GeekSummit's CUSTOM NECA ROBOCOP | Removable Helmet

Chapter 2: The Helmet
  
So with NECA's Robocop, Battle Damaged Robocop, Glow Worm Robocop, and Spring Loaded Robocop... where do we go from here? HA.. Ha HAAA!!!!!!

TAKE THE MASK OFF!!!

Brilliant!!!

So How do we do it??

LET ME SHOW YOU!!!

So I've only been on this kick since I picked up the spring loaded Robocop and i LOVE THIS FIGURE... But, one stone remained left unturned. The helmet... The only iconic feature left to reveal was the man inside the suit... or the man whose face, brain and some vital organs were transplanted onto a suit.

I love starting with Mattel's WWE  figures. They can give you such a great start when you're needing to hit a likness but there are none around. There is such a variety of characters that if yo squint hard enough you can make out just about ANYBODY's face that you want to see. At Toys 'R' Us the other day I was struck by this new The Miz figure. The eyebrows beating down on these wide open eyes really beams out from the package. So I picked this guy up and just kinda stared at him for a second right in the eyes until I guess my mind built the rest out of periphery. Immediately I waltzed over to the NECA/Movie Junk Isle and I picked up a Robocop figure for scale assesment. They seemed to have similar enough proportions. I was sold but I didn't bite right away. At $20 a figure I thought I'd just let it marinate for minute.

On a coincidental trip to a K-Mart on my lunch break I look up and WWE figures @ $9.99 are buy one get one1/2 off and there were 2 The Miz sitting right out in front. So... at already %75 off just ONE figure from Toys'R'Us I made it happen... and I'm glad I did.

Here are some comparison shots of the original head next to what we have created.

 

It's immediately apparent that we have taken a lot of plastic off of our original model. The striking eyes are about all that will remain, that and the mouth which will be accentuated by thinning out the cheeks and jaws. 

On the right of course is the original The Miz head. On the left is my new sculpt "whittled" from this original head. I call this process MicroCephloplasty*... what, too heady? HAhahah

This is a process i have worked with several times before. I started doing this years ago when I tried to convert my first DC Super Heros Superman into a Christopher Reeve figure. You could say that MicroCephloplasty was my start in customizing... Itty Bitty plastic surgery.

Pretty striking resemblance yes?

Anyway back to Robocop. So I took this The Miz head and first knocked off all the hair with a combination of exacto and dremmel. smoothed it over and made it a nice clean bald head. Then I came back and knocked off the ears. I could have stopped there BUT the likeness was definitely pulled together. I couldn't let the eyes do all the work. 

I looked up some quick references on Peter Weller's face in and out of the Robocop context and saw that he has one of those damn pixie noses. Really thin and defined, so it was Whittlin' Time
 with a brand new exacto blade. Time to knock this honker down to a near resemblance of The man who is Part Machine, Part Man, All Cop.

As you can see the  head is well proportioned to the helmet, BUT of course the helmet is fitted for the faceless Robocop figure so it wont slip over the head. Grinding out the inside may be a little counter productive so if I do move to a fitted option that may require a couple back and forths with molding and casting. If it were to work it could be an exciting personal advancement.

The face itself is a very much thinned down version of The Miz with a Micro Rhinoplasty to taper that nose down to a more pointed look, the cheeks have been brought up using the dremmel and .75" buffing wheel. All in all, a nice likeness. The head will still have to be trimmed some to fit it into the now open socket where the original lower face once was.

For presentation purposes I went ahead and roughly trimmed the head out to fit in the open socket. Still we have some areas competing for space but we still have a very nice fit. and a great likness.

The top rear of the head will still need to be sculpted on some to give it that "Borg" look as the face meets the metal skull casing. there will be some additional details added once that process starts.

 I'm very excited about this project. I hope to take this into full mold & cast as I arrive at my ideal model. This has gone so well so far that I may only have to do it once... I LIKEY!!!

Thanks for looking, Creep!!!