Branjita's Finished Custom Figures

Awesome work as usual. Every time I think I'm out Branjita brings me back!

Buucolo - Piccolo absorbed Buu

Difficulty: 2/10

A major thank you to LarryKoopa for making this possible! And doomprevails88 for paying Larry so I could make these customs for the two of us!

How to make: This is actually a pretty easy custom! If your original figures are in perfect shape and you aren't super picky, then you can make this custom without ever using any paint! What you need is a Jakks Piccolo cape, a Jakks Super Buu, and a Jakks Buuhan (Gohan Absorbed Buu). You'll boil and pop the forearms and heads. The Buuhan head takes quite a bit of time in hot water to successfully get removed from huge neck peg. I had to heat it, wiggle it, heat it, wiggle it, at least 4 times until it finally came off.

The upper arms on Super Buu have a slightly larger peg hole, so you'll need to do the hot glue trick to get a nice, tight fit when you insert the forearm pegs. So here's what you do: you put the Super Buu body in freshly heated water so the upper arm plastic can soften. You heat up your hot glue gun. You dip the forearm pegs into Vaseline to get a good coating on them. You take the figure out of the water carefully, cover it with a towel, and shake the water out violently. Then you quickly insert the glue gun's tip into the upper arm peg holes and fill them with a bit of glue. Shove the forearms in the holes. Put the figure in the freezer or refrigerator for at least 10 minutes. Remove from freezer, trim the excess hot glue off, and wipe off the excess Vaseline. You're done.

While I was doing this, I also had the Buuhan heads in the water, so I pulled them out, cut the tentacle in half, put the Piccolo cape on the necks, and stuck the heads on the neck pegs. The heads were a perfect fit without any modification whatsoever. The Jakks Piccolo cape remarkably fits Super Buu like it was made for him. It looks a little small, but it fits flush against his chest and back! The Bandai/Jakks Ultimate Figure Series Piccolo's cape would be better sized, and likely fit exactly the same since they seem to be based on each other.

I also did the trick where you boil a figure and change the stance of the legs. Super Buu's legs were always a bit close together. So I left them all in hot water around 5 minutes, shoved a BIC pen (you know... a cheap, throw-away writing pen) between their legs and put them in the freezer for 10 minutes. Sometimes this adjustment lasts forever (until the figure is heated again), and sometimes the figure goes almost back to normal. Super Buu's legs didn't go 100% back to normal, but they got pretty close... it's perhaps 10 to 20% different. I think it's because they are one solid piece, unlike any other Jakks figure, so they have a lot of force/memory in going back to normal.

I did the super glue trick for tightening joints on the ankles, because Super Buu has weak ankles. I would have swapped the Buuhan feet onto Super Buu's legs, but they were unusual and I didn't understand how to pop them off without potentially damaging them, or Buuhan's pants, in the process. The super glue trick is where you put a couple drops in the front and back side of a loose joint and wiggle it endlessly until the glue has finished drying—about 10 minutes. If you do this to a figure with lighter colored joints (such as Jakks King Cold) you don't generally need to repaint the area because the white crust blends in well enough. Well, black boots = repaint.

Since I was doing all this to these figures, I did the same ankle trick to Super Buu and the Buutenks that I bought from timone317 years ago. I then repainted the ankles, and on all of my figures (except Buuhan) I repainted the feet brown to be accurate to the show. Buuhan already has brown feet, though they are very dark brown. I didn't attempt to match them. I also had to touch up the M and the golden yellow color on several of the figures. I had trouble mixing a matching golden yellow, so the touchups aren't flawless, but they are good enough I think. I regret not sanding Super Buu's belt smooth before painting, because it was chipped, and I ended up with a surface that isn't completely flat. I hadn't experienced chipping paint on a Jakks figure before but... I did boil these guys several times... and at this point, these figures are about 15 years old. Anyway, because I knew I couldn't duplicate the color I mixed, I just went with it, and repainted his belt entirely. I redid the M on him entirely from hand in about 2 minutes with too large of a brush lol. I'm still happy with it. After all the paint work was done, I brushed on some Testors Model Masters Flat Clear Acryl. Buu's feet were somewhat glossy as was his belt, so I watered down some Semi Gloss Clear Acryl and brushed that over the Flat Clear. It blended pretty well.

Anyway, I think that's everything. You can make this custom without doing a lot of the things I did, but I wanted it to look really cool and stand really stable. I hate when my figures fall down and knock everybody else over.









Here's a spin of my personal copy of this custom. The one for Doomprevails88 is identical other than the fact I didn't repaint the feet brown. I just touched up the black on his and touched up the belt.



















Here's the group photos. I guess Timone's Super Buu was a different release of the Super Buu figure, because his pants are khaki almost, and his skin is a slightly different pink from the others. Anyway... I now have every version of Buu that matters to me. The only version I am missing that I kind of consider important is the really muscular one.

Cooler/Coora form 4
Difficulty: For my portion, 3/10; for Adrenaline 's portion, I'd assume probably 6/10

And he returns!!! Paint jobs look phenomenal as usual. And props to the sculpting on Cooler - he looks great!

So cool! Cooler looks awesome!
It's great to see you doing custom again. Can't wait to see more