Nagol of Fortfield Posted October 5, 2015 (edited) Hello, soon to be fellow customizes! I will start of by saying that I am a purist... ish... When I say "purist" I mean that I am as of yet unwilling to cut, glue, mold, bake, sharpie, paint, etc.. LEGO bricks. I am willing though to do all of the above to non-Lego. I have recently ordered some Brick Warriors, and they are AWESOME!!!! Also, I got the Brick Forge hoplite pack (http://www.brickforg...&cat=582&page=1), which is also awesome... too awesome . I checked Brick Forge's site and YAY there are four different kinds of packs! Sadly there is only one color of javelin and two colors of shields, both not in bronze (that is, outside of the packs). Also, the helmets and shields by themselves for 10 soldiers might look bland, so I might want to paint or decal them. For now what I'm asking is: #1 Has anyone had experience doing something like this? If so, please comment! #2 Would it be worth it (the cost of paper, decals, paint, clear coat, the amount of time etc...)? Or is the fun for you guys not in the product, but in the making of it? #4 Because I'm new to this, would the finished product even look good? #3 Any other general advice to a newbie about customization will be appreciated. This probably will amount to nothing, but it could be the makings of a project! Also, I probably won't do anything with this until after December (wow, that's a long ways off). Only when I order some more stuff, or receive is as presents (my birthday is 7 days away from Christmas), will I be able to make some real decisions. In the meantime, general advice to a newbie about customization will be appreciated. Thanks in advance! How did this paragraph get so big! Edited October 5, 2015 by Nagol of Fortfield Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wardancer Posted October 8, 2015 I am not sure if your question is about making decals or about making a custom army. About making a custom army like you are intending: It is a lot of fun to have an army that no one else has. But it might also be kind of expensive. But also very rewarding. I have worked on a custom army (not yet published) for three years and I love it. Do custom products look like original parts? It depends on how much you customize. If you just cut off of glue together parts of weapons with superglue, the result will look very good. As soon as painting gets involved, the result will not look like a TLG product any more. If you look through the few parts of the army I have online, you will see examples. Making decals I have not tried, but it seems to yield good results. You will encounter problems. Painting a complete weapon is difficult, because the hands of a minifig will scratch off the paint. If I were you, I would go as far as possible with the existing products first and then customize what you need. Brickforge, brickwarriors, cape madness, all these offer a big range of parts you can use. Go through bricklink and look at ALL existing torsos. You will find many that fit into roman or greek armies, some from Chima, some from CMF, whatever. Then go through all the legs and so on. After a while, you will develop an eye for what fits into our army. And you will notice things that are missing. That shield in this color or a longer spear or whatever, as you have mentioned in your post. This is where customizing comes in. As little as possible to keep prize and imperfections low, but enough to make what you need. Start small. Paint the plume of a hoplite helmet it you need a different color for example. Or the tip of the weapon. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nagol of Fortfield Posted October 10, 2015 I am not sure if your question is about making decals or about making a custom army. About making a custom army like you are intending: *snip* Start small. Paint the plume of a hoplite helmet it you need a different color for example. Or the tip of the weapon. Upon review my question(s) did seem very vague, but your answer is exactly what I was looking for! I've seen your elf and drow armies before, and they look amazing. That Starbucks banner fits perfectly! I like what you said about taking what already exists and going as far as possible with it before doing anything else. There sure is a lot out there! Just a quick jaunt through flicker and Bricklink yielded some promising results. If only I had a bottomless wallet... I now I hopefully won't start painting or decal-ing or gluing for some time now. I'll have my hands full full with Bricklink and Brickforge for now. Hopefully the latter restocks some of their items in appropriate colors. Also, I'd love to see the un-posted custom army you mentioned! Thanks a lot! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
