchaney]

CC now has a sanded head painted silver. It's quite shiny. Needs some touch I can see.  Also visible are some rifles I made for my Cobra army. I've designed a new sticker set for Slaughter but haven't printed yet. And a crappy little trident if anyone needs one.

 

Edited July 17, 2025 by cylonchaney

[cylonchaney]

Question for the more experienced customizers out there. I was thinking of adding the sort of suspendery things to my Cobra trooper template that they have in the cartoon. I had a couple of ideas and am wondering which of these might be the best option. 3 and 4 are the easiest to apply but most difficult or impossible to line things up. One and 2 will line up nicely but be more difficult to apply. It seems to me 2 and 4 have the best chance of staying put long term. It strikes me that 2 will be very painful to apply but will look awesome if I get it right. I'm kind of tempted to go with 4 because I'm lazy and they're so small, who's even going to notice the shoulders?

Also, I suck at art. LOL Any tips on giving the suspenders a more 3d look? Or anything really.  

Thanks.

 

 

[elhonez]

Hm. It's a pain in the butt with an x-acto knife, but option 2 really works best. However, I see that you don't have any design elements that need to connect along the sides, so 1 would be sufficient.

As for making the straps look more 3D, sometimes I'll take the exact same image layer in a photo editor and duplicate it, but offset it by a fraction. If I make the lower layer super dark, it looks like a shadow. But since your straps are already black, maybe try making the lower layer dark grey? could be worth a short just to see what it looks like.

 

[cylonchaney]

On 7/17/2025 at 3:09 PM, elhonez said:

Hm. It's a pain in the butt with an x-acto knife, but option 2 really works best. However, I see that you don't have any design elements that need to connect along the sides, so 1 would be sufficient.

As for making the straps look more 3D, sometimes I'll take the exact same image layer in a photo editor and duplicate it, but offset it by a fraction. If I make the lower layer super dark, it looks like a shadow. But since your straps are already black, maybe try making the lower layer dark grey? could be worth a short just to see what it looks like.

 

I've already done that actually. It's hard to see at the scale I posted. It's going to be a challenge using clear stickers on a dark plastic. I might go with white ones which I've also seen and use my good old back painting technique. The white sticker paper I have now doesn't hold the toner well. It's hard to get them applied without rubbing off the print. So, I'm stuck with my clear sticker methods for now.

[thereasonsy]

3 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

I've already done that actually. It's hard to see at the scale I posted. It's going to be a challenge using clear stickers on a dark plastic. I might go with white ones which I've also seen and use my good old back painting technique. The white sticker paper I have now doesn't hold the toner well. It's hard to get them applied without rubbing off the print. So, I'm stuck with my clear sticker methods for now.

I’ve had success with water decals using v2.

[buttheadsmate]

You guys know that I just love your pioneering attitude & 'cylon' I just get frustrated that my plaudits get ever more ..I dunno ....y'know "how much praise can I ramp up" without it sounding ...odd? Even Navaan's stuff deserves praise  because it's deserved of praise but don't let him know yet because ...just because !

So, that all said here's my enquiry .....drum roll ......anybody thought about a tampo machine or approaching a tampo printing company ?? There are several (many) Lego tampo-custom outfits in the UK (esp.) yet I don't recall ever seeing a custom-tampoed minimate ?  

I'll die before Minimates die so I need to encourage you guys to pick up the banner because there is still so much potential . 

[cylonchaney]

You know the saying, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?

I found a way to get just the 3d effect I was looking for. LOL

Photos to come.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Also, @buttheadsmate, what is this tampo you speak of? I've seen this term bandied about for the last 15 years or so and always meant to ask someone to explain. I assume it's some kind of machine that prints or paints directly onto objects? And this is how MM torsos get such beautiful details?

[Navaan]

On 7/16/2025 at 10:20 PM, cylonchaney said:

CC now has a sanded head painted silver. It's quite shiny. Needs some touch I can see.  Also visible are some rifles I made for my Cobra army. I've designed a new sticker set for Slaughter but haven't printed yet. And a crappy little trident if anyone needs one.

 

Crazy good work, dude. Genuinely love that torso for CC; seen some Joe fans call it the 'bellhop CC' look, affectionately, and damn if you didn't knock it out of the park.

What did you use for the silver of the mask? Any chance it was one of those chrome pens? I hear different opinions of them, and if so, would love your thoughts on them on minimates.

[buttheadsmate]

Simply put , a tampo printing machine is able to print on 3D surfaces using a silicon pad .   Now I'm not suggesting that anybody should invest in one of these but there are several companies producing Lego customs & what can be achieved with Lego can obviously be achieved with Minimates.   

 

 

[cylonchaney]

11 hours ago, Navaan said:

Crazy good work, dude. Genuinely love that torso for CC; seen some Joe fans call it the 'bellhop CC' look, affectionately, and damn if you didn't knock it out of the park.

