Custom Indy Figures – The Gong Striker

Here’s another one of the several Indy customs figures that I had created over the past few months.

#35: The Gong Striker from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”

The Gong Striker appeared at the beginning of “Temple of Doom”, when he striked the gong which signaled the start of Willie Scott’s song and dance. The Gong Striker stood firm at his position even as Indy’s negotiations with Lao Che went awry and pandemonium broke out in the nightclub. That was, until one of Lao Che’s sons began to shoot a Tommy gun in the Gong Striker’s direction. The Gong Striker then fled for his life.

Recipe:
The whole figure – Malakili, aka the Rancoor Keeper (“Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi”)
Feet – Monkey Man (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”)
The two belt buckles – Came from two RPG Indiana Jones (“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”)

I had previously purchased the Malakili figure for possible use as custom fodder for the burly German Mechanic. But in the end I used some other parts to do the Mechanic. And so I had Malakili lying around for quite some time, until I got the inspiration to create a figure out of it. While doing my research for “Temple of Doom” Willie Scott, I was also keeping a lookout for other background characters that I can potentially customise, and I noticed among them the Gong Striker. I remembered that Malakili was also a fat, bare-chested figure, and since I was doing nothing with it, I may as well use it to customise the Gong Striker. I was also inspired by Hasbro’s line of Star Wars figures, in which nearly every Star Wars character gets its own action figure no matter how insignificant its role was in the movies.

 A close-up of the Gong Striker

The original figure was previously wearing a hood over his head. The hood was removed, and the scalp was sculpted with epoxy, with a rubber tie pasted around the head to serve as the black head band, which also cleverly covers up the seam between the head and the scalp. The moustache was painted on, and a bit of epoxy was used to sculpt the wristbands.  The Gong Striker was barefooted, so the Monkey Man’s feet were transplanted over, with a bit of dremeling done to remove the slippers. The belt was made from a strip of paper, painted in gold. I had several of Indy’s holster belts as spares, and used two of  them for the Gong Striker’s belt, since that belt had two buckles. And for accessory I have created a gong stick for the Gong Striker to hold. The stick was made from a plastic rod, a metal sphere from another model kit, and a spare elbow band from the Thuggee Chief Guard.

The Gong Striker stands by the massive gong.
Try and guess what I used for the gong in this shot.

Here’s a screenshot from “Temple of Doom” of the Gong Striker. (Photo from www.theraider.net)