Discogod is vocal about his hate for bad ankles on action figures, and, to a lot of us, it’s justifiable. While a figure can usually stand fine with just a simple ankle hinge, a rocker can add so much to more action-type poses, or even simple nuanced stances. A shift of the hip, an ankle turned in a bit, the head at a slight tip — it’s little things like these that add personality to our treasured objects of obsession. So, like a lot of industrious Fwooshers out there, DG took the focus of his dissatisfaction and came up with a pretty brilliant fix:
‘Sup, guys and gals. I’ve been hard at work converting the last few figures in my collection with Hasbro-style ankles to rocker joints and thought I’d share my new method. This is a no paint, no sculpt mod, and it works best on Hasbro’s recent female figures, since it does tend to knock a bit of height out of the shins.
Above are the basic tools I used to get started. I’m using Madames Masque and Hydra for this; their shins are ideal for this mod.
First off, measure where you’ll be cutting into the leg, roughly the width of the ankle disc. Calipers are ideal for this, but I did it by eye ’cause I’m lazy. Then use a thin, sharp blade to cut notches in the shin, you should be able to wiggle the ankle peg out at this point:
Next, cut the disc out of the foot and roughly carve out a cavity:
Then, pop the disc into the new hinge you’ve cut in the shin, mark the centrepoint, take out the disc, and drill a small hole through on each side (or use a heated screwdriver/needle like I did). Then you can widen the hole enough to take whatever peg you’ll be using to connect it all together (I’m using fodder pegs), and, if need be, countersink the holes. Then you can just heat it up like a normal joint and put it together:
Now, I didn’t photograph the next step, but it’s fairly straightforward. You’ll need to round off the end of the shin with your trusty generic rotary tool — the ankle disc is a great guide. Then you’ll need to hollow out the feet into a cup-type of shape, so the shin can sit in there comfortably. Next drill the socket for the peg into the foot — the shallower the angle, the more effective the rocker motion will be.
You can probably spend more effort in making sure it’s all nice and smooth, and making sure the pegs colour-match, but you get the idea. Like I say, I’ve had my best results with the Hasbro females, since you will lose maybe 1/4″ of height from the shins with this method. Constrictor doesn’t look too bad, but Klaw is noticeably shorter and stumpier (as you can see from the side-by-side pic):
Special thanks to Discogod for allowing us to reprint his tutorial!
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