What did you use for the silver of the mask? Any chance it was one of those chrome pens? I hear different opinions of them, and if so, would love your thoughts on them on minimates.

Just a silver paint pen. It's not even advertised as chrome but is more shiny than some chrome ones I've seen. If you use one of these, try not to touch the painted surface at all. For weeks if you can.  The finish is fragile.

Like Diamond I try to leverage my existing designs. The torso is actually my Spiderman Noir torso. It struck me as an easy re-use when I started working on Joe characters. It also will work as a John Wayne style cowboy shirt.  If I designed it specifically for CC, It would be more of flap with buttons on one side only. But I thought it would work well enough. The thing is stickers won't look good on a torso like that so no Cobra logo. I have to choose between Cobra logos and sculpted chest detail. I was thinking of doing a CC sticker to see which I like better.

 

[Navaan]

Patience?! My absolute weakness. I dunno if I posed up pics of my Hurt Syndicate customs for AEW yet, but Bobby Lashley was a pain. Kept thinking I had it done, touched it, and then smudge....

Those Noirs are PERFECT. 

As for 'Bellhop' CC; 



Your design evokes it, as this was CC's 'GI Joe relaunch' for the Classified figures, which kind of marked the relaunch that coincided with a new phase of my life, it really resonates with me in the nostalgia feels.

[cylonchaney]

4 minutes ago, Navaan said:

Patience?! My absolute weakness. I dunno if I posed up pics of my Hurt Syndicate customs for AEW yet, but Bobby Lashley was a pain. Kept thinking I had it done, touched it, and then smudge....

Those Noirs are PERFECT. 

As for 'Bellhop' CC; 



Your design evokes it, as this was CC's 'GI Joe relaunch' for the Classified figures, which kind of marked the relaunch that coincided with a new phase of my life, it really resonates with me in the nostalgia feels.

Wait until you see Trooper version 2. LOL

Protip: If you're going to build an army of customs, finalize the design before you build the army. LOL By the end of today, I'll have disassembled all of them and replaced all of the chest stickers. This after I disassembled them all yesterday for another change. I kind of hope I'm not further inspired to update the design. I am, however, super happy with the latest iteration.

I updated Slaughter as well. Still not perfect, but an improvement anyway.

[cylonchaney]

We've come a long way from this:

 

to this:

 

 

 

 

Slaughter spies CC commanding some Cobras!

 

Hands up Cobra scum! Not on my watch. Drop your weapons! All of them!

 

Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! 

 

Crap!

 

Sieze him!!!

 

Fin.

[Padrino]

love this!

[luke314pi]

That's so awesome!

[cylonchaney]

Kid Flash gets new hair. A Lego hair piece that I recently found and modified.

Before he had my basic hair piece cropped for his mask:

 

And now:

 

[Navaan]

2 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

Kid Flash gets new hair. A Lego hair piece that I recently found and modified.

Before he had my basic hair piece cropped for his mask:

 

And now:

 

That is GENUINELY impressive. I would legit pay for that.... 

[cylonchaney]

I always disliked the character Deanna Troi in Next Generation. (I'm just Mr. Negative today LOL) When they were pushing the whole "Which character will die on next week's epsode?" thing, I prayed it would be Troi.

But I still can't help upgrading my Troi custom when I found a more appropriate hair piece. I have to thank Navaan for his Lego hair inquiry which got me looking at hair pieces again.

Before:

 

After:

 

 

She could use a new face too. The eye colour is not a good match.  

I think this new hair is definitely an improvement.

Edited August 13, 2025 by cylonchaney

[THE_CRIPPLER]

On 7/20/2025 at 2:10 AM, buttheadsmate said:

Simply put , a tampo printing machine is able to print on 3D surfaces using a silicon pad .   Now I'm not suggesting that anybody should invest in one of these but there are several companies producing Lego customs & what can be achieved with Lego can obviously be achieved with Minimates.   

 

 

I have been keeping an eye on this for a few weeks now. It is a UV printer. It looks like it would work great for making minimates.

 

 

[cylonchaney]

1 hour ago, THE_CRIPPLER said:

I have been keeping an eye on this for a few weeks now. It is a UV printer. It looks like it would work great for making minimates.

 

 

That looks amazing. Nice find. I watched the whole video.

The textured output reminded me of a customizer that was around for a while who did amazing texture work on some of his customs. I couldn't remember the name so I scrolled back through until I found it. Squall.

You'd be able to create some customs similar to some of his. OMG I forgot how good this guy was. Go have a look. It'll make you cry that they're not in your collection.

Edited August 13, 2025 by cylonchaney

[THE_CRIPPLER]

I remember his customs. He did some amazing sculpting for his custom minimates. Some truly amazing minimates.