Buzz or No Buzz?

Hi team
I'm alway on the lookout for interesting additions to the collection..I saw this chap In Aldi ( a discount supermarket here in the UK) for £9.99 and thought..hmm interesting uniforms..
So here he is Buzz lightyear himself in his flight suit.


What makes him useful, even for a moulded figure, is his pose ability
,  

His feet rotate 360...


His hands are flexible, so with a bit of modifications he can improve his weapon handling. .
 

He obviously has purple hands and flashing and a goofy cartoon head..so it was out with the kettle to see what would happen with good old pull at his hand and head.


I decided not to be too brutal with hands as the plug looked liked it might split.

 

As you can see Buzz's head sculpt leaves a substantial gap...but...I headed off to my MAM box of heads and wondered...
So here are some potential recruits for a Space patrol/Dragonians goon squad.. the kneck angle will have to abe adjusted.I chose lanyard or late MAM heads as they seemed to scale better.  .  
.


As I was doing this ,I kinda became a bit attached to the Buzz head sculpt..so may have to keep one figure..but I thought I'd ask you guys ...



Buzz squad or Not buzz squad?

Thanks for looking!

Nah.. Off with their heads..!
They do look the part with the replacement heads tho

Had a Buzz bulk buy by the looks of it!

Strange that looking at the figs you'd never think the MAM heads scale so well!

somekindajoe wrote:

Had a Buzz bulk buy by the looks of it!

Strange that looking at the figs you'd never think the MAM heads scale so well!

Hey Steve...it's that strange pull of the Aldi middle aisle...
I'm sure with a bit of VAMery I can make them acceptable!

Porky wrote:

Nah.. Off with their heads..!
They do look the part with the replacement heads tho

I reckon so...it could well be like the French Revolution..

There is an Aldi near me, but haven't shopped there. They have toys?

Is this a figure from the recent movie? I'm surprised he has the pose ability that he
has. But I'm not surprised you looked at replacing the head, it's rather large for the
body. And kinda goofy looking.

Very cool Steve!

I’m really liking the look of the new Space patrol/Dragonians goon squad. I think it’s better that each Space patrol/Dragonians goon squad looks different and that’s only doable with having different head sculpts in my opinion. It’s brilliant to see that the gloved hands can hold mam weapons.

TNshooter wrote:

There is an Aldi near me, but haven't shopped there. They have toys?

Is this a figure from the recent movie? I'm surprised he has the pose ability that he
has. But I'm not surprised you looked at replacing the head, it's rather large for the
body. And kinda goofy looking.  

Yes it's from the latest film .On further investigation online it looks like there are two other 12 inch figures. One in a later flight suit with a helmet(orange) and interactive one in his classic space ranger suit.

There also is a 5inch line with more of the supporting cast.

You should get into Aldi.. their two middle aisles are always full of item that change every week...don't go down it ..it has magic powers...you will end up with a hedge trimmer you never know you needed

The Robot King wrote:

I’m really liking the look of the new Space patrol/Dragonians goon squad. I think it’s better that each Space patrol/Dragonians goon squad looks different and that’s only doable with having different head sculpts in my opinion. It’s brilliant to see that the gloved hands can hold mam weapons.

Thanks Alex,
I think that they can make a great squad . I noticed that toward the end of MAM years , Hasbro were going down the space route and a lot of the figures had moulded clothes/uniforms..so they will be in kind of keeping with that vibe.
MAM weapons suit them.
I'll get one more to make a squad of 6.
Do you think they should be on the side of good or evil? ..or is that a silly question

I think they'd have to be good guys, the mam heads kind of make 'em look too 'cute-sie'  to be evil !

Gunner Munro wrote:

Do you think they should be on the side of good   or evil? ..or is that a silly question

Now that’s a silly question to ask me who’s on the side of evil (toys wise) but I actually think they should be on the side of good for once. The colour of their space suits for me a good guy colours.

Superb custom job    I particularly like the first and fourth heads, but they all look great

Very creative custom work there Steve.
Interesting figure.
May have to check out my local Aldi.
This gave me a real 'buzz' !!!

Buzz Squad part two....

Hi team moved the Buzz squad on a bit..

You will recall I was looking to transplant some heads onto the Buzz bodies.


So I started with some cleaning up.. getting rid of the manufacturers marks.



after a little wet and dry sanding.


Next how to fix the donor heads..

I had a rummage around in my DIY store " oh that might come in handy for VAM " box and found these . I think they are something to do with plumbing ?





They fitted into the neck opening well and the lip on the end worked well to push the doner heads onto( with a little bit of sanding/widening the neck openings on the heads.)







I was going to pack the area around the new neck post with some putty but got to thinking could the old heads be used in some way?



So I cut off the lug that fixed the old heads



this gave me essentially an O ring which I reversed into the slot and the neck post fitted perfectly >





eh voila.. a fine looking bunch ..


I'm going to try and bling them up a bit using some old Warhammer transfers I got on e-bay .



and give them a bit of a lived in look to make them more of an "Imperial Guard " . I have seen some videos on U tube where shoe polish has been used  do that !! - wish me luck

Using the blue neck ring was brilliant. It works, and it gives the head to suit connection a more finished, complete look.

I’m impressed by how cleanly you removed the molded lettering in the backs.

Must have missed this thread….they look excellent with the new heads….
Would be great if you could find helmets for them…. Like them though just as they are…

Thanks Dave and Dean.

Dave, yeah brings the two together.. but will experiment on one figure to see If I can change the colour of gloves /neck using the old Nail varnish trick.
Dean I agree some head gear would be good . The majority of the headsculpts are Lanard so may need to do some trawling of spares box/e-bay to get a good fit/look. The Lanard sculpts are smaller than VAM.

Thanks for the comments

Awesome job!

Gunner, thanks for sharing Buzz Squad part two with us. The Buzz squad are looking astronaut-tastic.

Great transformations, very imaginative .

Brilliant work Steve!