Toy Run Tuesday #56 - Clone Commander Tutorial

Hello once again, toy runners! It’s been a fantastic week in Star Wars. I got the newest wave of The Vintage Collection figures, and they are real winners! When we posted our review of Clone Commander Wolffe, I shared a photo of Thorn and Rex that I customized with a VC45 clone body instead of the swivel hip body Hasbro used for the commanders. I did the same thing with Wolffe last night, and by popular request, you’ll find a small tutorial on doing it yourself if you click here.

Before we get to the tutorial, I wanted to share a photo I took of the brand new K2SO figure. I have to say, I think it may be my all time favorite figure. There really isn’t anything I would ask to be changed. I certainly will need a few more!

And now, on to the tutorial several of you have been awaiting! Here is how to take your TVC Commander Wolffe to the next level (or just to where it should have been in the first place)!

On a difficulty scale of 1-5 I would rate this particular custom a 2, possibly a 3 if you take the option I will discuss below. It doesn’t require sculpting, which would be the 4-5 on the difficulty scale. I certainly think those of you who haven’t attempted much customizing will be able to do this.

First of you’re going to need a few tools. Just some basics, but they are crucial to your success at this custom:

• Xacto Knife
• Microwave safe glass/mug
• Superglue
• Small drill bit (optional)
• Tweezers (optional)
• Paintbrush

The first thing you are going to want to do is fill up your mug with water, and place it in the microwave for about 2 minutes on high. This will heat up the water enough to soften the plastic in the next couple steps.

Once your figure is heated, you’ll be able to pull the whole arms, and lower legs out of their original places. You may need to reheat the figure a bit in order to put the arms back in the other figure. After this step you’ll wind up with your VC45 clone with the grey arms/lower legs of the Wolffe figure. No hassle here, they fit right in without any modification. While you’re at it, pull apart the torso of Wolffe (comes apart easily with heat) as we’ll need the middle belt piece for a later step.

Here is where things get a little tricky. If you’re not comfortable with this level of customizing, you can skip this step, however your clone’s head will look a little shrunken… The double ball joint in Wolffe’s head can be removed (may need to heat the head in the hot water), and the head will fit on the peg of the VC45 clone. It will look like this:

As you can see, the head sits very low on the shoulders. The helmet hides that issue, but I wasn’t satisfied with the result. Here is what you can do to fix this issue:

Doing this keeps the functionality of the double barbell neck joint, which I am a big fan of, but more importantly it lifts the head so it doesn’t look unnaturally close to the shoulders. Don’t worry, we’re almost done! This step is pretty quick, and it doesn’t need to look pretty. Near the grenade tube on the rear of the belt, make an incision to remove the VC45 belt. Take the Wolffe belt we removed in the first step, and your Xacto knife, and and cut out the inside of the belt so it will fit around your VC45 body like the belt you removed.

At this point, you’ll really start to see your upgraded Wolffe figure take shape. Use a small dab of superglue at the front and back of the belt to hold it in place on the new figure.

You’ve made it to the last step! Only a small amount of paint is needed to complete Commander Wolffe. Take your time experimenting with mixing paint so you get a good match with the grey of the original figure. I used some Vallejo air white, grey, and black primer to get the color I used. If you have an unsteady hand (like me) use a bit of painters tape to mark off the lines on the chest and/or back so you get some clean lines. As an extra step, I added a metal wire for the antennae instead of the plastic one.

There you have it! A Wolffe worthy of teaming up with the rest of the crew. If you have any questions on the process, feel free to ask them below in the comments.

TVC Clones

Please share your photos of this week’s finds and customs in the comments below! Thanks for reading!

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