New Custom - Jedi Master Dooku

"Don't look so amazed. The Sith were always born and re-born within the ranks of the Jedi!!!" - Darth Krayt / A'sharad Hett

A prime example of Darth Krayt's quote can be found in Count Dooku. Count Dooku was a former Padawan of Yoda, he was the Master of Qui-Gon-Jinn and he was also considered one of the greatest Jedi warriors of his time. Despite all of that impressive Jedi street cred, Jedi Master Dooku could still not resist turning to the Darkside of the Force. Supposedly, he became disillusioned with the Jedi Order and the rampant corruption within the Republic. Does this plot line sound familiar? Well, it should. Like a good leftover dinner, Lucas reheated this successful SW story formula of a once great Jedi that turns to the Darkside yet again! Hey, if it's not broken...

When Christopher Lee was announced as the brand new Sith Lord in EP2 fans were a bit perplexed. Given the high bar that Darth Maul set for a Sith Lord it's easy to see why there was concern in the actor choice. Darth Maul was one of the few redeeming aspects of the TPM. Darth Maul really left a Boba Fett like impression on fans for such little screen time, a testament to the character. So how was the crusty Christopher Lee going to top the galactic mime Ninja Darth Maul? Do not get me wrong, Nerdom has always loved Christopher Lee, he appeared in many cult favorite B-movies. But c'mon, he was really old, even in 2002 when the film was released!! Well, as we all found out the hard way, GL relied heavily on his beloved green screens. It was no surprise that he just had a much younger stand in for Lee and photoshopped his face on him for all of the mediocre duel scenes. Apparently it worked as he was/is a generally well received character. He is also a pretty prominent player in the Clone Wars cartoon.

Now that I got all of that back story jive out of the way let's get to the custom figure. I am actually surprised that a Lightside version of Dooku has not been made thus far. There are a lot of depictions of a younger Jedi Dooku, so there is a lot of great material is out there to work with. Here are a few depictions:

There was an awesome appearance of a Jedi Dooku in the comics. It featured a younger Jedi Dooku, in the issue he encountered Jango Fett in battle for the first time. This encounter was burned into his memory as he was so impressed with Jango's fighting prowess. Jango's display of battle skill influenced Dooku's decision to recruit him for the template of the secret Clone army. This would have been a superb comic pack for Hasbro to produce. (It would have made a much better set than the Mr.T in red armor and squatting Titan AE girl pack.) Unfortunately, the demise of the comic pack line has really lowered the chances of seeing an official figure of a Lightside Dooku. Instead of waiting for one I decided to take another stab at a custom Jedi Master Dooku figure. I have made several customs of him before but this time I wanted to go back to do a better job. I blended my favorite elements of the available imagery to make this new custom. I feel that I have nailed the right formula this time around. Take a look:

 BTW - The good folks over at www.actionfigurecustoms.com gave me my third random plug on their website, so maybe I was successful. What do you guys think?