One of the genres that I really enjoy doing customs of is warrior anthropomorphs. Lines like the Four Horsemen's 7th Kingdom, Gothitropolis Ravens, or Stan Winston's Realm of the Claw, and earlier than that Battle Beasts, they all really get the kid in me going again. When the Four Horsemen did their short lived 7th Kingdom line some years ago, it inspired me to start making customs of animal warriors. So far I've made a Lion, Tiger, Horse/Centaur, Gorilla, Crocodile, Water Buffalo, Polar Bear, Snapping Turtle, and Python.
My customizing of these fantasy animal warriors stopped as the Four Horsemen's output of their own anthropomorphs temporarily halted. Then they started again with their Raven Kickstarter, and those bird warriors shipped to buyers about a year ago. That got me motivated in getting back to doing some more customs in this genre. This Ostrich started with my seeing a NECA Diablo figure in the store, and thought that the legs could make for a tall anthromorph. Then I saw the bendy tail, and that sealed the deal. The tail would make a great segmented armor for the neck of an Ostrich or Cassowary.
At first I wanted to go the Cassowary route, since its neck is blue, it has a more vibrant color scheme than the Ostrich, and is also a more aggressive bird. I saw a wildlife video segment on cassowaries, and they said that its feathers are very stiff and quill like, which I thought would justify the spikes that the Diablo figure has, and how I would do the bushy tail of the figure.
But as I progressed, mostly stumbling through and mix/matching Diablo with my existing fodder, the proportions veered more toward Ostrich than Cassowary, and the feet with two toes also says Ostrich (Cassowaries have 3 toes). But I kept some of the Cassowary elements that I had started out intending to do, like keeping the spikes and having the tail as quill like feathers, and keeping the blue and black color scheme. In one of the photos here is the Ostrich next to the Four Horsemen's Gothitropolis Raven which made me fast track finishing the Ostrich instead of finishing the 3 or 4 other partially started animal customs that have been languishing on my work list.
Please wait...
Update Your Custom
These characters are really well made. No really what I collect, but the details, paints and concept is really amazing..
Do you have any WIPs? Any fancy re-engineering of parts we should know about?
I ended up cutting the tail at the segment that I needed but only going through the plastic and leaving the wire underneath intact. Then I pulled the plastic off and what was left was the section that I would use for the neck with its bendy wire sticking out of both ends. The wire sticking out the bottom was threaded through a hole drilled in the neck hollow of the upper torso (Halo Brute figure). Underneath the torso where the wire has passed through, I bent the wire in such a way that it would no longer go back through the hole. It's like tying a knot at the end of a sewn thread so it doesn't back out through the fabric. Then that Brute torso with the neck attached was PVC Cemented onto a cut down ML movie Lizard torso that still has the thoracic joint attached and working. That sealed the twisted anchor wire within the kitbashed torso. The mechanical anchoring of that neck wire allows the bendy neck to turn rotate side to side up to 90 degrees as well as bend as necessary.