AGE APPROPRIATE WARNING

*ADULT SUPERVISION & PROPER SAFETY EQUIPMENT ARE REQUIRED WHEN UTILIZING THE TOOLS, PRODUCTS & TECHNIQUES DESCRIBED HERE ON OUR BLOG TO CREATE STAR WARS CUSTOMS.

Star Wars: Customs I Wish I Owned


This section of the blog we created to showcase custom action figures that are not in our collection.  We can't buy them all and Dad certainly can't make them.  This is a great place to find awesome custom action figure artists that we aren't able to showcase in Customizer's Spotlight because their work hasn't found their way into our collection yet.  Believe me, it isn't because we wouldn't want these incredible action figures.  It is also be a place where you can find action figures made by individuals that we DO have featured in Customizer's Spotlight, but again these figures are ones that sadly are NOT in our collection.  We will still be providing links to see more of these artist's work than what you see here, and we will provide you ways to obtain their customs if they have any for sale.

If anybody were to ask what customizers influence us when we create a new action figure, these artists below would be a great start.  Hope you enjoy their work as much as we do.


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JUSTIN COOK aka CHEWIE



Justin Cook, who is also known in the Yakface Forums as Chewie   is by far one of the most talented customizers out there.  He is an  administrator over at Yakface Forums and he oversees the  custom  creations part of the forum.  He is also the creator of "The Enloe Chronicles"   which is probably known to be one of the most famous Star  Wars photonovels  there is.  He has such an incredible body of work. His paint application  is truly inspirational and he is probably the most generous customizer  when it comes to providing his fans with the recipes for every figure he  makes.This page is about customs I would want.  And to be honest, I would want all of these.



CHEWIE





These are three places that are the easiest places to see more of his work:


 
Yakface Forums:

(great place to find action figure recipes)


The Custom Alliance:



The Photonovel Alliance:

(for a good read...)







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LUKE SPRYWALKER



Luke Sprywalker hails from another father and son customizing team.  He has been displaying his customs since 2008 and has put out some great action figures.  He did some really nice customs of the Rogue Squadron that are top notch and his speeder bike and Mandalorian is one of the best customs I've ever seen.

 
Luke Sprywalker





Click the links below to check out Luke Sprywalker's latest customs:














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STORMFORCE CUSTOMS



Hailing from a small village in the UK, this customizer has created some unique looking Jedi that I haven't seen anywhere else.   It's because of these creations that his work found its way onto this page. Truly awesome stuff.  Dad might have to hit him up to find out how he makes his molded heads and what he makes them out of.  I like to push Dad every now and again... keep him on his toes.





STORMFORCE CUSTOMS



Click the link below to check out more from Stormforce Customs:










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DAN OF THE DEAD



One of my favorite parts about writing this feature is introducing you all to the artists who have influenced me on my journey through the world of Star Wars custom action figures. One artist that really stands out and always releases one exciting figure after another is Dan of the Dead.

Although Dan gets most of his notoriety for his G.I. Joe custom action figures, his Star Wars figures are certainly nothing to scoff at. He always makes such creative characters and his color pallette constantly demands my eye's attention. He always takes such great photos of his action figures, and a lot of customizers could learn a lot from Dan about how to present one's art. Best of all, Dan of the Dead is another artist that provides the recipe that he used to make every one of his figures. A trait I have always admired a great deal.

Dan has played with and taken apart toys all his life. On his blog, he's very open about his dabbling with customizing action figures for as long as he can remember. Dan of the Dead really got involved in the hobby in 2009 after he was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma/vestibular schwannoma. His surgery came and went, and somewhere during his recovery, toys became art and art became therapy.

Not only is Dan an incredibly talented artist, but he also pens some super cool stories about the action figures that he makes that are always a lot of fun to read. Hopefully his art will be just as inspirational for you as it was for me.


 
Dan of the Dead





Click the link below for more of Dan the Dead:



or go to his blog:






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TOKIRAVENSKY aka RAVEN SKY CUSTOMS




Tokiravensky may work as a banker by day, but he really knows how to customize like making action figures is his day job.  He plans on attending art school soon, so lets hope this education one day lands him a job in producing action figures in mass quantities.  His grown-up Ahsoka Tano and Boba Fett are two of my personal favorites.




Tokiravensky



Click the link below for more action figures made by Tokiravensky:
 








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MERCURY ART STUDIOS



Michael Martinez of Mercury Art Studios did a little bit of everything in all scale, and was a Star Wars fan for years. He was killed on July 2, 2011 in a head on collision with a drunk driver leaving behind a  daughter and his pregnant fiance, Hollie.  The 27 year old from Georgia  wasn't just one  of the coolest customizers out there, he was also a  good friend.   When Dad first started customizing, Mike and Dad  would spend time chatting on Facebook about customizing and the joys of  fatherhood.  He would share stories of his little girl holding a Dremmel  to action figures and making the appropriate sound effects as she  imitated her dad.   He would always speak about his family with great  adoration.  Mike was always so generous and eager to share his  wealth of customizing knowledge and help Dad out  with tips or parts for a new customizing project.  To Dad,  Mike was truly an inspiration.  I  think at some point or another, all customizers have often dreamed  about what it would be like to earn a living solely from the toys we  produce.    Mike was doing just that.    Mike told Dad he  was able to support him and his family by making just ten custom action  figures a week and selling them on ebay.  We've loved his customs ever  since we first saw them on Yakface.com and couldn't tell you how  saddened we are by the loss of one of the greatest talents within this  community.     Mike you will truly be missed. 




MERCURY ART STUDIOS





Click any of the three links below for more from Mercury Art Studios:









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Sith_Fire30




Dayton Allen who also is known throughout the Star Wars customizing world as Sith_Fire30 is the envy of every customizer.  He currently publishes a blog which features updates of his ongoing series of custom figures, from their early concept to finality.  For you diorama fans out there, he posts updates of working and finalized constructs.  He also posts how to's, techniques and ideas to better help  fellow customizers in obtaining their custom goals as well as his own.  He works in coordinance with Flickr to create galleries of his past work.  He's creating the most amazing sculpts you'll ever see and his action figures are definitely attention getting.  So much so that Sith_Fire30 was recently featured in the latest edition of Star Wars Insider, Issue 121.  Sith_Fire30 is a customizer I love to follow.







