What happens when Skeletor crosses over to the Dark Side of the Force?
Well, since he is already evil with dark magical powers I am not too sure it would make a big difference. I do know it's a great excuse to make a Sith Lord that resembles the bane of Eternia! Ever since I created my Blog I have been going through my archives for customs to share & I wanted inspirations from my customs past. I updated my Sith Lord of Darkness recently and I came across my first Darth Skeletorious custom. I thought it would be a great time to go back and update him as well with much needed improvements. I also made a much cooler Droid Head Havoc Staff! Take a look:
As I finished making this custom I also was making two Whipid customs. My only regret was not making one of them resemble Beastman. One of those Whipids would have looked great in orange fur next to Darth Skeletorious! If I can acquire another head to make Skeletorious I will do a 2 pack possibly with other SW characters sporting a MOTU influence.......
"You incompetent boob! You should have made my henchman!!!"
As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!
In this weeks "Little Differences" segment we are going to focus on one of the most requested C-listers in the SW universe - Biggs Darklighter! Are we satisfied with what figures we have of him yet not to have another released? Well, I am not. However, I have found a way to be. So much so that I would be fine with Hasbro never releasing him again!
2007 gave us two new Biggs figures, the much desired Academy Jacket Biggs and an X-Wing pilot upgrade. Both of these figures sported unique head sculpts. The 30th TAC Pilot Biggs was a step in the right upgrade direction from his 1997 POTF2 counterpart. This time, he had the modern removable Helmet on the much improved Dutch Vander Pilot Body, so it felt like he was done with. In 2008 we were treated to yet another Biggs, this time in a Tie Pilot outfit from the EU comics. By far, this was the best head sculpt of the three modern Biggs. So, if you have the two Tac Biggs and the Evolutions one you have three different head sculpts! The TAC Academy Biggs and the Evolutions Imperial Biggs heads look fairly close to each other so they look good together. The TAC X-Wing Biggs had the weakest head sculpt of the three, it was also the largest to compensate for the Dutch body. (If you have been following my Blog you know I like consistency with my figures so this irritated my OCD tendency towards that.
In 2009 we were treated to a new, taller and better sculpted X-Wing Pilot Body. This pretty much rendered the Dutch Vander body to an "outdated status". I really like Biggs and wanted to experiment with head swapping on this new pilot body to upgrade him to SA status. The evolutions Tie Pilot Biggs head fits so perfectly on the new X-Wing pilot body it's amazing. The TAC Pilot Biggs helmet fits perfectly on that head so it's a perfect storm! This head swap can actually pass for an official figure, just look at the pictures:
Check him out next to the other versions of Biggs. By swapping these parts not only do you create the perfect X-wing Pilot Biggs you create consistency in your collection! Why wait for Hasbro to bring out this one when you can have him now! Now sing along like you are singing the 70's Flash Gordon theme:
"Stash! AAH-AAH! Defender of the Universe!!!"
Rogue Squadron Jaina Solo
I wanted to show another simple head swap to create a version of Jaina Solo in X-Wing Pilot gear. If you are lucky to find multiple Jainas this is a great way to create a cool variation. Her head fits perfectly on the female pilot body and I am sure many of you have extra Pilot Luke to borrow a helmet from. One other aspect on Jaina that I upgraded was her Lightsaber (Not shown below). The Legacy Jaina's lightsaber was too pinkish and not purple as depicted in the novels. If you have an extra, Darth Banes Lightsaber it is perfect and helps make Jaina more accurate. (BTW - The Comic pack Fri-Adi-Mundi lightsaber also works too!)
As you can see the "Little Differences" can make a big difference to your figures! Until next time! Next week will be a special Little Difference, I will focus on vehicles for the first time!
Tom Selleck has the greatest mustache ever! There is just no disputing it. I am also inclined to mention the might of Kenny Rogers beard. He has the greatest beard ever! Man, just imagine if the two greatest super powers of facial hair in our time did a Western team up flick together: "Butch Stashsidy.& The Sundance Beard". That would have been a righteous movie! Now, onto the custom......
