Hi all! Back with another pre-accident custom, and another NECA-styled TMNT '87 cartoon action figure. Today's figure is just as obvious as the last one, another vital ally of the green teens. We'll get to some villains soon, but first, here's Master Splinter!

Like April, my goal was to get as close to the cartoon model as humanly possible. Naturally, this started with a 2007 TMNT CGI movie Splinter figure, which we all pretty much agree has the best Splinter head sculpt ever made. It needed to be resculpted of course, to match the classic art style, but it wasn't too much of a challenge. Likewise, his gi is pretty close to the cartoon design (the main body of it, anyway . . . not so much the arms or below the waist. Those shoulder pads, dude.), but one area in which the figure is severely lacking is articulation, something the NECA figures do exceptionally well, and something I insist on in my figures as well. This meant the arms and everything below the belt had to go. (Well, almost everything, but we'll get back to that in a minute.)

Fortunately, from my previous experience making a comic-style Splinter, I already knew where to get the perfect set of arms: DC Universe Classics Desaad. Seriously, don't know WHY more people don't use this for their Splinter customs, but I digress. I installed Desaads arms, and replaced his hands with those of a 2003 cartoon Splinter.

I wanted to give Splinter fully poseable legs (something almost no Splinter figure has, official or custom), so I took the lower body of the '03 Splinter (he has swivel-hinge hips, possibly the only Splinter figure that does) and spliced some rotate joints into the thighs. The entire lower legs came from a TMNT: The Next Mutation figure (YEAH! Found a use for one of THOSE garbage toys! THAT Splinter has knees and ankles!), and I attached the previously discarded feet from the '07 Splinter figure (heavily modified, because he has too many toes).

Splinter's skirt came from the 2012 Splinter figure, turned inside out and gashed up a bit. Yes, this figure involved FOUR different Splinter toys! The belt knot was from an '03 Foot Ninja (I think), and the tail was the '07 Splinters, with a ToyBiz Marvel Legends' hip ball joint at the base, meaning it can hinge and rotate two different ways. Splinter's walking stick was made entirely by hand, to reproduce the cartoon's unique design. No, it does NOT have a sword hidden inside, because Splinter never NEEDED one in the classic cartoon, he just fought with his stick alone!

I'm looking forward to when NECA inevitably releases their version of Splinter, but until they do (and possibly after), this old rat will have a place of honor on my TMNT shelf!

TURTLE POWER!!