"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi Yo Silver!" ...Part 2

...In the first part of this two part entry, I showed you my progress in creating Silver, the Lone Ranger's horse, and now I want to show you how I came up with my custom Lone Ranger figure, that is in scale with this faithful steed of his.
So here we go...

 The biggest option pool I had in this scale for a base of a person in this size was Star Wars action figures. After considering quite a few, I decided Lando in his Return of the Jedi outfit would work great for the bottom half. Because of his blue pants, black boots, and ball jointed legs for horse straddling. Also, an Endor soldier would supply a head and he even had gloved hands that would work. To finish my gathering for Lone, I grabbed a rebel soldier from A New Hope for the blue torso and arms.

 

I put the Endor soldier gloves on him to see how they fit, and realized his black vest wasn't an extra piece over his blue torso but it was sculpted on. So I ended up having to cut it away and sand it down. I was glad to not have to paint his arms though, because his elbow and shoulder articulation would make it a mess.

 

I also decided I liked the head he came with because it had an "older and fatherly" look to it which I think Clayton Moore always had so I went with this one instead of the Endor soldier head.

If you look really close you can see where I sketched out where his mask would be with pencil.

 

 

 

My first outlines of the mask to build it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now with a full mask and hat ready for his job at McDonald's!

 

The hat with the brim. Lookin' a little more country...

 

I added a thin layer of epoxy to harden and make the hat durable.

 

Now for his trousers...

 

And I painted on his pants belt that will go under his gun belt.

 

With some leather pieces I cut out a gun belt with holsters!

...But actually, before I could cut accurate sized holsters,

I needed to know the size of guns I'd be holstering.

so...

Here's what I did for the guns.

 

I made four castings in some sculpey clay of an Indiana Jones pistol I have and then filled the casts with epoxy. I let them dry overnight and I cleaned them up and sanded them down.

Separate halves of each gun.

 

After a ton of sanding the gun halves, I finally got them to the combined thickness I wanted. I wanted longer barrels than the gun I used to cast these from so with a tiny diamond drill I got from my dentist, I drilled holes for a new barrel. A strong barrel. A mighty barrel.

 

I used some nails for the size of gun barrels I was looking for, and a wire for the small revolver barrel underneath and marked the length I wanted to cut them after gluing them into the cast part.

 

Then I was able to measure for the correct length on the holsters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After painting the belt black, I added a buckle and belt strap!

I glued the belt on at the front and back leaving the sides flexible for the guns.

 

Toothpick tips work great for bullets hanging on his gun belt.

 

After fitting the top and bottom halves together I found there was

about an 8th inch gap between, so I added epoxy to the torso.

 

All together now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the guns finished.

 

Painted on some details onto his shirt.

 

 

 

I actually made three different scarf/bandanas

for him before I got it right.

 

 

 

 

 



This is one of the two I didn't go with because it was it

was just too fat once the head was popped back on.

 

 

Here he is. with the right, thin bandana.

 

 

This was a really long but rewarding project.

I'm really happy with how they both turned out.

 

This summer Disney's putting out a big screen version of the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp playing a comedic version of his faithful sidekick Tonto. It's going to be a lot different take on him than the Clayton Moore version I grew up loving, but I still want to see it out of curiosity and hope because he's such a fave of mine. I'm really hoping that the new "modernizing" isn't going to redefine him to a new generation by taking away the fact that before all the other great things about him, "he was a good man." This is the version of him I was trying to create.

"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi Yo Silver!"

Those were the first words of every episode of the great tv series "The Lone Ranger" starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels going from 1949-1957. I have early memories of my 5 year old self being at a babysitter's while jumping up and down excitedly on the couch with my fellow babysittee and friend, Clifford while these words rang out with "Lone" himself galloping across the screen.
These were re-runs of course, but they grabbed my imagination just as powerfully as anything else that was up to speed with the times, like Space 1999 or Six Million Dollar Man, (am I dating myself or what?)
Nowadays the anti-hero seems to be the type of role model that a lot of folks are drawn to with a grungy look, and little regard for any personal morals or values, but I've always really really loved the hero that has a good heart.
I love that line in the 2011 Captain America movie, when Dr. Erskine says to Steve Rogers, "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man."
These are some of the reasons I've always liked the Lone Ranger.

A little while ago, I stumbled upon some white horse figurines made by Schliech. Amazingly detailed, right in scale with the tons of 3 3/4" people figures that are everywhere, and I thought with a little work, one would make a great Silver (Lone Ranger's horse).
So with that, I started brainstorming...

 

 I started with two horses, originally intending to do everything twice so I could get a pose of him in a regular "walk" and one in a "rearing" pose. I soon found that it was enough work that I only wanted to do this once...

 

I decided to go with the more practical "walking" pose, and drew out where I was going to put the saddle and rein straps.

And then I built up the saddle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After sculpting some of the straps and the horse blanket on, I applied my cardboard saddle base.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I filled the saddle in and sanded it down.

 

 

Put on the stirrups...

 Then I added a little loop of metal on the straps near Silver's mouth for attaching the reins later.

 

 

 I decided the underside of the belt "keeping the saddle on" needed a buckle, so after first sculpting it backwards with the strap coming out the wrong side of the buckle, I reversed it.

 

I thought  it would be a great to add a lasso to the saddle so I created a hook to loop one over. 

 

 

After I covered the hook with epoxy and painted all his straps black after sanding them down, I added some silver bling to his chest straps, painted him a brighter white and added a lasso I made especially for him.

 

That pretty much finishes up what I did with Silver. Gallup on over to part two of this western tale to see about his great masked rider!