Kung Fu International*: my Custom Jager Kung Fu Doll

Recently I found my old Kung Fu figure header card, which Is archived in a frame with my old Kung Fuey crisp packet from the early 70"s when I was Kung Fu mad.

Alas, the figure I had is long lost in the Shaolin landfill but the header remains and reminded me that it was a cheapo male doll in a karate suit made by Jager [anyone know them?]

So what if I just remade the doll again? 

A few shuriken's later and hey presto! 

I give you my El Cheapo Enterprises Kung Fu figure rack toy with it's nice original header.

 Hi Ya! 

Did you have one of these readers?

I made the suit from a spare and battered 1990's Action Man Hasbro astronaut outfit languishing in the loft. A really rough and ready job, 'cos that's how I remember the figure; rough, ready and cheap. I loved it.

The doll is from my Hong Kong doll stash and suitably basic I thought. The belt is from the Missus's ribbon jar.

I've attached the header with double-sided tape in case I ever want to get it off. Originally it would have been stapled to the bag.

Looking up this figure online, I can only find a blister carded version by the US's Durham toys, with the same graphics however, but appearing in a kimono with a belt rather than a karate suit. 

I recall a suit on mine for some reason but I maybe misremembering. I know I had a life size Karate gi made for me by an aunt, before my Mum bought me a proper one!

I have no idea where A&O is as on the original price tag. Maybe the petrol station where I got my Kung Fu LP at the bottom of our road in Preston in the early 1970's? It cost 55p.

Now where are my nunchucks! 

*

* the title celebrates Salford's great John Cooper Clarke's poem of the same name!

MY CUSTOM MATTEL SPACE 1999 ZYTHON FIGURE

 Continuing my project making my own custom versions of rare sci-fi toy figures, here's another one I've finished.

Zython.

To make Mattel's elusive Space 1999 alien I bought a cheap loose and green Monster High doll.

I then shrank her head but I'm unsure it worked. All her hair was removed and her tippy-toes clipped. I adjusted the head a little with some hot pinching and fimo, added long ears and a beard and painted it a similar lime. Finally the eyes and brows were drawn on.

The costume is from the Missus's felt stash with gold braid, all glued together. The cap is a plastic spoon. Shoes are trimmed Barbies. The trident is a marshmallow stick with Cootie legs on top.

Here it is complete.

Hope you like it.

Here's Mattel's original doll for comparison

Not perfect, by a long chalk, more of an impression really, my Zython - Mython! ha ha - will look even better once mounted on a recreation of the original Mattel backing blister card.

That particular piece of graphics wizardry is in the hands of Billy the Boxer!

Watch this Space .... 1999!

[you can read more about the original figure on the ever-informative Plaid Stallions https://plaidstallions.com/reboot/toy-ventures-zython-from-mattels/]

Doll, Card and Blister: My Home-Made Star Maiden's Final Look

 Armed with my baguette blister box I've finally finished my home-made Star Maiden Guard doll on card.

Here's she is complete with new glued-down blister cover.

This decent 12 inch blister does real justice to Wotan Bill's fab repro card art and my home-made doll and clothes.

Its been fun!

Hope you like the final article.

Victimised!: Re-creating a Lincoln International Monsters Victim Doll

 This is a story that goes back a good few years. Parts have been blogged, some parts not.

This is the whole story.

Always a monster nut I loved monster action figures as a kid. Figures like Lincoln International's classic monsters. 

So a while back I was amazed to see a strange girl doll on Plaid Stallion's Lincoln Monsters page (pictured).

What?

The rare 1970's doll was called The Girl Victim, a risky choice given that Aurora ran into a lot of trouble with the same named kit ten years earlier in the 60's.

Image: property of Lincoln Monsters.com

Just over two years ago I thought I'd actually found the doll in a Selby charity shop but this was a big red Sindy herring.

 https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/09/sometimes-great-motion.html

Then I saw that Plaidstallions had already ID'd the real doll, a mini vintage Barbie called Mod Miss.

https://plaidstallions.com/reboot/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/modmiss.jpg

Now I had a name to go on!

 I searched and searched and eventually got this bagged Mod Miss from Italian Ebay. 

