Thursday, September 18, 2008

Maul (CustomCon 16)

This was a quickie, and a blatant ripoff at that. Ric Alfonso (unfortunately without a site, but I have talked to him through email, he's a really nice guy) did some very inspiring Wildcats way back in CustomCon 9. I knew I had a spare Hulk to replicate his success, and I went for it.
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Its a rotocast movie Hulk figure, the horns on the back were made from wire wrapped in tape, of course now that I say that, its all you'll see when you look at it, but they do work well. Here's a shot to show how big it is:
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Majestic

I don't know what it is about this custom, but I hate it. I think it looks pretty good, and everything went well with it, but what was I thinking with the lower legs?! I also kind of glued the cape on messily hence why theres no back shots. Overall I like the base choice, but it doesn't come across as a Superman clone, it feels more like a second rate Image character. I'm sure I can do better with the Majestic sculpt (he will be much less shiny soon) given to me by los.
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The base is a ML6 Wolverine, with the torso pulled up and filled in to extend it (just doing this raises the figure a good 1/2 inch. ML6 Punisher head and lower legs (why the hell did I do that? I just don't get what I was thinking).

Grifter (CustomCon 13)

I had done a Wildcats entry before for CustomCon 13. Now these aren't the greatest of customs, but the one thats held the test of time for me was Grifter. I loved this outfit he wore so much I even went out for Hallowe'en (did I really just bother to add the apostrophe in Hallowe'en??) as him (but thats a whole other post).
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This started out as a ML6 Punisher and slowly worked its way into being Grifter from some sculpted on details. This might be a shitty custom, I don't know, since I look at it as my favorite character in figure form so I can't be objective about it. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Spartan (CustomCon 15)

For a while, a fellow customizer, most people know as Norm, and myself were scheming up a Wildcats CustomCon entry. Now Norm (if you know him) always has his stuff clean and ready to go with great photos well ahead of schedule. Now myself, being the ultimate procrastinator, had the figures ready to go, but took some crummy photos the night before and overall made our entry look sloppy. Looking back I have to apologize for the unprofessionality, but I think he knew my heart and soul went into this Spartan figure. Of course now that I have some better pictures its far too late, however you guys can have a peek.
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I really love the way this turned out, it was a major pain in the ass along the way, with legs melting off and paint rub issues, it was almost inconceivable (Princess Bride reference just for you Norm) that the custom would come together. But luckily it ended up as what you see right here.
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A work-in-progress shot for anyone interested. You can see the subtle sculpting that went into the figure, I tried to use the base as much as I could. It was entirely a Street Fighter Guile figure.
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Everyone should check out Norm's Gallery on the Fwoosh for some buttery smooth customs, and in particular, his Wildstorm Entry from the following CustomCon.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Deadman

This is one of those customs where I was so exhausted from dremelling the base down, that I just sculpted everything on as fast as I could. And while I was satisfied right after, this custom just kind of fell off the map. Unfortunately since I used sculpy, pieces have since broken off it, and I couldnt take new pictures, but I think looking at it again, its a really cool figure. I was going for that flesh-rotting Kelley Jones look, but in the end kind of missed the mark. I must remember to revisit it and take new pictures, but for now here he is:
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Was an Ultimate Muscle figure (bought a bunch when they went on extreme clearance) dremelled down (I think I should have dremelled more because the figure ended up still a little too bulky) and fully resculpted.

The Doctor (Authority)

This is something that came in a care package a long time ago from my buddy Johnny. The guy has been customizing just as long as I have, and is every bit as good, if not a better customizer than I am. However when he got sick of his old Authority customs, he did what almost every one of us has done with an old custom, and sent them off for me to enjoy. As sweet as they were, over time they unfortunately became outdated, and I ended up redoing them (or at least tried to). One of the most surprising success stories (Johnny, you can put in your thought) was redoing the Doctor.
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Johnny put in as much detail as he could with the base he used (ML5 Mr Fantastic) but I knew I had some parts kicking around to spruce it up a bit. I threw on some ML6 Wolverine legs and dremelled out some Onimusha forearms for some extra boot and glove detail, and also redid the vinyl coat with a ML6 Punisher jacket that was cut to fit. I really didnt do much to it, and although it looks different from his final product, Johnny still deserves all the credit for this one. Check out some of his stuff at his Fwoosh Gallery (although I wish he had his own custom gallery so that I wouldn't have to link to the fwoosh). My favorites are his Soldier X, Fairchild, Elektra, and of course his originals The Underground.

Nick Fury

Ah Nick...I thought this was going to be easy. The ML5 Nick Fury was such a cool figure when it came out, but the proportions and lack of thigh swivel finally got to me. So what I did was I ripped off his head, ripped off his holsters, and then glued them to a dremelled down ML8 Captain America (love the body shape, articulation, and boot/glove sculpt on it, I know a lot of people have been using Punishers for him but I think its too hunched of a sculpt). This is what I ended up with:
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Now, a lot of people would be satisfied with this, hell Kyle Robinson could get $200 on eBay just by doing this, but I still wasn't happy. I saw a leftover ML4 Punisher head in my parts bin and blatantly copied what so many others (DBaetz, Indy, etc) had done before me, and resculpted the Punisher head into Nick Fury (I tried to fill in the excessive Cortez-sculpt cheekbones to give him a bit of an older, saggier apperance, but still gruff). Here is the final result:
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Friday, September 5, 2008

Bane (a repaint)

This is such an old custom, the only reason Im posting it is because damn if I didnt do a good job repainting it.
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Look at that, thats good stuff for something I repainted maybe 8 years ago (when I was 13!)...jeez...Ive been customizing for 8 years. Where does the time go?
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The original, for reference.

A custom that nobody will care about

Does anybody even know the Phantom Stranger? There was a sweet miniseries in the 80s (lots of people didnt like it, but it was done by Kupperberg/Mignola, thats right as in Michael "Hellboy" Mignola. Hes supposedly a fallen angel, and thats always cool, and he even has his own song by Rob Zombie

Hmm...ok so maybe hes not THAT cool, but I did a custom of him anyway. I was really into the Books of Magic at the time, and John Bolton draws a cool Stranger. On to the custom!
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The recipe is again a Professor X, but with a head and hands from a McFarlane Toys figure (I'll let you guess on those otherwise it will be all you see).

Some oldies, but goodies

I havent lost inspiration for the GI Joes I mentioned last time, but I am at a loss for parts, so in the meantime, I thought I could get this blog up to date with a metric assload of some of my old customs. First up is Swamp Thing and John Constantine (Hellblazer).
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Constantine was simply a Professor X, with some resculpting and a Gambit coat and feet (you didnt think I would keep the Prof's excessively pointy shoes did you?).

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Swamp Thing was also very simple, a straight resculpt of a movie Hulk figure. My favorite part about this figure is that the leg articulation style is that of the Mattel DC figures, so he fits in really well with all figures. This was a figure I came back to about 3 times thinking I was finished each time. Just check out the bizarre neon paint job he had for a while:
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Gross, it really helps to revist a custom once you think you've "finished", because you see a whole new perspective, ESPECIALLY the paint.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

25th Anniversary Storm Shadow repaint

Where did the time go? Over a year since an update?! Well this isn't much of an update, but something kinda cool to post (well I like it anyway). Just a very very fast (maybe about an hour tops) repaint of the new Storm Shadow figure to bring it closer to one of my favorite Joe figures as a kid (and hard to find at that) the Ninja Force Storm Shadow:

Right now I'm working on an idea I had in a dream, raising the spotlight on some lower-tier GI Joe characters and bringing them into the spotlight, in the style of the new figures. Hopefully I will be able to update with more figures soon.