Mass Effect Figure Redo

I have to admit that I am a Mass Effect junkie.  I loved both games and have literally spent close to 120 hours on ME2 squeezing every last bit of content out of this ripe universe.

So when I heard that DC Direct was going to be producing figures, I was eager to plop my money down to get my hands on those beauties.  However, there were endless delays and it took more than 8 months to finally receive these guys in the mail.  Now the majority of the figures were well done and the characters were realized quite well, but as usual with DC Direct, I found that the figure were only about 95% of the way there.  It was like DCD went "that's good enough" and pushed them through design without finishing off minor (sometimes major) details that left the maddeningly lacking.

Seriously, they were so close but didn't actually care to see what the N7 logo really looked like?  What about Tali's visor?  Grunt's paint job (fantastic on the head, nonexistent on the arms)?  And the one / two punch of Thane's hunchback and shrunken head?

So close, but the devil's in the details.  So, I was inspired to pick up the tools and tweak them to the best of my abilities:

• Shepard : One of the best things about ME is the ability to customize the lead character to whatever visual you want to have as your protagonist.  In my version, I made Shepard in my likeness, so I did the same with this figure.  Simple process to pop off the head and replace him with a new sculpt of yours truly (if you've ever wondered what I would look like in plastic form, this would be it.)  Likewise, I had to correct the N7 logo on the chestplate.  I mean seriously, did anyone at DCD licensing even look at the source materials?  Sigh.

• Tali : I have to say I was the most impressed with her likeness, with my only gripe being that they wussed out on her helmet and visor plate something fierce.  Sculpt was okay, but it was cast in opaque silver toned plastic and then painted a light lavender.  Due to the biological condition of her race Tali's face is never seen beyond fleeting shadows behind her visor.  There is a sense of mystery about her and a guarded quality, making her both delicate and tough as nails simultaneously.  To simulate this element I recast her head sculpt in clear resin, ensuring that the color of her visor was a deep purple, shrouding the face of the inhabitant inside.  Cooler and way more accurate.

• Thane : Where to start?  This figure was the weakest of the bunch by a mile.  He was permanently shaped in this bizarre hunchbacked form that really only lent itself to one pose.  Now, this was a good action pose, but I honestly prefer my figures in a more neutral position with enough articulation to place them into dynamic poses as I see fit.  Any other pose except for the one "hard coded" into the figure and Thane looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon with a severe case of scoliosis.  However, unless I really wanted to do a tear down on the figure and rebuild almost from scratch I would have to make due with what I had to work with.  The biggest issue I had with the Thane figure was the wildly disproportionate head.  It was waaay to small for the figure, seeming to eschew an anime quality.  This figure was the most stylized of them all and seemed to almost come from a completely different figure line.  Likewise the sculpt seemed very off to me, almost too thin with the likeness seeming to be more of a cross between Kevin Bacon and Zoolander.  Also the coloring, way off from the source material again.  So, in the end I sculpted a new head from scratch, applied a more game accurate color scheme and reworked the neck joint so that he would have the ability to actually look UP.

I've included my shots in the slideshow below.  I admire the mad skillz of the DCD team, but there always seems to be some minor details that just seem to sideline the efforts and lessen their impact (at least to me ;-)

That being said, it's a shame that this was the first an only wave of the ME figures.  I was so anticipating Garrus and even a FemShep, but alas these are not to be.  Unless of course, I start really feeling ambitious....Gotta have something to do while I'm waiting for ME3.

Cheers!

This One's for Rick-E!

Rick-E has shown so much patience in the past waiting for completion of his Ghostbusters commissions that I believe he has transcended to a position of absolute Zen.

Well, the wait is over and it is with both pride, humility and sincere apologies that I present the completed product in the slideshow below. Rick-E, I'll be sending these off in short order and will follow up with the tracking details offline.

Dana is the only piece outstanding as I've had some challenges in making your vision work. I'll also get into the details on that as well.

In the meantime, enjoy the shots and look towards getting these (as well as House's jacket) delivered shortly.

Gah...Home Improvement / Selling / Chaos Theory

Well, it finally came to the point where my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and look for some new digs. A couple of weeks back we thought we had found a place and went crazy starting to make plans. Renovate the current space to maximize the resell value, get a realtor, get our place listed...etc.

Sadly the deal for the new place fell through (a weird scenario if there ever was one, but a tale to be told later), but we had already gotten the wheels in motion, so it was hard to stop. The realtor came in an gave us his opinions about what work might need to be done and we started painting and fixing.

You may be asking yourself at this point "what the hell does this have to do with action figure customizing?"