Sith_Fire30





Click any of the four links below for more from Sith_Fire30:














 
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INCOM aka Mr. Black's Customs



When Incom isn't working in business services, this customizer hailing from Hengelo, Netherlands is busy  making some of the sweetest customs you'll ever come across.  His swoop  bike racer is one of Dad's all-time favorite customs.  We were really  happy to see that he is posting once more in his blog and we recommend  you become a follower of his work, because he won't disappoint.



Incom aka Mr. Black's Customs



Click any of the links below for more from Incom:
 








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ORDER66CUSTOMS aka FRITZKRIEG



Order66Customs, also known as Fritzkrieg has already been showcased in our Customizer's Spotlight.  We have several  pieces made by this artist and Dad says those custom  action figures are some of his favorites  in my collection. Not only are his action figures good, but his custom vehicles are the coolest I've ever seen.  He has been customizing for years now and a look at the body of his work will illustrate just why his customs are among the  "Customs I Wish I Owned."   Wish I had some more of his customs in my collection.



Order66Customs




You can find Order66Customs action figures here:




The work of Order66Customs in the Yakface  Forums:






  
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Richard Mingoia a.k.a darknsour



This father from New Rochelle, NY has been customizing for a few  years. He belongs to other customizing site's like Yakface, Rebelscum,  ffurg, and banthaskull.

He too does customs with his son who is  10.  His son tells him what he  likes and what he thinks is cool and he  tries to make it for him!

He's old enough to say that he saw a New Hope in the movies when it 1st hit in 1977 when he was just shy of his 13th birthday!!

He loves to customize Clones and Mando's the most but also loves doing Jedi also.

He loves making customs out of leftover parts!! As you can see from his post's.



darknsour





Here is a link to see more from darknsour:








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STRONOX



If you ever find that you want to explore other custom action figure blogs besides ours, we highly recommend visiting the blog of Stronox. Every action figure is created maximizing every figures articulation with paint applications that are to die for.  Each figure captured with his exceptional photography skills. He is great too if your tastes venture outside the Star Wars galaxy. Stronox makes custom Marvel, DC Universe Classics, G.I. Joe, Warhammer 40k, Predator, and more. Anyone who geeks out over action figures would love his blog. It is a beautiful gallery of his work. When Stronox isn't parenting, he's either customizing figures, drawing, painting, reading, collecting toys, or gaming.



STRONOX





You can get to the blog for Stronox by clicking the link below:



You can see more Stronox by clicking the link below:



Go to his ebay sales page:










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Darth Kikinou



Darth Kikinou is not only a customizer, but he is also the creator of www.thephotonovelalliance.com a hub for photo novel creators to show off their Star Wars custom action figures and dioramas.  On his site you can find links to his gallery and recipes for the custom action figures too.


Darth Kikinou



 
You can see more Darth Kikinou by clicking the links below:










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Peakob1


  
Chad Peak (aka: Peakob1 or  CAP) has been a Star Wars fan all his life. He makes customs for the love of the hobby and  you won't find a more dedicated fan. He hopes one day that he can have an entire custom collection simply because it is personalized to him and  he never seeks financial gain by doing his customs, although he has  done a few commissions at reasonable prices. Peakob1 (peek-O-B-One) started customizing in  '95. He doesn't count some of the vintage Ewoks that he colored over  with black and brown markers as a kid.
  
He  refers to his style of customizing as "hard sculpting" opposed to using  sculpy to mold his own figures. He uses bits of existing parts and  dremels those down to make a new result.  He  believes that it makes for a much stronger figure because he's a little  like Jar Jar, "hesa clumsy" and often drops figures. Usually they don't  break if he builds them properly.  He finds customizing very exciting and he has many projects on the horizon.  Hope you enjoy his customs!
   
He displays his customs on Yakface, Droids and Ewoks, and Jedi Defender.



Peakob1





For more images from Peakob1 click here:  

here:
 
and here: 








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VON REINHARDT CUSTOMS



Von Reinhardt aka Darth Von Frost  is a 41 year old customizer from Canada and has been a Star Wars fan  since he can remember.  He owned a ton of original toys back in the  early 1990's but had to sell off that collection.  In  2010 he was bit  by the Star Wars bug after seeing a few of the new and  amazingly  detailed action figures and started to collect once again. But  now he  will only buy figures that he really wants or toys he could use as  custom fodder.  He does not collect vehicles or ships because he feels they are expensive and take up way too much space.

After  seeing some amazing customs from JACKOFTRADZE and  buying an abundance of customs from him, he, like us,  thought he'd try to create some  of his own.

He  then started his own blog, I {HEART} STAR WARS this  month to showcase  some of his own customs, and also show some of the new figures that are  coming  out. He has been making his own customs since SEPT 2010. ...so  he says he is still  honing his painting skills.




VON REINHARDT CUSTOMS





You can see other custom action figures made by Von over at Imperial Shipyards at this link:



or at his blog:








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DARTH DEPRESSIS






Darth Depressis is from The Woodlands, TX. He is known for his unique action figures and weapon creations. He was the creator of the Sequel Trilogy Photo-Novel series,creator of the Twelve Part Memoirs of a War Profiteer Series and was Head of PNN - Photo-Novel News from 2008 to 2009. Aside from continual photonovel work he is currently in the process of creating his own non-Star Wars related animated features. Enough talk check out his one of a kind custom action figures in the video below.



Darth Depressis





You can see other custom action figures made by Darth Depressis at these links below:



You can view Darth Depressis' photonovels at these links:









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MUNGO BAOBAB





Chip Currin, who is known to many by the name Mungo Baobab, is a 36 year old from Nashville, TN.  He has not been  customizing very long, but he has put together a nice collection of  custom action figures which focuses on Jedi.  Mungo actively posts his work at Yakface  and the Imperial Shipyards.




Mungo Baobab





You can see Mungo Baobab's custom Jedi action figures at these two links:











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Wraithnine



Wraithnine lives on the southeast coast of Essex, UK with his wife, 3 boys, and his cat Meg. He has been customizing Star Wars figures and vehicles  for about 3 1/2 years now.  He mainly creates Astromechs and Clones. He  also reviews Star Wars products on Youtube. Before he customized Star  Wars action figures, he was an avid collector/painter of Warhammer40K.  Wraithnine is currently a moderator on www.imperialshipyards.net  and has been a die hard Star Wars fan since '77 .




