Hit & Run was always one of my favorite characters. Mostly because he came with climbing equipment.

Parts
Head and Helmet-BBI
Body-25th Duke
Strap-White nylon ribbon painted black.
Leg strap- VSTC Bossk

Patience..I will learn patience.

Critiques? I have a few.

The gun doesn't go with the figure. Something in black, green, brown or camo would be better.

The red camo doesn't work for me for H&R, but it also doesn't really make much sense with the green skin tone. Where is he hiding that that combination will help him hide? It may have been the camera, if he is actually light brown on dark green, but the effect makes him stand out rather than blend in.

I'd thin out the straps more on the soft goods, they don't really look thin enough. The leg straps look good.

Last of all, the paint looks a little chunky. Generally when that happens, people don't comment on the figure, because chunky paint is really aesthetically unpleasing. There was a time when it was commonplace, but most customs now use a lot of thin coats to get a really smooth effect, and it's considered the minimum for an acceptable figure.

Also, the head sculpt looks a little rough - like he's made out of moss - so I might consider using a different one. Pretty much any sculpt can be made to work as long as you can put a helmet on it. Goggles would also be a nice touch, and if you're finding painting eyes tough (as I do) you might consider either sculpting or gluing goggles directly over the eyes.

I would reconsider using cloth for the cross straps, and use rubber cuts instead. Maybe plastic ties that you use to hold computer cable together if rubber is out of the question.

I would sand down the rough patches, and repaint him with the color of the arms and face matching the color of the camo. If the patches are brown or red, make the arms and face that color too. Nothing says that the head and arms have to be green, but if they are, the outfit has to match it to make any sense.

Most importantly, thin your paints with water (or thinner if you use oil) and use multiple coats. If your painting tightens up, you will get a lot more attention.

- R

_________________

Thanks. Thats what I wanted to know. I thought about going black with the gun but since most guns are black I wanted something different, guess black would have been the way to go.

The brown paint was chunky it was my own laziness for not fixing it. As for the rest of the paint scheme the original H&R had a lighter color on his arms so that is what I based it on.

The dremel slipped when I was making the head to fit the post. In person the paint looked to cover it but as you can see in the picture it wasn't that good of a job.


Thanks the comment Raptor. This gives me more of an idea on what I need to work on and what would look good on a figure. This was my first attempt at any kind of camo. Now I know what I need to do for next time.

If anyone else wants to chime in please do so. This isn't the first custom of mine that has failed and Joe/militray figures are new to me in concept and appearance so any help or suggestion are welcome.

If my custom is crap tell me that it is crap, but give me ideas on how to fix it.

T,
keep in mind that anything posted on the weekend could easily be viewed a lot and not commented on. I am definitely one who skims on the weekends. Most folks do all their crits at work, unfortunately for employers

_________________

Your custom is crap...

Raptor covered a lot of the suggestions that would help clean up your work.

Be Patient...In your customizing and your posting. A lot of people on Joecustoms are Too freaking nice, and won't tell you if you're custom sucks...honestly that's why when I took a look at it the first time I left it alone...I find that I'm pretty harsh in critiques, people often take it personaly, and then ignore any tips I try and give, so on a lot of customs I just leave without saying anything.

posting a follow up complaining about not getting any critiques on a crappy custom will either get you less comments, or get people telling you honestly that your custom isn't very good...We'll see which direction this thread goes.

Have a source. when you're trying to mimic a vintage figure, or a realistic figure...have a source that you can follow till you get a better handle on the style. Your cammo looks like you just slapped a paint heavy brush on the figure a few times.... Define your cammo...take a look at Sgartz's Shipwreck from a couple weeks ago...he picks a cammo pattern and makes it follow the pattern on the whole figure.

_________________

I apologize for my comment on not getting any critiques on the figure sooner with all the views I felt someone should have left something. I know this figure was not the greatest but wanted to see what could have been done to fix it.

Hopefully I can come up with something better the next time around.