Well, it seems that my lair / work area / man cave in the space wasn't conducive to making the condo look attractive to new buyers. Basically it looked too geeky and cluttered, and it had to go.

So after about 2 weeks of cleaning, packing and putting stuff into storage, my poor ex-workshop looks plain and stripped of any sense of fanboyish pride. *sniff*

But don't cry for me Argentina, for the new place (wherever it may be) has been mandated to provide a bigger and better space to continue my research! We shall rise again!

Now, where does that put the current projects? The Ghostbusters project is still on track (have no fears Rick-E!) and the M3 revisions will be posted soon. It just means that I have to lug out any equipment on an as needed basis from storage and return it there when done. Infinitely more hassle, but I'm hoping the delayed gratification of the grander space will make up for this momentary pain in the ass.

The workshop here has provided a safe haven for creativity for the last 6 years, and I'm looking forward to setting up shop in my soon-to-be-digs-to-be-named-later.

Cheers,

Excitement in the air! ~Teaser~

Hi everyone,

Stuff is brewing in the background and I'm in the process of putting together some pretty exciting things for the next few weeks.

I've got a project that encompasses a "toyline that never was" for a client. There will be pictures of this rather ambitious project online soon, and I think it's one of the coolest I've done yet. In fact, I think I'll even enter into the August CustomCon 09 (if they'll have me).

I have also finished off the final version of my long in development M3A figure type. Some of the shortcomings of the previous version have been corrected and the results are solid. The form is more filled out and the articulation is even better than the previous incarnation. In fact, the new head/neck system should prove to be very flexible (in more ways than one).

I've got the inclination to try and have these professionally manufactured, and I'm currently exploring some avenues to having these made. I'm collecting quotes and soliciting various domestic and overseas injection moulding houses to see who can product the best quality while not breaking my modest piggy bank. (If any of our faithful readers has a suggestion of a good, cost effective, and reliable production house, please feel free to drop me a line in the comments section!) I'll post more on the process as it develops.

Keep this spot warm......

Building a Better Dr. Manhattan

Watchmen. Loved the film, even though I could see the rough edges where valuable story info had been excised. Liked the figures as they truly captured the likenesses of the film counterparts. I thought they were all spectacular, even Ozymandias.

The only quibble i had with the figures is that Dr. Manhattan seemed rather "flat". I know that the translucent version of the figure was a little more dynamic, but not by much. My main problem is that Dr. M in the film had so much going on under the surface, and so much texture that his figure seemed a little monochromatic and dull:

So, as I am wont to do, I took it upon myself to jazz him up a little:


It didn't take much to bring him to the level that I wanted. Again Tim Bruckner's sculpt was awesome (albeit not quite Billy Crudup's face) and all it took was an application of some dark blue metal flake paint to really up the "grittiness" factor of the figure. From there is also redid the eyes to more closely match the film version. Basically he was originally just given white eyes and dark bags, but I added more of the stylized shadow from the film and did the eyes in silver, then added white corneas for effect. From a distance it looks like he just has white eyes, but up close, as in the movie, his eyes show definition.

Pretty pleased with the way this one turned out as he looks more like his filmic counterpart. Check out the gallery below for more detailed shots.

Building a Better Black Canary

DC Direct just released their Kevin Maguire inspired JLA figures with the first wave consisting of Batman, Ice, G'nort & Black Canary. The Black Canary figure is decked out in her feathered hair 80's crime fighting outfit, and for the most part it's spot on. What made me flabbergasted is her facial sculpt. Here she is straight from the package:

Now I consider Tim Bruckner to be a god when it comes to rendering these sculpts, but this seemed WAY off to me. She looks like the character in the movie Outland whose spacesuit springs a leak and he explodes from decompression. Her head seems to be in danger of popping!

Needless to say I wanted to set this right and came up with a solution. I separated her hair sculpt from the head and proceeded to heat and stretch it so that it framed the face a little more, reducing the bloated effect. From there I glued it into place and touched up the eyes a little for good measure. She now looks like this:

Definitely an improvement, and more like the BC I remember form the 80's. Amazing what a little plastic surgery can do.

Soap Box - (or How I Suck at Blogging)

Hi there,

If you've come back to the site after my long absence, welcome back. Thank you for your patience and dedication to my work. It is truly appreciated.

If you are a newcomer, thank you for joining! But I must warn you that I am notoriously negligent in updating the site. It doesn't mean that i have lost passion for my craft, but i think I should explain....

It seems as though the information revolution that began with blogs has become ever increasingly faster:

Blogs: Updated monthly or weekly, many people do it daily / hourly

Facebook: Let's people know how you feel RIGHT NOW and how all of your friends are doing at the same time.

