CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: THE RAT KING
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE; SUPER GLUE; MODELING PUTTY; ACRYLIC PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: "ENTER: THE RAT KING" (TMNT)

"Those nasty humans will bow before me when the city is ours!"

Preamble:  The Rat King was a pretty strange guy, even by TMNT standards.  We never really learned from the cartoon just why he is the way he is, but he's obviously got some major psychological problems.  He's a sewer-dwelling human who seems to be convinced that he's a particularly large and powerful rat, and he even seems to have developed a rapport of sorts  with genuine rodents, capable of communicating with them and even controlling them.  He's seriously disturbed.

Playmates Toys went through a phase for a few years where they really grossed up their action figures in a major way, adding creepy crawly creatures of all sorts to many of the figure sculpts.  I guess they'd gotten this idea that kids were into this sort of thing (this was the era in which Toxic Crusaders was popular for a short time, after all), but personally I didn't care for it.  As if the rats and spiders and giant centipedes crawling all over him weren't bad enough, he was sculpted in such a manner that suggested that the rats had also been nibbling away at his hair, and his nose, and his face.  Ick.  In my opinion, this sort of thing ruined a figure, and the only reason I ever bought the toy was because the Rat King's prominence in the cartoon managed to outweigh how disgusting his action figure was.

The Rat King was one of the duplicate figures I got in an eBay lot, and so he became another victim of my TMNT kitbashing stint, not so much because he's a favorite character of mine, but because he so desperately needed it.

Construction:  After a quick trip to the VCR to draw up a cartoon model for use as a reference, I was all set to begin.  The first step was to chop off the offending rats, bugs, and bones that were attached to the character's outfit.  This was kind of an interesting challenge, since I couldn't just chop these parts off and call it done; I had to carefully cut the plastic into the shape of the existing bandages underneath.  Basically, I had to resculpt entire pieces of the toy, except I was using existing plastic instead of Sculpey (which I try to avoid using if at all possible).

The comparatively plain spots left behind after cutting away at the figure bothered me, so I did my best to emulate the raised stitches and surrounding fabric patterns.  The only parts I ended up absolutely having to rebuild (I used modeling putty) was the hole that remained after I cut off the rat that was molded to his back.  I also took the opportunity to cut away at the gloves, since his hands are mostly uncovered in the cartoon, and I redid the bandages on his face by cutting them off and replacing one of them in a different place, using an extra one from his leg, which I glued in place.  I also filled in his bald spots with putty to give him a full head of hair.  Then it was time to paint him, using somewhat vibrant colors than the original toy.  I ended up painting the entire thing except for his face.  The soda pop grenade belt is, of course, from the Genghis Frog action figure, but the Rat King had one in the cartoon, so he gets to wear it.

Comments:  I'd call this a substantial improvement.  My daughter, who was three years old when I finished this project, didn't agree.  She thought the Mousey Guy was adorable and she was heartily displeased that I'd chopped the mousies off this version of the toy.  Go figure.