[Mordiganne]

Don't have a ton of time so will make this quick for now and can expand later...

The main joint rub areas are shoulders, torso split, hip/upper thigh, elbows and knees. Using a mix of a VERY sharp exacto knife and a Dremel tool you can mod each of these points to eliminate the rubbing spots without damaging the figure or making the joints loose to the point of uselessness. If you guys really want to know I'll have to do a write up that I don't have time for right now, but a knife and Dremel is the way to go. Still takes some time depending on what you're trying to do, but saves way more time in the long run.

You'll need to get the following Dremel accessories at the minimum:

Sanding drums (small ones are fine, the figures aren't that big), engraving bit (looks like a little ball on a metal pin), grinding stones (these are the MOST useful ones for joint work without disassembling the figure and it's a vital piece for the hip area which causes me the most headaches for paint rub - will show you on the next posted batch the end results of using that). There might be one more I'm forgetting off the top of my head, will update later if I think of it.

One thing to keep in mind, you do need to have a steady hand and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Practice and in time it becomes second hand nature. A lot of my customs are just trial and error seeing what works and what doesn't based on whatever batshit crazy idea pops into my head to attempt.

As for putting them back together without damaging the paint, it's very hard to do and a royal PITA especially with the overly small joint pins for this scale. Best advice I can give is to just do your base coats on figures that are taken apart, use some kind of superglue type product to preserve key areas. (I use one that turns into a plastic shell when it dries in addition to it being a glue. I mainly just use it for nick repairs and around the knee, bicep and hip joints. I think it's supposed to be for fingernail repairs based on what the bottle says.) Then do any detail/design work when you put the figure back together. Even then, you can damage the pins and if you put a piece in backwards it's a ridiculous task to re-take it apart and fix that. Big reason why I don't do complete disassembly anymore. I've put knees in upside down, female lower knee joints put on backwards... lol all kinds of stupid things.

I use microwaved water to take figs apart (I'm not boiling a damn thing) 4 minutes on high then soak the figs for a minute, they come right apart and a hair drier to put them back together - hair drier is to soften the joints without screwing up your paint work. You can use a heat gun, but unless you have a need to own one and are damn sure you won't burn up your figures, just get a cheap hair drier.

I generally only take off the head, the arms at the bicep swivel, the lower leg at the calf swivel, and the upper legs at the hip joint. I only take off the hands and/or feet if the costume design calls for different paint in those areas. When it doesn't I will paint them separately though to keep paint from clogging up the joint i.e. painting the hand up to the joint swivel then painting from the joint up the forearm.

Ok, that was longer than intended. In lieu of an actual tutorial I hope that helps a little. Gotta run...

Pilk, I'll check the PM later, thanks. Also, which of the one million versions of Snake Eyes is that? Let me know and if I have it it's yours.