Wraithnine




You can see more custom action figures from Wraithnine here on Imperial Shipyards:



Wraithnine has a channel on Youtube under the name of Rasputin37  that you can find here:



He posts as Wraithnine on Rebelscum.com here:









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SWK KUSTOMS / kr2700



Kevin, or SWK KUSTOMS / kr2700, is a customizer we introduced you to in our Customizer Spotlight #3  with his Vergere action figure.  When he sent us some more images of  his custom action figures, it was only natural that we feature him on  our Customs I Wish I Owned page as well.  He started making custom Star Wars figures in 2007. He said his wife Lynn bought him  a Han Solo figure as a birthday gift.  “You should always get at least  one toy on your birthday,” she said.

His own collection started  shortly after.  He thought about making a battle mock up of 100-200 Jedi  and Sith, a scene that he imagined would be in the Clone Wars! The  prequels went down a different path however…

Soon he had around 50  custom Jedi & 50 Sith (Jedi spray painted black).  A few months  later he began to get bored with just doing simple figures, so he started  to experiment. He went through a phase where he made a lot of alien Jedi .  He also did more interesting Sith Lords.  Lynn then suggested that  people might be interested in his figures, so he put some on eBay and his new hobby started to generate some interest!

Now four years later & around 300 customs under his belt, SWK KUSTOMS specializes in fully articulated figures!



SWK KUSTOMS (kr2700) 





SWK Kustoms creates fully articulated and detailed Custom 4” figures. Star Wars, Star Trek, DC, Marvel or  anything you can think of. With SWK you can also become your favorite  character as well:  Jedi, Sith, Storm trooper, Mandalorian and much  more. Figures can be purchased upon request. Price is based on how hard the piece is to make, usually between $50-150. All figures come with specialized weapons or gear & name plate  stands.


Add an SWK action figure to your collection today!



Visit him on Facebook:  




Email him at: SWK1138@yahoo.com for a quote. 



Check out his "profile page" on ebay at:









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RustyCustoms
 

Rusty from Australia has been collecting for about  9 months and customizing for about 4  months. We know its not very long but  as you can see he skips no detail  and does a great job providing good,  accurate and unique customs.  He  runs a Star Wars custom blog featuring his work and we recommend making  frequent visits to see what he has in store for you.  But as we always  say... enough talk, let's see what he's got!




RustyCustoms




You can get to RustyCustoms blog at the link below:


or email RustyCustoms at:





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SPUDAFETT



Devin, aka SPUDAFETT, has been part of the customizing community for  more than 2 years.  Primarily a Star Wars customizer SPUDAFETT has been  known to dabble in other genres as well.  Including G.I. Joe, Marvel, and  DC.  His primary scale of choice being 1:18th figures and vehicles.   Many of his Star Wars customs are re-creations of his favorite  characters using parts to make them  super-articulated and thus more poseable and playable.  This usually means adding new points of  articulation to existing Star Wars figures or recreating the figure on a  super articualated GI Joe body.



SPUDAFETT





You can see more custom action figures created by SPUDAFETT at these three links:









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SILLOF



Sillof is pronouced "Si" (like Psi or Sci-fi ) and "llof" (like cough or pilaf) and no it is not his real name. He's a high school history and film teacher. He has no formal art training, other then art classes in middle school. If something turns out good, he says it is just from years of practice, or luck. He started building custom figures and dioramas when he was a kid. He opened a website in 1999. It was then called "The Wookie's Workshop" and "The Wook's Workshop". before he had his current website www.Sillof.com.

His work has been featured online on blogs, websites, and online news services, newspapers at the local, national and international levels, in books and magazines nationally and world wide. His customs have even been featured on television in local news, national news, cable, and overseas, in independent films as props, costumes, and set designs. His action figures have been publicly displayed at contests, fairs, & conventions including 3 of the 4 Star Wars Celebrations. Most recently his work has been seen in Toyfare and Star Wars Insider Magazines.

Unlike other customizers, Sillof has gotten away from faithfully creating characters and has begun to redesign these figures in various time periods or aesthetics. He creates these works out of admiration for their original designs, but rather then just recreate someone else's work he enjoys putting his own spin on classic characters, as well as creating his own new characters. This is all just the creations of his spare time. He starts with a general concept or direction (samurai for example) Then he brainstorms what he wants. This is mostly done in his brain. Then he makes a list of adjectives and descriptions of the character, maybe a little back story and the physical elements he wants to include in the figure.

He then begins the actual construction. He usually works on all of them at once. So while the glue or paint is drying on one he works on another. Some parts of the figures are recycled from existing toys. They are cut off and glued together. Sometimes he sculpts over the old toy parts. Sometimes he dremels down the part using it more as an armature and sculpts over it. Often times, he will sculpt an entire new piece. Some of the figures are completely built from scratch. It really just depends on what he wants, needs, and what he has on hand in his various drawers of parts.
He sculpts using a 2 part epoxy polymer sculpting compound called Apoxie Sculpt by Aves Studios. You mix 2 parts together and then in few hours it is hard a rock. It is not as easy to work with as sculpey but more then makes up for with it's durability. Sillof says it gets easier to work with practice.

His action figures are just incredible...customizing genius that is better seen then explained. Therefore, head to the video and let him show you what he's got.



SILLOF





You can see more custom action figures created by SILLOF here:

http://www.sillof.com/


We also recommend checking out his "Toy Wars" film series where he brings his action figures and dioramas to life at this link here:

http://www.sillof.com/Toywars.htm






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Hangarbay94 aka julianmaurice



Julian aka Hangarbay94 is an avid Star Wars fan who has made a name for  himself by customising vehicles and creating photo novels.

His  work is featured on Yakface and Imperial Shipyards where he is also one  of the moderators. His latest project a graphic novelization of the  classic PC game X-Wing Alliance features a mixture of his custom  figures, dioramas and vehicles as well as creative artwork produced  using Adobe Photoshop. Julian is self taught and admits to being heavily  influenced by Yak Chewie and other contemporary photo novelists.