Twitter: Let's people know what you are thinking THIS FREAKING SECOND!

Eventually we may all just have chips installed into our frontal lobe that just dictate our random thoughts on to the internet, and that will be it.

I've tried to keep on track with updating Facebook & Twitter and this blog and ultimately I have to ask myself, does anyone really care what I had for breakfast or if I am in a grumpy mood just that second?

Probably not, and I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that people visit Project:Custom for anything other than looking at the work I have completed recently. And it is for that reason that I don't update the site with drivel, but rather only bring it up to speed when I have something of merit to show.

I hope you gentle readers can appreciate that, and that I won't tax your valuable time with trivial musings. But also please don't take the inactivity on this site as an indication of a lack of passion for the art of creating action figures. On the contrary, when i have completed a major project for release, you will be the first to know.

*Steps down off soap box*

Thanks again for your patience and patronage. Please check out the newest offerings that will be posted on the site in the next few days.

Until then, you should know what I had for breakfast today: 4 sticks of Doublemint gum. Breakfast of Champions with Nice Breath.

Cheers.

Testing...testing..is this thing on?

*Blows dust off of blog*

Wow...almost a year. Wonder if my two fans are still paying attention....or are even alive. (Well, I know my Mom is.)

What have I been doing with my time? Trust me, I've been busy!

Stay tuned and watch the roll out over the next couple of days.

Cheers!

And lo, through the darkness came a posting....

Howdy everyone!

Normally this is the part where I apologize for being late and that I want to post on a more regular basis...yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, here's the good word from my busy corner of the street:

- Created some wicked awesome new customs! Included in these are a Mego style Beast, The Jackal and a new ToyFare commission of Nova! Click on the links or the pictures below to see their gallery entries!

- Interesting to note that the customs of Beast & The Jackal above were part of the artistic cultural exchange that I have going on with Art Baltazar of Tiny Titans fame (if you haven't bought it yet, you should! Keep my man Art in green!). For the two hand crafted beauties above, he is preparing a widescreen painting of the Justice League to go with my Firestorm!
Can't hardly wait to get it!

Here's a work in progress shot:

- There's a new ToyFare article featuring my customs! Click here to check it out!

- Finally I did some routine site touch ups, making sure that links were working and images were showing up.

Well I'm off, but who knows, you might here from me again very soon!

Or maybe not....

Soon, that is. You'll hear from me again regardless....

I hope!

The Story So Far....

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delay between posts, but there have been some interesting developments that have got in the way of completing regular posts. Trust me though, some great work has been done and there have been some cool developments. So without further ado:

• New Job - One of the more interesting things that has happened as of late was my movement to a new company and new position. I had been dissatisfied with my previous employer and was looking for a change, and this opportunity came at the right time. One of the cooler aspects of this job is that my office is located in THE BAXTER BUILDING:

That's right, I have offices on the third floor of the Marine Building in Vancouver, BC. This building was the Baxter Building in both FF movies and the Daily Planet in Smallville. One of the great things is that the lobby is full of fantastic art deco accents and architecture.

• New Action Figure Display - For months I have been planning and designing a complimentary DC display to match the Urban figure display that I had set up a few months ago. Finally the time and funds were available to proceed and I constructed it. Taking it's cue from the old Mego playsets, this display incorporates a live LCD display, LED spot and running lights and a multi-tiered stage in a slick & glossy package. Click on the link above to see the feature on it!

• New Customs - Needless to sat there have been some new customs made in the past few months:
• House, MD
• Custom Designed Superman
• Stargirl
• The Super Skrull
  

Cool story behind the Super Skrull custom. This was a commission from Art Baltazar of Patrick the Wolf Boy and Tiny Titans fame. He was kind enough to create a one of a kind painting for me in exchange for bringing one of his favorite Marvel baddies to life in all of it's Mego style glory. In exchange for this service, Art presented me with his bad ass version of Firestorm in his own electrifying style! Check out the shot below for this prized piece that has a place of honor on my wall, and click on the link above to see The Super Skrull!

• New Twisted ToyFare Theatre - There are some new pages from current TTT episodes up! Of special note is the article they did on ToyFare's top 10 custom figures used in TTT. Hmm...I wonder if any of mine made the cut? Click on the link to find out!
  

Well, that's it for now. I know I'll promise to write again soon and only break your heart, but you know I love you, don't you baby? I'd never hurt you on purpose, please forgive me and let's let bygones be bygones..(Turns on Barry White, and as Art B. would say)...AWWWW YEAH!