There's an easy way to convert Nicee into Elita 1 (and destroy CW Elita 1 as a happy bonus!) Simply cut off Orthia's head, drill a hole in the base, and peg it into Nicee's neck. The transformation still works, and the car still rolls (just!)

I understnd that I'm not allowed to upload pictures of Nicee, but I am allowed to link to them, so here they are. All I need to do now is paint the helmet metallic pink:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Nicee_-_Elita_1_custom.jpg

 

Wow. That actually works remarkably well.
Looks like you could easily go farther with it and add some of Elita-1's bit and bots as well.
(Like the "smokestacks" on her shoulders, and a bit more armor here and there.)

 

So as this is the third time you open a thread for this, I have to ask: Is Nicee too sexy/exposed or what is the reason for not being allowed to upload/show pictures of her in here?
And this question does not exclusively go to you, @Autotot

 

Good idea! I'll have to see if I glued on some smokestacks whether she'd still be able to transform. I'll share any more progress...

 

Hehe. The site has a no photograph policy because Nicee is so controversial. I completely respect that. I just wanted to share a quick fix with all those people who disliked the anime style head that Nicee came with.

 

Cool custom!  

Good to know! I'll have to keep that in mind for future posts in Fembots as I have a Nicee on the way  

 

Looks pretty cool. Got me kinda' tempted to get a second Nicee, that Elita figure, and design some parts for 3d printing to make her more Elita looking: New chest plate, hip pads, shoulders, like @Vanya said. Figure is a bit pricey and mostly sold out, though, and I've already got a couple of custom projects going that I'm not making much progress on so I don't think I want to take it on right now.

 

Finally got round to painting my custom Elita 1 head for Nicee. Here's a tutorial of how I created and painted it:

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Link to pic of completed figure (picture 1)​

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Link to pic of completed figure (picture 2)​

 

That came out really nice, and good work colour matching with Nicee's body  

 

That looks like a really good color match in the photos. How is it in person? I did a little experimenting but I found there were too many things to try to match: the color isn't too hard but getting the color along with the metallic and even the size of the metal flakes in the metallic paint was too much for me

 

Thanks! Honestly, the colour matches perfectly to my eye. I'm looking at her now in natural light and I'm really pleased with the results. The only slight gripe I have is that if you look very closely the finish is not 100% smooth. But you'd not notice if you weren't looking for it. The very slight roughness came from my choice of primer. If I were to try again, I'd undercoat Skull White.

Alternatively, you could go for a contrasting colour, and then it wouldn't matter if you couldn't match the original. I almost went with gold, which wouldn't be G1 accurate, but would be in keeping with the Pamela Anderson vibe of the toy.

 

Yeah, I noticed the roughness. Good to know it's the primer - that can be lightly sanded after it's cured and before painting the colors. I'm particularly impressed with the coloring - Nicee's pink has a slightly more bluish tint with a warmer orangish tint where it catches the light and your paint scheme seems to have captured that nearly perfectly - I'm guessing that clear red coat is responsible for the highlights. My one nitpick is that it looks like the metal flakes in the Tamiya sparkling pink are bigger than the flakes in Nicee's paint - she has a very fine metallic pearly thing going on while the Tamiya seems to be more traditional metallic - the head sparkles while Nicee's parts shimmer.

[edit] On second thought, maybe I'm wrong about the sparkle/shimmer and it's just that roughness you mentioned or the camera or something. I just dug up this post and @Zyros uses almost exactly the same colors as you (starts with black but otherwise it's the same) and it's got the right shimmer at least as far as I can tell.

 

I never tried with a white undercoat, but after my own attempts with the same steps listed above (I didn't have any roughness from my primer) and a black undercoat the result is pretty identical to Nicee's base paintjob. The metal flakes are the same size as well, which goes a long way to getting the right look.

The most crucial part to getting the right finish is making sure not to overspray the clear red steps. It's really nothing more than a light misting, if you go for a full coating the pink hue comes out mismatched. Beast of luck for anyone else trying to match it!

 

Yeah, full credit to Zyros: I came up with this after experimenting with his near-perfect recipe! And, as I said, I think I'd have got an even better result with Citadel Skull White, which is smoother and brighter.

All this talk of colour-matching got me thinking. According to physicists colour don't exactly exist 'out there' but is a subjective sensation in our brains. The colour we perceive isn't constant but changes with the lighting. What is more, as we get older we detect fewer shades of colour as our brains get lazy and fill things in with a set palette, rather like painting-by-numbers. All this suggests that colour-matching is basically in the eye of the beholder. In the lighting conditions in which I display her, to a brain as old as mine, this custom colour seems to match Nicee’s original pink. And since I'm only displaying her for myself, I'm entirely happy with the results. Your mileage may vary, in which case I suggest experimenting on other objects before painting your own custom pieces. For example, to redden the final result it you might try a thin red glaze; to brighten it you might try a satin gloss etc. However, I’ve not altered these pictures in any way, so if the colours in them seem accurate to you, you should get an 'accurate' effect using the above method.

 

I mean it's true that what our brain sees isn't exactly 100% what's out in the real world but I don't think I agree that colors aren't out there. They're just reflected light of various wavelengths. It's also true that each person's perception of those wavelengths and/or combinations of wavelengths is going to vary (hell, there's a shade of blue light used in some store signs that my eyes see differently from each other) but a true color match is possible if you can get it to reflect all the exact same wavelengths. Then it wouldn't matter who was looking at it - as long as it was in the same lighting conditions, it'd look the same as the other parts. It's also true that colors would look very different to us if we could see the infrared or ultraviolet parts of the spectrum (certain animals can).

But all of that is academic. Your point still stands - as long as it looks the same to the beholder, then that's good enough. I just like to try to get it as exact as possible.

 

Amazing clean work. I'm not exactly a fan of Nicee's original headsculpt.
You made it 1,000X better with Elita's head.

 

Went back and look at your process. I noticed you used PS / Polycarbonate paint!   I'm always told not to use that, amazing you made it work and did not harm the plastic.

 

Does PS paint harm plastic? I'd always understood that it simply wasn't ideal for external use because that's not what it was designed for and you'd end up with a more matte finish. In this case, where you've got the gloss of the clear red and you're just misting the pink over top of it, I would think it'd give you a pretty close match to Nicee's finish: she's got the pearly sheen but not really glossy at all.

 

I've been told by multiple hobby stores whenever they ask what I am painting. They say their PS is for painting RCs. Of course, there will be plastics that will be okay, but I don't want to experiment and waste my money to see what works and what doesn't, so I stick with TS and AS for Tamiya sprays.