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When Bif Bang Pow! announced their Venture Brothers line would be presented as 8” clothed figures, the Mego bug bit me and the infection spread quickly. Truth be told, the sickness had been with me ever since Famous Covers lined the aisles of Toys R Us; only laying dormant, waiting for the proper time to flourish once again.
After rediscovering the Mego Museum, I stumbled across web stores like Cast-Away-Toys and Classic TV Toys that allow us to craft our own Mego creations in a sort of Frankenstein sort of way. After a little digging, I came across these white space suits from the Space 1999 line. Even though the photo was tiny and the suits appeared to have horizontal lines running from head to toe, I thought they might serve as an acceptable Ghostbusters jump suit in a pinch.
My quartet of suits showed up in record time and I was quite pleased with them. They did have horizontal stitching that the Ghostbusters flight suits didn’t, but I was hopeful they would be less obvious after the suits took their dye bath.
The stitching was still too prominent and I wasn’t happy with the dye color, but all in all, I was pleased the suits took to the dye so well and it gave me hope for subsequent attempts. After a couple more dye tests, I finally found the right combination of tan and gray, but I was still annoyed by those damned horizontal lines. I decided to embark on the time consuming task of unstitching each and every thread. The result was a holey suit, Batman. For my next attempt, I decided to try unstitching before soaking the suit. That was the key. The holes all but disappeared after the suits dried. Now I had a very respectable looking Ghostbusters flight suit. I could now continue on with the project knowing I at least had the basic costuming done.
Aside from their tan/gray suits, the most iconic aspect of the Ghostbusterss is their proton packs. This would prove trickier than mixing dyes and unstitching seams. My first idea was to craft an entirely sculpted pack using Apoxie Sculpt. I haven’t sculpted in some time and even when I did, I wasn’t very good. Needless to say I had trouble. I couldn’t get the parts smooth enough and even more troubling, the Apoxie pack already weighed more than the figure itself and it was still missing a lot of the details that would add even more mass.
I was slightly discouraged. I didn’t want my figures toppling over and I was starting to get light headed from inhaling all the dust from sanding the pack down. This wasn’t going to work. But I didn’t know what else to do. That’s when inspiration struck.
Foam!
I bought a square of foam from a craft store and cut out my desired shapes. I had accomplished my goal of making the pack lighter, but getting sharp edges from the circular cuts proved difficult. Plus I still wanted to sculpt the finer details and the Apoxie would not adhere to the foam at all. I hit another roadblock, but I was on the right track. I went back to the craft store and found an aisle with different pieces of wood in varying thicknesses. I found the thinnest wood they had and cut out the shapes I wanted. I then glued those cut outs around the foam pack I had already had. I now had a nice flat surface and the foam provided the extra girth that would make the pack look like a 3-dimensial object and not just a paper thin stick.
I sort of lost track of the project for a couple weeks. I was suck on finding the right way to attach the straps to the proton pack. Right around then Mattel kicked me in the gut and announced they were making their own Retro-Action Ghostbusters. I really never thought they would.
After a momentary pity party, I realized Mattel’s line was going to be Real Ghostbusters themed and that I wasn’t in love with how their proton pack looked. So now I am armed with a rejuvenated interest in completing these guys and making them the best that I can. I originally planned on holding off showing or even speaking of these until they were finished and possibly including them in this summer’s CustomCon as a hypothetical joint venture between EMCE and Mattel, but since things have slowed down so significantly, I thought I would show off what I had thus far and see if any of the experienced folks at the Museum had any suggestions for me.
I have three heads that I am very happy with for Peter, Ray and Winston (can you guess which heads I chose?), but I haven’t found a portrait with poofy enough hair to represent Egon. Does anyone have any suggestions?
The collars aren’t folded correctly, but I may alleviate that problem by folding the collar under the pack straps. I don’t actually mind the popper collar look, but I acknowledge they are not accurate.
The black elbow pads are a stand in. They came with a coat I bought for a 7” wrestling figure. I like them a lot even though they are not gray and I have been searching for the right kind of stretchy material to recreate them.
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