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?

New Custom - KOTOR Bounty Hunter Shae Vilza

The first Old Republic game promo trailer is still very popular and still very impressive after 18 months since its release. The second trailer is also pretty amazing, so it's no surprise that Hasbro is pretty much confirming official figures are coming in late 2011 early 2012 in their recent Q&A session. Gentle Giant is already ahead of the market curve as they are releasing their first character statue from the first trailer. The bounty hunter Shae Vilza (the female bounty hunter that mopped the floor with the guards of the Jedi Temple) is their first offering. She looks great and the statue looks pretty sweet capturing her likeness very well! I have tackled a few characters from the first trailer already but I have been recently working on perfecting a Shae Vilza custom figure. In my third attempt at her I think I have nailed the right part combo but still have a few areas that I would like to go back and improve. I think my latest iteration is front page worthy now despite my own critique and desire to improve it. You guys will have to let me know if she is:

While I would love to match her light red hair color so it's closer to the actual character I opted to keep the functional aspect of the figure. That is a must for any custom that I make, it has to be functional and not jut a static statue, otherwise what's the point? I did not want to paint the hair because the paint would rub off when the helmet is placed on the figure. The helmet I used is a little tight and the hair is molded in a very soft PVC plastic so painting was not an option. When I go back to improve her I want to sculpt some specifics next time around on the knee armor plates as. I also been trying to improve my Darth Malgus, I made another pretty much to pose with this custom of Shae Vilza and show scale of this figure. I am very excited that official figures are coming in the next two years, I think these two are shoe ins in the line up. Time will tell, until then I have customs of them ready to go!

 

As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!

My Contest Winning Collection

Back in June I saw this post over at starwars.com for a Star Wars Collecting program at Celebration V that would be on display during the show. Renowned Star Wars collector Gus Lopez and his team were running this event. They wanted to showcase how collectors display their collections in unique ways so other fans can get inspired by them. So I decided to enter my collection since my set up is pretty unique, after all, I already had pictures of my collection room that I made for this blog. I sent my submission and actually heard from a very kind gentleman named Todd Chamberlain the very same day, I knew that was a good sign. He also requested a few more pictures, another good sign. I felt very confident that I would make the cut but I never heard back from him after a few back and forth replies. I did not want to send a follow up email since the show just passed last weekend. I figured I would wait a little longer to inquire what happened...

A few days ago I received a PM over at Jedidefender. Low and behold a very kind Jedidefender/Rebelscum forum acquaintance named CorranHorn attended CV. He was kind enough to think of me and has sent me two shots of my collection that were on display at CV! My collection actually made the cut! Here are the two pictures that he sent me:

While I did not expect any prize (it mentioned nothing of the sort), I did expect at the very least to get some kind of confirmation notice IF my collection was indeed part of their display exhibit. Maybe Todd forgot or was too busy (very likely). I am thankful to him for incorporating my collection into the exhibit, it's really cool in a very nerdy spectrum to have your collection placed in something like this. Especially when it's run by Gus Lopez - Star Wars collector extraordinaire! I now have nerdy bragging rights and can say that my collection is award winning (sort of). I am a bit baffled by the shots they chose though. They used my custom corner instead of my main display set up shot. My main shot is so much more impressive, the custom corner is a bit of a hodge podge. I think the deciding factor for them was the Colt 45 Billy Dee Beer light the wall is also dedicated to Lando so I guess I should not be surprised. The other nit pick I can find is that the Jabba and Lars displays in the pictures above are out of date. I have the new Wal-Mart Jabba and Uncle Owen as well as a few other upgrades. Ungrateful you ask, no, not at all. I am a perfectionist, so I can find faults somewhere. I am very, very grateful. I just seek to have anything with my name attached to it be the best it can be, that's all.

I would have never known or have seen this if it was not for the very thoughtful and kind Jason aka "CorranHorn". Many thanks for taking those shots, I truly appreciate it!

