Now we all know about the infamy of the original Shredder toy playmates gave us for the first Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles line. With its crouched legs and awkward pose, it made it almost impossible to really do much with him since one of his arms was too close to his body and the other couldn't hold anything.

Now of course the original TMNT line was full of several variants of the boys in green, their Master Splinter, April, and Luckily and thankfully Shredder. These versions of Shredder much better capture the look and identity of the character way better than the original (yes even the toon turtles one)









Now while all of these fix the issues of the originals, nowadays they're hard to find so I was kinda stuck with the crappy original. But fear not as I am working on a solution.

As you can see, I took the left arm and put it on his right side, and put his right hand where is his left should be so his hands wouldn't be backwards. Then I removed his legs. For right now or until I can get better legs, these mutatin' Michelangelo legs will be placeholders. Also I need to get a second shredder so I can use his regular right arm. So until then. Stay tuned.

 

this is going to be good  

 

Suggestion: look for the movie Super Shredder. It's essentially the wacky action figure with a new head and giant shoulder pads. Should have plenty of blades for you.

 

I had him but I sold him a while ago, thanks for the advice man.

So be it

You mean use his legs? Thanks for the advice

 

If memory serves, his entire body is that of the wacky action figure. They just removed the wind up gimmick, added a lot of blades and replaced the head.

There's one on EBay for around $20. That's not unreasonable.

As for your custom, in regard to the legs used, I wouldn't break down a perfectly good Shredder for those. I'm sure the turtle legs will be fine.

 

It's a reissue figure I got loose

 

Update: the torso is now complete. I am just waiting for my loose super shredder to come in so I can do the legs.

 

Really like where this is going.

That said, the left arm->right arm looks weird since the bicep is on the back now. I'd recommend another solution that doesn't give you a backwards left arm.

 

The other arm is flexingt

 

Huh?

 

Flexing, sorry about the typo. It's also to make his sculpt more lively like other figures in the line like General Traag or Baxter Stockman

 

Update: I got the super shredder legs I needed and I have finished the figure, I will be posting pics tomorrow since I think I'm coming down with something

 

Final Update: now that I'm feeling better I'm ready to show you the final result.
Now for those of you who don't know, this is one of my first ever tmnt customs, and I feel like it was a success. So ladies gentlemen and mutants, I present to you the new and improved nasty sharp foot leading madman.....
THE SHREDDER

As you can see, I have definitely changed up the look of this figure tremendously, what initially looked like someone with constipation now looks like something that's threatening in some way. Getting to what I did, I began by disassembling the figure and putting his left arm on his right side and replacing the hand on the left arm with the right hand so he could actually hold something. I then went and bought a second shredder loose in not the best condition (as evident by part of the spike being broken) and kept it as his left arm so now both arms could reach out instead of the right one being so close to the body that holding a sword would come off as redundant. Next I bought the legs from super shredder off eBay since that figure was a retool of the hard to find Slice n Dice Shredder which is very hard to find these days and that figure has the best legs of all the shredder figures. After that I merely popped them on. I didn't bother painting the super shredder legs black because I wanted the pants to look more complete so it didn't look like it was wearing a diaper. As a result I feel like this was what we should've gotten in the first place it looks imposing and looks like someone the turtles would consider their arch enemy. Granted it still doesn't look much like the cart but the original didn't either. Another upside to the new legs is that he actually is taller than the turtles by an inch or too. With that being said here are some pictures.

figure from the front

figure from the back

Shredder next to Raphael for a size comparison

A standoff between Splinter and Shredder

The ensuing fight

and finally, Shredder Triumphant

So in the end I am very pleased with myself on this custom since it helps vastly improve a bad figure into something really good.

To put this in perspective of how much work I did though here's my custom next to the original

Before After

 

Awesome workvon your first tmnt custom!
you know you could use the blades on the original Shredder's legs on the new custom....should you choose to be more adventurous  

 

Meh, these bigger ones look better but thanks for the feedback

Something I should mention about the hip joints are that took out the original shredder's skeletal joints which on the original soft head version connected the head to the legs, however the the shredder I used had a peg joint for a neck so I used the entire hip structure from super shredder

 

So he's flexing his arm...upside down? Sorry, no two ways around his arm being upside down.

 

I'll find a solution next time

 

neat