Amongst  his more notable custom projects Julian specialises in making flat pack  and easy to store dioramas, including a large scale (fold away), LED  lit Endor Landing Platform a huge flat pack Death Star Hangar and a  Calamari Cruiser Hangar bay.

Julian has also produced a movie  novel called Darkchild, which he admits to being a little more than he  could chew and sadly the project remains unfinished a chapter 3. 

Every time I see his work, Dad and I  just sit there and wonder how he finds time to do it all and to the  levels that he accomplishes.  He's just phenomenal and raises the bar  for the whole customizing community.  You just have to watch this video.





Hangarbay94

NEW SOUNDTRACK ADDED BY HANGARBAY94







You'll find Julian's X-Wing graphic novel at:


Also check out his Darkchild series on his Youtube Channel at:












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CloneSniper78



Tom Christensen is a Star Wars and G.I. Joe customizer from Phoenix,  Arizona (USA). He is better known as CloneSniper78 on the    Imperialshipyards.net website, and as AZMarineSniper on youtube.com. He  has been a Star Wars fan since the early 1980's when he was a young boy. 



CloneSniper78





You can visit his Youtube link here:



You can read his Imperial Shipyard posts here:






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CLONEHEAD



Clint Conrad, known as Clonehead at imperialshipyards.net, has been a Star Wars custom maker for about 5-6 years now. He got into doing Star Wars customs when trying to promote his ebay store,  he noticed how much hype and traffic that other seller's star wars  custom figures and vehicles were getting. Being a lover of plastic  modeling in his youth, especially of military armor models, clint  figured that he could put his painting and building skills to the test  and try to make a custom figure to sell on ebay. Well, the experiment  worked and within a year he had made and sold at least 100 customs "some  with dioramas" to buyers in at least 30 different countries. 4-5 years  ago, a buyer directed clint to a star wars collecting and custom forum  where he posted alot of work and met the admin of the future  imperialshipyards where he was invited to form and moderate the customs  and diorama boards when the site was created.
 
Sometime before the Imperial Shipyards site was born, Clint was having a hard time finding  some of the parts from hard to find figures that he wanted to  incorporate into his customs so, having a little knowledge of molding  and casting from his military modeling days, Clint started making parts  to use on his custom figures. It wasn't too long after that Clint  decided to start selling his castings to the other custom makers and has  ever since. You can find auctions for these parts in his ebay store and now at his resin parts for sale thread at imperialshipyards.net



CLONEHEAD


 

Clint  has posted custom work at several sites but as moderator, considers  himself at home at the shipyards where he has placed pics and wip  commentary in his custom figures reloaded thread, his Clonehead's custom figures #2 thread, and in his Clonehead's dioramas thread, all at imperialshipyards.net.








 
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HEMBLE



Ron Hembling aka Hemble Creations is a name that almost every Star Wars customizer knows. He's famous for creating lifelike dioramas filled with custom action figures that are among the best ever made.  This Australian native is definitely within the ranks of the top three Star Wars customizers of all-time.  His paint applications add  so much realism with their masterful weathered appearance.  I can recognize a Hemble piece immediately because there is no one else out there quite like him.  He has a signature look that creates such uniformity when looking at all his pieces as a group.  They would all display so well next to each other.  Hemble's work is consistently classy.  One masterpiece after another.  I love the way he captures and exhibits the world that Lucas created.  

Hemble is unique in the community for sometimes turning his super-articulated action figures into frozen statuettes.  Once he poses an action figure in his diorama and gets it into its desired position, he will sculpt over the joints and hide the parts of the action figure that take away from the sculpts sense of realism.  By the time he finishes hiding all the lines in the figure that could only come off a machined assembly line, Hemble has a piece like the one pictured below. 

This artist really shows his mastery by being able to work within so many different scales.  I can't tell you how many customizing contests I took part in where Hemble took the top prize. Hemble's been one of the most supportive members I've come across in the custom action figure community and talents like Hemble don't come around as often as we all wish they would.



RON HEMBLING aka HEMBLE






You can see more of Ron's work at his website or at many a custom forums which he frequents, below are just some he goes to.
  










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LUCASCLONES



Lucasclones  is a customizer of mostly custom Star Wars clone and Mandalorian action figures. He particularly favors  ARC troopers and has been alongside fellow customizer Wraithnine creating  some Republic commando squads. He is very proud of his Clone Wars style  Delta and Omega squad from the Republic Commando novels.  His work can  be found on Imperial Shipyards custom figure Forums and on Flickr, as  well as featured in his videos from Youtube.  He also customizes G.I.Joe  figures and posts them on his Flickr photostream and on a G.I.Joe fan  website called Joedios.   We also recommend visiting his new podcast with Imperial Shipyards administrator Tamer called Custom Action Figure News.


 
Lucasclones





For the link to lucasclones on Imperial Shipyards go to : 

 http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=3618.0 


For the link to lucasclones on Flickr go to :



For the link to lucasclones on Youtube go to :








Go here to listen to the Custom Action Figure News podcast: 

 http://www.imperialshipyards.net/podcasts/index.html

or




If there is anything you would like him to feature on a future podcast be sure to let him know at:






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Christoph, aka FialaFernbrugg, from Austriaisperhaps  the only customizer from his small country. He has been customizing Star Wars figures and vehicles for about two years now. His focus is on Clones and Revell vehicle customs. Recently, he has started with technical drawings of Star Wars weapons and lightsabers. He is also known for his custom action figure stands and bases.

You can find his stuff on www.imperialshipyards.net and also on YouTube where he shows most of his customs with a short tutorial.


FialaFernbrugg





You can see FialaFernbrugg's custom action figures on Imperial Shipyards at the link below:


as well as his vehicles here:


and FF's technical drawings here:

 
FialaFernbrugg also has a channel on YouTube that you can find here: 







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JACKOFTRADZE



JACKOFTRADZE is a professional Toy Designer who has been working  in the industry for over 10 years designing real toy products! He has been  a very committed 1/18th scale Star Wars collector since 1991! He collected  when no one cared about Star Wars and has been with the line ever  since. He recently created a blog and as you read his blog you get the unique  perspective of a Toy Designer and a Collector. He has been an active eBay member  for over 10 years and for over 4 of those years he has been creating custom  figures to enhance his collection.  He has a lot of cool customs and  insights to share that I think you will enjoy.