Here is what I was going for. The original Hit & Run


I also tried to base it off of iwbeta's figure
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4036

I will give this figure a shot again. I know I can do better.

One thing I did early on when I was first attempting realistic camo, based on advice form others here, was to draw the camo pattern on with pencil first. This allowed me to concentrate on painting and filling in the splotches instead of figuring out the overall paint scheme on the fly. Having those simple lines to follow as a template made things a lot easier.

What nova is saying about having the source material, isn't just knowing it in your head (we all know it is supposed to be HnR), but having it right in front of you as you are painting. Whether it is the figure or a camo pattern, having the source material right there in front of you to go back and forth between it and your custom is essential. That way you can easily see if this (your custom) looks like that (your source material). If it doesn't, fix it until it does.

_________________

nova hit it right on the had with his tips. i use stright rite for my straps as you can see in my customs here
http://goodtogocustoms.com/forum/index.php?board=10.0

another tip is get a very fine paint brush for your camo. this custom just looks way to rushed. when i first started out i had the same problem i rushed my customs but with help and tips from all the guys on the net i improved and have grown in the way i do customs.

_________________

Thanks guys for the helpful hints. I post my stuff to get comments and help if needed. I may not agree with everyones ideas all the time but I do try to work in stuff that I know I can do and just didn't think about. Since I opened up a can of worms for this figure I will be asking for help or suggestions as I try to improve this guy.

I repainted the majority of the figure for the green I want to use, but now I would like input on what to do from here. Should I go darker on the uniform? Should I leave it as is color wise.



I also did some camo work on the face and tried to mimic the Hasbro version.

I want to keep the parts of the harnass that I have on him but was looking to replace the cloth straps on the chest with styrene strips. Just what is stright rite? It looks like the straps BBI uses sometimes. Like a stretchy cloth band.

Now open for ideas, suggestion and input.

Never had a figure drive me nuts like this one. I'm going to start this one over from scratch and see what I can do. But still open to suggestion.

yes its the stuff bbi uses for there packs. i would go darker green but more of a forest green. the camo on the face looks much better. i would use that green for his skin tone. good luck man just take your time. i know we will try to help out any way we can.

_________________

Thanks X. Like I said I am going to start over but I set aside the forearms and head until I knew what I needed to do with them. I got confused on if the arm color needed to match the uniform, but I think I understand that they do not need to be the same color but the camo needs to be consistent throughout.

What kind of paint are you using? Right now it looks really rough...like you painted right over the previous chuncky paint.

If it's somthing like an Acryllic from Walmart...soak your parts in some PineSol for a day or so then use an old toothbrush to scrub off most of the old paint...do that a couple times till you can get back to the base plastic color...then a simple wash with soap and warm water and then apply a nice clean new basecoat.

If you sprayed your paint on, I'd take some extra fine grit sand paper or an emery board and smoothe out those spots of orange rind on the chest, shoulders, bicept abs, and thighs....then reapply the paint.

The head already looks A LOT better now that you got rid of those Raccoon eyes and added the goggels..

If you're set on having a removable harness...I'd scrap whats on the legs, (personaly I'd scrap it either way...i think the belt and down straps are still too thick of a width.) you could prolly get away with using the same stuff you used before...just cut the width in half or a bit more

_________________

I use Appelbarrel. I have stripped it down back to the original figure, just need to do a little more clean up job. I think I need to thin the paint out a little cause like Nova said it is still a little chunky.

I am happy with how the head is turning out this time. And I am taking my time. I'm going to look for some other options for the harness before I go back to what I used

when I first saw the figure I didn't know what to say for sure but it didn't look good really but I have seen SW from you but not Joes so it is new to you, my SW customs don't look as good as my joes so when it's 'new' to you it won't be as good as others,He looks pretty good in the new pic and the flesh color is perfect i think. the clothes like x said darker so there is a color contrast.
The face paint looks good too, I know I made like 3 Hit n Runs and was never pleased with him since he seems like a hard figure to perfect and my latest version of him is mostly LBC with alittle paint so i was finally satified with mine,you're on a good start now.
Tim