In an age where a mustache on a man is shunned and mocked, only Tom Selleck can still pull it off looking tough! No one mocks Selleck, not even Satan. If you did not know, he took on Satan and his daughters. Magnum P.I. was an awesome T.V. show which really made him famous. When that stache showed up on the scene the bad guys knew they were in trouble and the ladies could not resist themselves to its alluring power! For a brief time, I was dabbling in G.I.Joe customs and was inspired after watching a random episode of Magnum smiting evil. I created the first 25th Magnum in February 2009 that I posted on Hisstank.com. He was a big hit. By popular request I have made him several times with different colored shirts to keep them unique. (He was even copied by another customizer with a Gung-Ho head and a really poorly sculpted hair. You know who you are MAS!). The last one I made was this past February for a 1 year anniversary tribute. I am planning on going back to make him again very soon. After seeing these pics I see a lot of areas that I can do better job on. Here is the first Magnum P.I. and the most recent version I created:
As you can see from the first one I trimmed his signature facial hair and got it just right. I thought these customs were worth sharing. If you disagree, well I cannot help you as it's already posted. I can however post your hate comments. Look for a new Magnum soon!
As always, comments and hate mail are always welcome!
I have opened a new page that showcases the worst customs that I have ever made! Most are from my early years circa 2006-2007 (with a few select ones from 2008). I thought it would be fun to share my most embarrassing creations with some colorful commentary. They are so bad they deserve to be seen!
Just click on this icon to the right of the Blog page to enter:
FYI - I will be creating another page to showcase some of my fun, off the wall custom creations from my custom career as well. Stay tuned!
Saesee Tiin is a figure that many collectors have come to despise. Just read any fan forum board and you are bound to come across some hate on him from burnt out fans. The complaints are not focused on him being a bad character or bad figure, it has to do with his peg clogging status. He has been shipping quite heavy and consistently for the past few years in the Saga Legends line as well as various Battle Packs. Personally, I never minded it, in fact I really love it and this figure! I have literally used him over 200+ times on customs. No joke, I lost count last year after 200. I have found so many uses for him and have done more than my fair share to clear the pegs of him. I think the head sculpt on the ROTS version is superb (2004 CW was the best) and was definitely a great head to use as a foundation for a Sith Lord. My first Iktotchi Sith Lord was made back in 2006! (FYI - I am working on a Hall of Shame section to showcase my worst customs over the years, he will be in there!) I have made several iterations over the years but the one I made over the past weekend wound up reminding me of Tim Curry's Darkness from the movie Legend! Take a look:
On some of the previous versions that I made, I have altered the horns before to take on more of an evil and aggressive persona. This recent version was one that was worth sharing, at least I think so. To me, most Legacy era Sith Lords look like angry mimes at the end of the day no matter how menacing they are. I love Darth Wyyrlok, he is a really awesome Sith Lord and truly deserves an official Hasbro figure but he still looks like an evil horned mime. Darth Nihl is pretty cool too, but he really looks like a mime because of his white/black tattoos. My recent custom is no different and also resembles mime but he has some hints of the Lord of Darkness in him. After completing this custom I really want to go back and do the Lord of Darkness closer to the film with Sith inspirations, it may help alleviate some of the "mimeness". As I was posting this, I noticed that I forgot to paint the fingers red to have a cut glove look, I will go back and fix that!
As always, comments and hate mail are always welcome!
As a collector and product designer I really love going to comic/toy conventions. After all, I am sure 99.9% of anyone reading this Blog does too! They are a great for:
- Design inspiration. (Especially when you see new products first hand!)
- Finding new toys…..at inflated prices (Usually sold by some bearded, hot rod flame shirt/white sneaker wearing middle aged man. They also happen collect Hot Wheels cars.)