The first three custom  action figures we ever bought were from this great artist. It was his action figures and blog that inspired the "Customs for the Kid" blog and gave me the thought to ask Dad to make custom action figures for me.



JACKOFTRADZE











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Captain Lux of the 327th Star Corps


Damien, is a Star Wars Fan from Buenos Aires, Argentina. We  know him at Imperial Shipyards as Captain Lux of the 327th Star Corps. He is 22  years old and started customizing about a year ago. He also draws and  has been collecting manga and anime ever since he was 5 years old.  His favourite saga movie is The Empire Strikes Back.  Looking at his body of work one thing can certainly be said,  "He likes the clones a lot!!!"




CAPTAIN LUX





If you would like to see more custom action figures from Captain Lux, look no further than this link.




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SITHHAPPENS 



SITHHAPPENS lives in North Carolina.  He has been a Star Wars fan since he was  five years old.  He has been creating Star Wars custom action figures for about a year now. He was greatly inspired to create custom action figures when he saw the work of customizer Rundown  and is further inspired by the work of the customizers found on ImperialShipyards.net. He recently started a blog of Star Wars customs located at http://sanitariumcustoms.blogspot.com.



SITHHAPPENS





To see more custom action figures created by SITHHAPPENS, you can go to his forum thread on Imperial Shipyards located here.







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RUNDOWN



Rundown Customs....aka ric.sea.jedi....aka Sean....started on ebay buying and selling vintage Star Wars when he came across some custom Star Wars figures and became interested in what he saw. He watched many customizers for a long time and began his research. Finally, he picked up a paintbrush in 2007. Since then Sean has made over 300 custom action figures. More than 200 of which have been private commissions. Rundown says that he truly enjoys the hobby and enjoys requests as well duplicating characters not yet made in toy form.



RUNDOWN





To buy custom action figures created by Rundown visit his ebay page where you can also contact him about commission work.


To see more customs created by Rundown you can visit his
forum thread over at Imperial Shipyards.






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BOTWT

 
 
Our latest customizer hails from Grand Island, NY.  BOTWT says he is still trying to figure out this collecting and  converting thing, but he says he  does okay for a neurologically damaged oaf.  He credits his great wife of  8 years who allows him to spend    loads of cash on his hobbies  and to act like an over sized child of 40    years…but he's sure that  fills her need to mother something. BOTWT was only 7 years old when Star  Wars came out and became an instant fan, he had been  out of the collecting game for quite some time and has only recently started back up with a few of the  Clone Wars figures. He said he thinks he likes them because of the "cartoony-ness" of  the figures reminds him of the original figures he collected when he was a kid. He recently started a blog of his custom action figures and he hopes his blog encourages you in your collecting and customizing of Star Wars figures.



BOTWT





For more custom action figures by BOTWT, check out his blog:


Head over to his ebay page where he has some great customs for sale :










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JEDI MINSTREL

 

Jedi Minstrel has been customizing for 3 years.  After coming across  some websites that feature custom action figures, he has had the bug  and just can't stop.  His latest project includes creating customs for  all the major characters from the Republic Commando novel series by  Karen Traviss.



Jedi Minstrel






You can see these, as well as other customs, at  Imperialshipyards.net.  If you are interested in a commission piece,  please send a personal message through Imperialshipyards.net.









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GHOST CUSTOMS


Customizer ghostskull18 has only been posting his custom action figures in forums since the beginning of this year, and we think he has some great original pieces that grab one's attention.  When this 20 year old customizer was asked to provide a little bit of information about his customs, he simply asked that we let his customs speak for themselves.



ghostskull18 





You can see more custom action figures created by ghostskull18 at Yakface, Imperial Shipyards, and Echo Base.







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BugSkirt



To celebrate Day 2 of BugSkirt's Jedi Week we are doing a feature of his work that is being added to our "Star Wars: Customs I Wish I Owned" page.  Dad has been a long time fan of  BugSkirt ever  since he first started to scour the forums to see what people were  making.  We have been following his blog ever since we started our own  and we can tell you his customs are nothing short of amazing.  BugSkirt kills  his audience with creativity showing them action figures you just don't  see anywhere else.  We're still trying to figure out what he used for  his heads.
  
Florida-based action figure customizer  BugSkirt,  or John as most  folks know him, has been a Star Wars fan since the  summer of  1977.   The Florida sun and cousins wiped out his original  Kenner toys, but he began figure collecting again with the arrival of  the POTF2 toys.   He started tinkering with custom figures around 2005  and the hobby has  increasingly become a focus of limited spare time. 



BUGSKIRT





To contact  BugSkirt by email:


To see BugSkirt's Picasa Webalbum click:


To view BugSkirt's blog click:


Feel free to comment or visit him on Facebook:







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StarWarsGeek


StarWarsGeek has been making custom items for the past 20+ years, and isn't afraid to branch out into other territories, whether it be for a part, or for inspiration. He's made figures and vehicles from Star Wars, GI Joe, Marvel Universe, Video Games and other properties as well. He also does minibusts, statues/maquettes, and even a prop or two from time to time. Currently accepting commissions, you can contact him at his website (http://www.starwarsgeek.net) or via any of the social networking sites listed at his site
 

StarWarsGeek


The Animoto video application Dad uses kept cutting off the heads of the action  figures in the photos we had of StarWarsGeek's work.  It was driving Dad crazy.  Dad has the same problem when he tries  to make videos of our customs.  It's because Dad and StarWarsGeek use customized  framing in their pictures.  Dad had to manually reframe the photos to make sure the best  parts of the figures were emphasized.  Unfortunately Dad lost some of the  lettering on some photos to save the heads.  Dad was really bummed about it  because StarWarsGeek does such a stellar job when it comes to presenting his work.