New Custom - The Tonnika Sisters

Out of all of the thousands of Star Wars characters in existence none have the mystique of the Tonnika Sisters. While we know all about their official canon back story from the various official source materials, the true mystery behind them is the flat out ban to ever make official figures of them! This is due to an unexplained Lucasfilm mandate to never make them, no company can. Lucasfilm has budged on a few things over the years that they previously said no to, but they have never given an inch on the Tonnika Sisters. Hell, they never even officially explained why either! There have been various conspiracy theories for the "real" reasons, why, some of them get pretty wild and are all over the fan lore map. What really helps fuel this controversy further is that even Hasbro has to stay mum about the reasons. To their credit, Hasbro has been pretty forthcoming with information on various issues concerning the line. Sometimes they even giving subtle hints but even their lips are tightly sealed when it comes to these two. The Tonnika Sisters constantly win fan choice polls on all of the various fan sites but they are usually disqualified because of the ban. It's kind of crazy when you think about it, I do not know a single collector who would not want to add these two Cantina Patrons to their collection. Some persistent rumors say that it has to do with a likeness & royalty issue. Another rumor is that George Lucas and the two actresses had some strange love affair that broke bad, so the scorned flanneled director vowed to never let them see plastic figure form for his ultimate revenge! Yes, some of the conspiracy theories get that tabloid-esk.

Will we ever see official Tonnika Sisters from Hasbro? I would sure hope so but I can only see them being part of the final wave of SW figures ever released once the line ends one day. They would be the perfect swan song to end the long run of figures. With the way SW sells I do not expect that to come any time soon. So how do you add two of the most iconic and requested patrons of the Muppet Cantina to your collection? Make them yourselves or find customizer that will make them for you! Hint! Hint!

Here is the most recent set of sisters that I made. This set also happens to be the finest set that I have ever made! I will make another set but I will try to do a better job on them as I always do with every custom I make again. Enjoy!

As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!

Custom Flashback - Visas Marr 9/09

To date Hasbro has treated us to 5 official KOTOR Video game figures (HK-47 & 50, Darth Revan, Darth Malak and Dark Nihilus) with the 6th figure Bastilla Shan on tap for 2011. It still amazes me the popularity of the KOTOR games years after their releases. It also amazes me how many great characters have not been made from these games. One popular character from the sequel is Visas Marr. She is an interesting character because depending how you play the game she can be a light side or dark side user of the Force. She also happens to be a Human like alien race that has no eyes. She just has creepy flat indent flabs of flesh filled in the eye sockets place. It's kind of stupid when you think about it. They look identical to humans and they look like they should have eyes but just don't. The whole species is like this, maybe it's me but it just does not jive with me. I think with all of the superb talent at LF they could have came up with a better design but that may explain why they covered her eyes and head up. Maybe they realize how stupid this "Alien" design is. It's a half ass alien design that folks who worked on Star Trek the Next Generation would come up with.

(BTW - I love STTNG, so do no misinterpret my comment.)

Despite her species being STTNG lame I still made a custom of her…however I decided not to give her a removable hood just to avoid my self inflicted controversy. I made this custom with inspirations from the concept picture and her actual appearance in the actual game. I took a few liberties with the colors to make her pop more.

This was one of two customs the cool folks over at Actionfigurecustoms.com did an anonymous spot light on her: http://www.actionfigurecustoms.com/2009/09/24/visas-mar-custom-star-wars-knights-republic-2-figure-jackoftradze/

As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!

Custom Flashback - Al Bundy from Married With Children (2/09)

I have not posted a G.I.Joe custom in a very long time, so to mix things up now is a good time to post one. The Joe team has covered just about every type of specialist on the roster but I thought there was one area that they did not cover - Shoe Salesman! What better candidate to fill the spot than shoe salesman extraordinaire Al Bundy!  Al Bundy rocks and deserves an action figure, it surprises me that there has never been one made of this legendary TV icon. In order to pay homage to one of my favorite TV shows of all time I had to make an Al Bundy figure. Al Bundy is truly heroic, having him join the Joes is not far fetched as one might think, he saved Earth after all. Al Bundy's notable exploit involved helping aliens fuel their spaceship with his dirty socks so they could stop a huge asteroid from smashing into Earth. Other exploits include punching out old high school rivals at his reunion, escaping a huge bill at a fancy restaurant, posed as a peeping tom to make Peg happy (then got the crap beat out of him) and battled the underworld to track down a vintage Barbie doll that was accidentally sold. That’s just the tip of the iceberg! Al Bundy rocks!!!

While this custom Al Bundy is not built entirely of Joe parts I wanted him to fit in that world category. It made me crack up to think of him battling Cobra, I can also see Al outfitting the Joes with their battle footwear. So would you add Al Bundy Shoe Specialist to your Joe team? If so write Hasbro demanding they recruit him right away!

 

As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!

Archives of Awesome Page Update

I have added another 8 customs to the Archives of Awesome! These new entries continue the large list of the 2010 selections with plenty more on the way. Here is a teaser pic of what has been added: