Filling Gaps

I've recently come across a great technique!

I can't take credit for it, so want to draw your attention to JinSaotome. He's a fellow customiser, and chances are that if you've found me online, you'll know about Jin. He's considered one of the greatest action figure customisers.

Anyway, I like to be a bit experimental in the techniques I use, but Jin came up with a great technique that I'd never have thought of: http://www.angelfire.com/mech/jinsaotome/WorkspaceSetup/GapFill.html

This is saving me a lot of work when getting rid of engraved details on figures. As Jin says, this technique is great for those times I don't want to wait over 3 hours for putty to cure.

Thanks Jin!

The Fwoosh: Featured Custom of the Week

I'm delighted that Doppelganger has been selected as Featured Custom of the Week over at The Fwoosh.

The Fwoosh is my main go to for action figure chat and to see what other customisers are up to. It's a great resource so I'm always happy when I get some recognition there.

I've had quite a few of my customs chose to be the Custom of the Week, but still it's always nice when something you've put a lot of effort into is chosen.

For the full article, pop on over to http://thefwoosh.com/2010/12/new-custom-tuesday-1272010

Here's the bit about Doppelganger.

This week’s featured custom is warrack’s Doppleganger:

Doppleganger is not what I would consider a classic character, but warrack has created a truly classic custom based on a recent Clayton Crain redesign of the creature.

The base choice of the super skinny Spider-Man was perfect for this character.  I love how seemless the extra limbs look.  It looks like all the poseability was retained as well.

The web work on the costume and the webbing on the base are both fantastic.  As if that weren’t enough, warrack also added an articulated jaw and a removeable tongue.  Check out some close ups of that feature and plenty of WIP shots on warrack’s thread by clicking one of the above pics. (Links removed)

Carnage returns

The Carnage custom figure that I was asked to make earlier this year has proven to be very popular. He might even challenge Spider-Carnage for being my most popular custom.

Anyway, here's Carnage again. He follows the same recipe as the original but with his axe hand replaced with a claw with tendrils emerging from it.

Doppelganger

I've been snowed into my house here for over a week, so have had plenty of time to finish up a custom I've had lying around for ages. He started off as being a custom of The Void from Siege, and I was using the McFarlane Spidey body and extending the arms and body, but then I ended up hating Siege and The Void was beaten in a stupid way, so he just sat in a half hacked up foetal state for months.

So, anyway, with the recent release of the new Carnage mini-series this guy reappeared for a short time with a redesign by Clayton Crain that really clicked with me. I just wanted to make a figure of this guy all of a sudden.

Doppelganger was created during the horrendously awful Infinity War. Evil versions of Spidey were all the rage in those days, so he stuck around for the equally awful Maximum Carnage, before disappearing into obscurity.

Doppelganger has an articulated jaw and a removable, bendable tongue.

I also rustled up a base for him using ML2 Hulk's base with a wire and hot glue web over the cracked wall.

A lot of Spider-men went into making Doppelganger here.

Recipe:

Body: McFarlane Spider-man

Neck: Sinister Six Spider-man

Arms: McFarlane Spider-man (times 3)

4/6 hands: McFarlane Spider-man

2/6 hands: Ultimate Nightcrawler

Head: Moonknight

Jaw: Quicksilver's finger articulation

Toes: Blackheart

Claws: Flosser tips

Teeth: Toothpicks

Sculpting material: Milliput 

Paints: Games Workshop

So yeah, there's a lot going on as far as parts are concerned. It took a lot of work to get all of those arms onto that slim body while retaining the articulation. I wanted all of the arms to at least have the shoulder joint partially set into the body to create a more organic look to it. There were loads of moments when I thought I'd gummed up all the internal joints, but luck was with me, and it came out okay.

I had to build out the back a little for the last couple of arms so that they wouldn't interrupt the ab crunch.

I added in the Sinister Six Spidey neck as I think it gives him more articulation for monstrous crouching poses and added a magnetic link to the head. I don't really know why I did this to be honest, but I may come up with alternate heads for him one day.

I wanted to capture his new face design from the Carnage miniseries, but everytime I tried, it came out too sympathetic looking and that wasn't the overall look I was going for. So I ended up mixing the original design (Spider-man mask style composite eyes) with the new design (multiple eyes) and also brought back the clawed 3 fingers.

Randomly, I decided on a Moonknight head. I sculpted the eyes and cut off the lower part of his head. I gave him a moving jaw using the joint from a fodder hand I had lying about (sorry Pietro, but you weren't using it anyway). The teeth are all toothpicks which I whittled down and glued individually, before covering them with milliput. I also popped a little magnet in the back of his mouth so that I add a 90's style tongue (in a little homage to the old Toybiz Doppelganger figure).

I added Blackheart's toes to him and kept the articulation. I also added an articulated.... heel toe... I dunno what it's called, but he's got it.

So that left the paint. Let me tell you, if I hadn't been snowed in, there would've been no way I would've chosen to sit down and paint all those webs. BORING! Fortunately, the redesign of Doppelganger showed him having a kind of tattooed web pattern across his body, that wasn't as exact as Spidey's costume, so that let me keep it a bit rougher than a tightly designed costume approach would.