Hey there, Realm! Simple little custom today (well, for varying definitions of "simple," I suppose), so let's just dive right into it! Here's Casey Jones!

So, I was lucky enough to find one of the very rare NECA TMNT 1990 movie Casey Jones figures the first day they released! And like many, I was disappointed that he did NOT have a removable mask, or an alternate unmasked head with actor Elias Koteas' likeness. However, knowing NECA's track record with facial likenesses (specifically the fact that they tend to sculpt full actor-accurate faces on their masked figures and just glue the masks on if they can't get the rights, like they did with their 1989 Batman movie figure), I thought I'd see if they did the same here. Turned out, I was right!

Now, to anyone else attempting this custom, an important word: I would not recommend doing this for anyone that does not have SERIOUS sculpting and repair skills. The mask is VERY thin and brittle plastic, it cracked in multiple places. I do have such repair skills, so I was able to reassemble it, but just fair warning, it is NOT easy to remove.

As predicted, NECA did put a really decent young Elias Koteas head under the mask! Now, he does have grooves in his face (the mask has pegs to connect to his head), but they're on his cheeks and forehead, nowhere intrusive like on his nose or mouth or something, so again, if you're a good customizer, they are easily filled in, and with a full paint job, you end up with an excellent unmasked face! I will note, this is easily THE best paint work I've done since my car accident. The photos are pretty good, but seriously, in person, Casey looks like one of those Hasbro photo-real faces! He's PERFECT!!

The mask may be a separate piece, but the straps are another matter entirely. They're sculpted into the hair piece, so if you want that unmasked head, you're going to have to remove the full hair piece as well, and then find a new hair piece to put on the Elias Koteas head. I used the hair from an old ToyBiz Strider Aragorn figure. It doesn't have the same volume as the figure's original hair, but it does look kinda wet and stringy, like Casey did during his fight with Tatsu near the end of the movie, so with a little sculpting and some paint, it works just as well.

Then it was just a simple matter of reassembling the mask on the original hair piece, with a new face underneath (I used a random WWE figure head, grooves cut in as needed), and voila! I got two heads for my new Casey, one masked and one unmasked!

Posted about it this on Toy News International over a week ago, just didn't get around to posting here 'cuz I HATE photography. *LOL* And I see another customizer here on the Realm beat me to it! *LOL* Well, I'm still super proud of my work here! Hope you all check it out!

TURTLE POWER!!