- Finding rare toys from the nice seller at a really dirt cheap price! (The tables where they hawk their various wares are usually very disorganized with littered dusty product. This dust is no ordinary dust mind you, it's from the 100's of flea markets that they were dragged through. Most took place in converted animal pens!)
- Filling holes in your collection, as well as finding stuff you did not know you were looking for!
- Hanging with your friends!
- Seeing how disappointing and old your child hood heroes have become signing autographs for $20. (The true sadness kicks in when you see them sitting around for hours with no one asking for their autograph! I cringe every time!)
- Seeing costumed fans roaming the halls!
All of this brings me to my next custom. I had a leftover female Imperial Stormtrooper body sitting around my parts bin for quite some time. I had a few ideas to really alter this figure but I never got inspired enough to do anything with it at the time. As I came across it recently, I wanted to get rid of it to clear out my parts inventory. I thought it would look cool in a metallic pink. As I was painting it, I had flashbacks going through my head of the various conventions that I have been to. Instead of making this a generic character from the "real" SW universe (although it could still pass for one) I thought it would be more fun to make it a "Tokyo Popish" Fangirl in her custom Stormtrooper armor complete with shades, a Lightsaber and a blaster. There is nothing ground breaking here but she turned out nice for a simple repaint. The pictures do not do her justice as I put in some nice weathering and washes.(I really need better lighting!) I even made a cheap "real life" Photoshop picture to accompany her. Looking back at this custom now, I will do an open belly version like the picture. I thought this was worth sharing, what do you think?.
As always, comments, hate mail and nerd convention pictures are always welcome!
The Star Wars Comic packs were once a thriving SKU that offered some obscure characters from the plethora of Expanded Universe lore. Now on limited convention life support, many of the most wanted EU characters are now stuck in the plastic limbo zone. Starting out at a $10 retail, they slowly creped up in price not making this SKU as attractive as it once was. Most fans did not gripe but the real problem that contributed to the lines mass retail demise was a very poor choice of characters included in some of these sets. Some craptacular mentions include:
- Commtech era Stormtrooper with some blue graffiti sprayed all over him for a cotton candy look.
- Another Blackhole Stormtroooper (Like, that's so 2007!)
- Several terrible Wal-Mart exclusive packs with real bottom of the barrel D-listers.
- Ki-Adi-Mundi in a very 70's era McDonald's character costume. Did you forget what they look like? Let me help jog your memories........
You get the drift. Some comic packs were borderline lousy, one pack that comes to mind featured two characters from the superb Purge story arc - Butlar Swan & Koffi Arana. While it was not the worst set released in the series, the figures themselves did not look very Star Wars. They looked more like some leftover 90's Rob Liefield designs (minus the early age and overdone wrinkles on the face). While true to their comic appearances, at the end of the day it was Mr.T in milky red armor and Titan AE's Akima sporting 1997 style POTF2 legs posed in a "peeing in the woods" squatting stance.
I personally did not get rid of these two figures from my collection, I also did not display them proudly either! They joined the fine ranks of the Lucas Family, Pepper Shaker Padmes & the Sucky Senators as a great base foundation in my figure storage bins. When the very well done Kyle Katarn/Vong pack came out he was missing something, more like somebody - Jan Ors!
As I rummaged through my figure bin I came across that Purge Butlar Swan figure and instantly had an idea to convert her to Jan Ors. While it's not the perfect Jan Ors, it really does resemble the character enough and looks great next to the new Kyle! Take a look at the mod:
If anything it's a great way to use this useless figure until a real Jan Ors gets made (if ever). This quick mod requires no paint or tools, just parts. It also covers some of the flaws too! Formula Fun:
- 30th TAC Butler Swan from Comic pack
- Legacy Sandstorm Luke Goggles
- Legacy Pruneface Cloak/Commlink
- Blaster/Belt from Endor Luke
As you can see the "Little Differences" can make a big difference to your figures! Until next time!