I was chuffed!

The game was on. I could maybe make my own Lincoln Victim figure after all!

All I needed was the right material. I sampled one of the pictures online and sent this image to an online cloth printer. I kept it economic by simply ordering a napkin.

The result was excellent, although I worried it wasn't enough material.

I asked our good friend Franzi E, a trained tailor in Germany, to do a favour when we visited last month and have a go at making the doll's onesie.

I needn't have worried. Franzi made such a great job of the little outfit that there was material left over! 

Complete with lace trim here's Franzis fabulous work.

The next job was the backing card. The original never had one, a loose doll in a Spiegel catalogue box of monsters.

I asked Wotan Bill what he'd do and he kindly produced this first fabulous draft inspired by the poster for Dementia 13.

After some discussion and a few changes Bills final artwork was terrific.

With the doll, the suit and the artwork, I added one final touch - and inspired by Auroras Frightening Lightening kits - some Glow in the Dark paint on the doll's exposed parts. 

All that remained to do was put everything together.

Bill's artwork glued on card [my lack of proper post-glue smoothing let it down i think]

My doll with Franzi's suit on the card.

And finally, a blister I found.

Eh, voila! 

Our custom MoonBase International Victim Doll.

And so we've come full circle. Job done! It's been monstrous fun! 

*

Final observations: 

The blister's temporary until a better one turns up. The Glow in the Dark paint worked - pictured below. I went on to find three more proper Mod Miss's in a Selby Charity shop! 

By way of comparison, here's BKC's, a professional German customiser's version of the Girl Victim, along with a few of his other many customs.

I don't think ours is too far off the mark after all. What do you think readers? 

BILL EV'S ZERO-X ACTION MAN

Today I visited my brother on his 50th birthday. And while we were chatting I noticed a photo cube he had sitting on one of his shelves. On one of the cube faces was a picture of me when I was about nine or ten years old. The very photograph I mentioned earlier in the blog post about Action Man in the Zero-X uniform.

So as I mentioned earlier, sometime in early 1968, I went Zero-X mad! This was probably prompted by me getting the Product SWORD toy for the 1967 Christmas. Easter time, my God Mother had bought me a Red Devils Parachute set for Action Man, and before the summer holidays, my imagination had already gone up a gear. It occurred to me that if I put the red jumpsuit on back to front, on Action Man it looked as if he were wearing a polo neck sweater. Furthermore, you could place a trousers and tunic over the jumpsuit as worn like that.

So I went to my Gran with numerous TV21s to show her the style of the outfit needed. I remember my Gran calling it a Mandarin Collar on the jacket. There was a fair bit of material over from the IR uniform she made me a few years previously. So, she marked out the pattern on that, measuring up Action Man, just as she would if she were making a Gentlemans suit. Gran then cut it all out, did something called 'hemming', and then assembled it, sewing it on her 1908 US made Singer sewing machine.

Once my Gran had completed it and checked it for size, she handed it to me to complete the ZX insignia on the upper arms. My mother was very good at embroidery, and as a child I learned from both of them how to sew and embroider. So I completed the ZX insignia myself and the outfit was complete.

Up until I reached something like eleven I had many adventures with Action Man who was on occasion joined by my dear friend Wayne's Action Man too. My Grandmother's house where we lived, had a large front, side and back garden. And I remember lots of adventures up trees, across the lawns and at the side of the Garage.

I count myself as extremely lucky, my parents, and the Fletcher family (who are my close relatives), always managed to give me the best years of my childhood they possibly could. Is it any wonder my cousin Tom Fletcher ended up founding McFly and going on to chart success.

For that I am so very grateful. I'm now in my mid sixties and although I'm very much a person of tomorrow, my home has many artifacts of those far off days when the sun seemed to be always shining, and the 1960s had yet to come to a close.

SIG

Bill

Bill Ev's Thunderbirds Memories

Hi Woodsy

Reading through your Blog resulted in a cherished memory resurfacing!

When I was a kid, we didn't have much spare cash, and many things from the Gerry Anderson Universe were out of reach of my family pocket.

So one Christmas, I had to make a choice of either Thunderbird 5 or an International Rescue uniform. I chose TB5. But my Grandmother was a very talented and qualified Tailor (in those days women were called Dressmakers) - and surprised me Christmas 1966 with a perfect copy of the uniform, because I understood about the lack of money and had been such a good child.

My Gran (Kittie) had sourced pretty much the exact colour material of the IR uniform, and when it was finished, there was a small amount over, which she put aside for other odd projects.

In 1967/68 I went Zero X mad, and as I had an Action Man, I managed to convince my Gran to make a Zero X uniform for Action Man, as the material was the same colour as the Zero X uniform! - about a week later she produced this really faithful reproduction complete with Nehru Collar. It was designed to fit over one of the red jumpsuits so Action Man looked completely authentic, and ready to pilot Zero X.

Somewhere in the vast collection of photos from my childhood I do have a picture of the Zero X suit worn by my 12 inch high friend...

As regards my own IR uniform... I still have it, and its in pretty good nick, but a tad too small, so no cosplay for me!

FAB!

Bill Ev~

LIPSTICK TRANSPORTER: THE BODY AND COCKPIT

My scratch LT10 Lunar Transporter model project has begun.

I've removed all the silver lettering from the lipstick case.

I've taken the silver cap off it and found some pens that will come in useful.

The blue pen did. I cut off its rounded end and split that in two. 

It'll become the blue blister cockpit.

and finally, I've inserted the two lipstick case ends together to create the basic body shape.

More shenanigans on the workbench soon!

my mum's home-made clothes 1972

Did your relatives make you clothes for yourself or your dolls?

I don't remember my Mum making any clothes for my Action Man despite their being knitting patterns for jumpers and cardies for the fighting man.

I do have a slight recollection of something being made for my Fairylite Parker doll but unsure what. I can imagine the old Cockney would have liked a silk smoking jacket or a towel coat for lounging round Sindy's pool on his days off [or maybe Penny's herself! ooh la la]

I've often thought about attempting to make mock-ups of Fairylite Lady Penelope clothes or C21 Topo Gigio gear, which I'll just never find otherwise but my sheer lack of stitchery stops me and Missus Moonbase says no!

What my old Mum did make me though were clothes - for me!

These were very specifically oriental and made to measure to feed my obsession with the Martial Arts in the Kung-Fu fuelled days of 1972.

Mum's bespokery first tailored me a full Karate suit from some off-white cotton. It came complete with hemmed collars and coloured belt and I loved it. Real karate suits were dear and I wasn't ready to join a club. I just wanted to wear it at home and do a few kicks in the mirror!

Things got a bit more serious so next came a whole group of home-made patches for my own dojo in the cellar at home. They were circular and made of material that could be sewn onto a Karate suit or white Kung Fu T-Shirt. The round patches had an embroidered Chinese Butterfly Knife in the middle with the words Powis Road Dojo of Bugei stitched round it. 

The patch looked the business and my martial arts mates all got one as long as they trained in the cellar dojo regularly. Sadly no example of my Mum's marvelous patch-making skills exists now although I do still have all the designs for them.

Last but not least and perhaps the dog's katanas of all my Mum's Eastern clobber was a Hakama made just for me. 

The Hakama is basically a very wide pair of trousers, which when on look like a broad split skirt. Ankle length, the Hakama allows for fluid movement when practising Japanese martial arts such as Iai-do or swordsmanship, Aikido or the art of flowing body locks, Judo, the art of body throws and Kyudo or archery.

Although I had a go at all of these arts in my own dojo and garden, my own formal Japanese thing was Judo and I wore my Hakama with pride during public demonstrations performed by the club I was at in Ashton, Preston. The Hakama just added that little extra when we exhibited knife evasion and basic sword movements.

I still have my Mum's home-made Hakama and it is very special to me and I occasionally don it to feel that Seventies samurai in my veins once more!

Along with the Katana sword my folk's bought me from Grattan's catalogue they are some of the very few things that I own from my childhood and early teens.

Here's my Hakama, now roughly 45 years old!

Did you have any clothes made for you or your favourite Action Men and dolls readers?