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Stocos28



Our latest customizer, Stocos28, is from New Jersey and he specializes in custom 3 3/4" figures for the adult collector. He offers great customs that can be played with. He's huge fan of Star Wars, G.I. Joe and all things 80's.   Stocos28 has been an ebay member since July of 2005 offering custom action figures to the ebay community.  With a 100% positive feedback score from over 1,350 ebay buyers, we think it's safe to say he puts out exemplary work.  We bought a human Jedi named Kentar Framic from Stocos28 a while back that we featured in our Customizer Spotlight and recently added a second custom action figure created by Stocos28 to my collection, Jedi Master Ey' Dee. Stocos28 is humble and he will tell you that he's no Sith_Fire30, but in our opinion he's working real hard at getting there and the results are evident.  This talented customizer even offers resin cast sculpts from the customs he makes over at Slayer Design Studios.  If you ask us Stocos28 is a customizer to watch.  You can start watching by taking a look of Dad's video featuring this super talented artist's work.



Stocos28





You can view the ebay page for Stocos28 and see his items listed for sale at:

 http://myworld.ebay.com/stocos28/


You can also email him at:




To purchase casted action figure parts from Stocos 28, visit his page over at Slayer Design Studios:











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JediMerc



JediMerc is a Star Wars fan going on 28 years.  He specializes mainly in 3 3/4 inch action figures.  He especially loves customizing main characters from comics and video games in their alternate outfits. Like Dad, he also enjoys creating/customizing characters that would be the "average Joe's" of the Star Wars universe. JediMerc realized he wanted to customize action figures at 7 years old when he used a screwdriver to melt burn marks into a Vintage 8D8 droid, although, he really didn't get heavily into customizing until a year or so ago.  Dad says he was a fan of JediMerc's work when only three of his customs were posted in the forums. He said he knew he wanted to feature the work of JediMerc in our "Customs I Wish I Owned" page but he just had to wait until we had enough figures to put a video together and feature his awesome customs.   Since posting in the forums JediMerc has already won Luke Sprywalker's "No Paint Kit Bash Contest" over at Imperial Shipyards this past February and we have a feeling that it won't be the last time this customizer is in the spotlight.


JediMerc






To see more action figures created by JediMerc click here:


and:









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Marcus Starkiller



We came across the Star Wars custom action figures of autistic customizer John Bandow, aka Marcus Starkiller while surfing the forums of Rebelscum and like us he's a huge Star Wars fan.  We were really impressed with not only his customs but also the work he put into their presentation.  This customizer has created a great deal of our favorite Clone Wars clone commanders not in their animated look but instead with a more realistic flavor for those of you who wish we could have these characters in a more basic line.  We can't say how impressed we were with his action figures, and we are sure that you will be too!


MARCUS STARKILLER





To see more action figures created by Marcus Starkiller click here:











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Colins Customs


Colin Hobbs self portrait custom action figure.

Our latest customizer, Colins Customs, is a 36 year old customizer from Bedwas, Wales. We were introduced to his customs from his entries in the Create a Wookielover1138 Contest and when we saw his Facebook page we were really impressed with the customs we found.  He tackled a lot of customs we didn't see anywhere else and not only did he create a lot of modern looking Star Wars custom action figures, but he also creates a lot of great custom Vintage action figures too.  After looking at his great body of work we came to the conclusion that our Customs I Wish I Owned page wouldn't be complete without the addition of customizer Colins Customs.




COLINS CUSTOMS




To see more customs created by Colins Customs go to his Facebook page.






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Christopher aka Droidworld, has been making custom figures and dioramas since 1978, when he used a marker to change R2-D2 into another robot and put him in a bookshelf diorama with packing material walls and a cut out door.  He has improved since then, though still uses found objects and dollar store materials to manipulate and expand on what Hasbro/Kenner has to offer us. (Or has not offered us!)  Droids, being his first love, have been the focus of his customs, but as he started seeking other customizers on the internet, through Curto's Alliance, NiubNiub's Universe and Forgotten Force, he has expanded to humans and aliens of the Star Wars universe as well.  Now showcasing his work on Rebelscum and Imperial Shipyards, he is quite happy pass on any information that has helped him along the way.


 

DROIDWORLD



 

Check out Droidworld's custom threads at Rebelscum:


and




Diorama threads on Rebelscum:




Check out Droidworld's custom threads at at Imperial Shipyards:




Diorama threads at Imperial Shipyards :






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TK-9849



TK-9849, the poster boy for Action Figure Empire, official mascot, and founding member,  started collecting action figures as a young kid. He was turned on to  the world of pop culture, sci-fi, and all things nerdy by his father who  also worked for many companies including Lucasfilm, Marvel, DC,  Jurassic Park, Warner Brothers, Visa, Exxon, Shell, Goosebumps,  Ghostbusters, Hasbro, Mattel, and many other licensing companies,  creating toys, sculptures, artwork, and holograms. Together they  collected movies, comic books, and of course, action figures. For TK-9849,  collecting, especially toys and comics, has always been a joyful  experience and one that brought him closer to his father. To be a  collector is another way to be a serious and dedicated fan of a  franchise, story, or toy line. Having studied art in College, TK-9849  started to apply his imagination, combined with his creativity, to his  collection of Star Wars action figures (having spent thousands of  dollars in amassing it) and thus created kit-bash/part-swap custom  creations. The fun is in the challenge of not painting anything, nor  permanently altering anything. All items are removed and the figures are  returned to their original states after photographing each custom  creation.  He has also been known to branch out into charity work for  young collectors in need. He pioneered the Toys For Eli Toy Drive (with  the help of Darth Daddy, Tamer, ISY, Rebelscum, Yakface, and many  more) to bring hundreds of Star Wars toys to a young fan in a difficult  situation. Nothing compares to the giddy rush that comes from scoring  some new figures, opening them and posing them, photographing them and  reviewing them on the Action Figure Empire Blog, and then using their  pieces for future custom figure projects!"




TK-9849

"Plastic is a way of life"  --TK-9849



AFE Blog: 


AFE Facebook page:


AFE on Imperial Shipyards:


Look for fodder on eBay and Star Wars items for sale under seller name: 









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stitchfett






Dad came across the work of stitchfett while searching ebay to find cool custom action figure auctions to post to the blog's Facebook page. stitchfett had created a unique sculpt that Dad never saw before. Something stitchfett has labeled as the Microman series. The action figures have incredibly good articulation and an assortment of interchangeable hands.  Dad reached out to Yovitt Planadeball a.k.a stitchfett of Puerto Rico, with 100% Positive feedback, you can't go wrong.


There is a time when a kid is supposed to grow up, mature and get rid of his toys... well stitchfett will surely tell you that he didn't quite do that and that's how he ended up the man he is today (lol). He still remembers using toilet paper dowels, card board & clear blisters to make ships, painting his figures with Testors paints, and playing with them under his bed. His advice to beginner customizers, the secret to success is practice. By failing you discover new techniques that no one else could teach you, but most importantly... it's about having fun!




stitchfett 





You can go to the ebay page of stitchfett by clicking the link below:









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Flaccideagle




Flaccideagle is a thirtysomething from New Jersey, and has been  collecting Star Wars since his high school days.  He used to customize  POTF2 figures for a while in the mid 1990's, and 1:6 Scale for a few  years before finding ImperialShipyards.net site, and turning his  attentions towards Star Wars vehicles and the occasional figure.  All of  his recent customs can be found on the Imperial Shipyards Forums.

We've been huge fans of his work ever since the first time we saw it, and we especially love the vibrancy of his color palette. A true master!!


Flaccideagle 






To see more from Flaccideagle check out his other customs at the links below:


and








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Helix88




Twenty-three year old customizer Helix88 from Utah is one cool artist.  He sports some of the coolest paint applications you'll see in the Star Wars custom action figure world.  He has been customizing for over two years now and he has created some really well executed pieces of art.  But don't take our word for it, check it out yourself.  We're sure you'll be impressed.



Helix88




To see more custom action figures from Helix88, check out his thread over at Imperial Shipyards:









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TTT




TTT's dad collected Star Wars figures in the 70's-80's, him & his brother used to modify their toys as kids, usually with a bench vice for Hot Wheels and a lighter for their model planes/cars.

In high school he started getting into model cars and got pretty serious about them for awhile, but eventually got out of it.

In 1998 he became a serious toy collector, everything from HotWheels/NASCAR, Spawn, Star Wars, GI Joe and Transformers.

In 2007, some toys had fallen off of a shelf, everything was OK except for a Transformers Alternators Smokescreen figure, he was busted in half at the waist. TTT replaced the figure but now had this busted useless piece...what to do ? He thought..."Hey, I used to paint model cars the same size as this !...maybe I can customize this, huh?" But being busted in half, he wasn't about repaint the whole thing so he came up with adding some battle damage...why not - nothing to lose. So he started one day, just went at it, melted some bits, dremeled off chunks, it was fun and it worked rather well. Soon, he had to do another...and another...and...well the rest is history.

He started collecting G.I. Joe 25th in 2008 which lead to customizing them shortly after and here we are today.

TTT now specializes in pretty much anything, models, figures...cars, statues...nice clean and shiny to rusty, burned and trashed & zombiefied. Most know him for battle damage & zombie type work. 2012 marks 5 years of TTT "torturing your toys".

Ever wonder what the zombie apocalypse would like like in the Star Wars universe. Check out these customs. The paint work is just phenomenal.



TTT








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JediStyle





Yeah, we know it's been a long time since we added any Star Wars customizers to "Customs I Wish I Owned", but our delay came about when two of the customizers that we were going to feature had some new additions to their families. Knowing all the demands that can be put on a parent when a little one comes into the home, we did our best to give them some time to adjust to the new changes.

All that said, you are in for a real treat and let it be said that the delay in our "Customs I Wish I Owned" posts will be well worth the wait.

JediStyle not only has one of the coolest monikers in the Star Wars customizing community, but he also has creativity and skill that fits his name. This Southern California customizer was one of the first artists that really caught Dad's eye when we first started making our own figures and posting in the Yakface forum. JediStyle created some of the most unique Jedi action figures that we ever saw and his unorthodox color combinations make every figure he creates just pop. We just love this customizer's imagination and his creations are a testament to how far reaching it is. There is so much to appreciate in every unique piece. To this day we still haven't seen anyone who paints quite like him and our "Customs I Wish I Owned" page would have never been considered complete unless he was included. Just looking at his work when putting together this video, we learned how painting a wash over your figure can really enhance the appearance of the figure and provide you with an action figure that while being created before the implementation of ball joints and super articulation stands a figure that anyone can admire and appreciate.

Dad has been wanting to feature the work of JediStyle ever since we started to create the "Customs I Wish I Owned" posts, but for a while JediStyle took some time off from the hobby. Fortunately, he's back now and still has the ability to unhinge jaws.

He's created so many Star Wars custom action figures that Animoto wouldn't let Dad load all the pics that we had. Because Dad loves JediStyle's work so much, leaving some of his action figures out of the video was just torture for him, but Dad was able to get a great introduction to JediStyle's awesome creations from his earliest figures to his latest show stoppers. All that said, grab the popcorn, sit down, hit the play button, and enjoy!



JediStyle






To see more Star Wars custom action figures created by JediStyle go to: http://www.yakfaceforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=357







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drod26




drod26 is an engineer during the day and a dedicated father and husband. When he is not attending to his family or doing house work, he is digging throughout his pile of fodder, consulting art books, looking at the color wheel for inspiration for his next custom. His style is to come up with a well-designed character visually and aesthetically. drod26 got started customizing in 2011 when he joined YakFaceForums and his inspiration to customize came from seeing all the great work there and the welcoming members like Chewie.. If you like his work drop him a line. Want to know what his recipes are? Just ask, he will gladly share them with you.  Unfortunately, he doesn't do commissions at this time.

drod26 was the first subscriber to our blog and it's really cool that we now have the honor to share his work with all of you.  Dad and drod26 started making customs around the same time and were fellow padawan learners over at Yakface.com.  Dad is really blown away by the paint work of drod26, especialy on the horns of his Iktochi custom.  Dad hopes one day he can paint as well as drod26.  This video is a must see!



 drod26






Your can see more of his work at:






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Mando Assassin



We know that it's been a long time since we did one of these video posts and it isn't because we don't want to. Truth is, it has been hard to track down customizers to get their work shown. We're hoping more come forward because we certainly sent out plenty of feeelers.

Our latest inductee is 11 year old, Zach Mann aka Mando Assassin. Back in 2009 when he was only 8 years old, he saw Wrathnine's customs for the first time...and he's been hooked ever since! He started to customize in 2010 with Sharpies then moved on to paints. When he saw the Clone Wars TV show, he loved it! He's also a huge fan of the Original Trilogy too. One day he though to himself, "What if I mashed these AWESOME ingredients together. That is how he came up with his really cool Clone War conversions. Now they are his main focus. He has even got into sculpting.



Mando Assassin













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Wookie-Balls

"Leebo" created by Wookie-Balls


Ray, Wookie-Balls, is 37 (just) and lives in Buckinghamshire in the UK. He is a lifelong Star Wars fan having first seen the movie projected in his own bedroom wall in Berlin in 1978 (the joys of being an army brat.)

He works in London - but lives in the countryside with his wife (another Star Wars fan and Gamer!) and his Dog Halo (beamed after a 2000AD character.)  He enjoys SciFi, GMing RPGs (SW, Aliens and Supernatural.)

Customizing wise - he prefers the realistic style of figures over CW ones. His projects have included "A Clone squad (The 349th)", an all new Shadows of the Empire Line, Expanded Universe New Jedi Order figures and some Star Wars crossovers including 2000AD and the Centurions!

Rays other major hobby is the restoration of classic Kenner Star Wars toys - he started with his own much loved figures and ships and has since moved on to rescuing beaters that he discovers on his travels.

Ray has completed commission work for collectors however his pieces are for display rather than play! He can be contacted at ray7@btinternet.com.





Wookie-Balls





Wookie-Ball's older customs (rephotographed to a better standard are here):
http://m194.photobucket.com/albums/red5_album/Wookie%20Customs?src=www


Wookie-Ball's vintage restoration work is hosted here:
http://m194.photobucket.com/albums/red5_album/Restored%20Vintage/?sa=true


And Wookie-Ball's most recent customs including his Imperial Judge and New Jedi Order Luke Skywalker are here:
http://m194.photobucket.com/albums/red5_album







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YAKFACE



Well, as you know, we are always on the hunt to find you a new customizer every month.  Well, being it's Halloween, we figured we'd give you all a treat and show you the customizer for November one day early.  So here is some Star Wars eye candy that is so big that you won't fit in that bag you carried along on your door to door shuffle.  We'll leave the "tricks" to Yakface, the latest customizer being featured here on our blog.  If you see the customs he has created you'll see that he has plenty of them up his sleave when it comes to paintwork and action figure creation.

Brent Gothold (AKA YakFace) is a 27 year old father who works in the video game industry but spends his spare time creating Star Wars customs. He posted his first custom Star Wars diorama at age 15 and is currently posting custom figures at the Imperial Shipyards. Brent mostly creates characters from the original Star Wars trilogy but is working on making some original characters that will fit nicely among the characters from a galaxy far far away. A talented sculpter and painter who is trying to make "toys" transform into art peices and be viewed as such. 


 YakFace





YakFace can be contacted about tips or commissions at brent.gothold@gmail.com or http://www.imperialshipyards.net








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Hyperdrive

 




When it comes to customizing, Hyperdrive's signature "weathered and worn" soft goods are unique. He has been honing his craft for many years with no studio, only his wife's sewing room and kitchen island. It takes about a week to create each figure with great care and attention to detail. Each piece starts with an "ultra articulated" custom base figure, sanded down to remove any features that may reveal a bump or bulge from under the custom clothes. The clothes are then custom crafted to the size and shape of each figure for the best possible fit. Hyperdrive strives for maximum articulation underneath realistic cloth giving the figure a realistic look. Some of his favorite characters include, Kenobi, Qui Gon Jinn, Vader, Yoda, General Veers, Watto, Maul, Greedo, Jawas and Gamorreans.

Hyperdrive's soft goods work is just amazing! Once we saw his figures we knew we had to include his work amongst the other artists we have featured, because our visual museum just would not have been complete without him. Hyperdrive is the guy that should be hired by Hasbro to handle all the soft good clothing design on future figures going forward, but don't take our word for it, check out his custom action figures in the video below.



Hyperdrive





To see more Star Wars custom action figures created by Hyperdrive, click the link below:
http://www.yakfaceforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=6760









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DARTH DUSTY




Darth Dusty is an artist that has been drawing, painting, and sculpting for over twenty-five years, and customizing for over ten. He mainly enjoys customizing figures from the expanded universe of Star Wars, and creating characters of his own, but also indulges in other areas of Pop Culture. The goal is to give people something rare, and unique, and also to challenge himself to make customs of characters that may never see the light of day on a store shelf.

Creating figures for adult collectors, he loves the use of cloth goods, and hand sculpting new parts. Darth Dusty uses many materials, such as, Acrylic Paints, Apoxy Sculpt, Casting Resins, and even puffy paint, as key elements in each creation. Darth Dusty researches many of the figures he plans to build to get as much accuracy as possible without compromising the functionality of the action figure.

Fairly retired from doing commissioned figures, he loves hearing ideas on what figures to make. Darth Dusty keeps a list of characters on the back burner, so expect to see plenty more figures to come.

Although he was just featured in our Customizer Spotlight last month, we figured now ould be the best time to feature the rest of his work while interest was high. If you thought the Force Unleashed II Starkiller that Dad got me for Christmas was cool, you should see his other customs. Check out the video and prepare to be entertained.


DARTH DUSTY





Take a look at Darth Dusty's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/DarthDustyCustoms

Also be sure to frequently check out his eBay page:
thinkinink1972











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Quantum 7 customs




Quantum 7 customs, ( a.k.a Joseph B. ), has been customizing action figures now for about 17 years. Most of Q7 's first custom work was focused around Star Wars after the re-release of the Power of the Force line in 1995. He first started off with just very simple repaints of these Star Wars figures and then graduated into the cut, glue & paint phase. Later, after discovering Super Sculpy, he moved into sculpting some of his figures.

In 2002, with the introduction of the Marvel Legends line Q7 began to turn his attention away from Star Wars and began customizing the newer, highly articulated Marvel  6 inch figures. He learned a lot during this time period and he would later use this new learned skill to return to his roots, Star Wars custom action figures. Carrying over what he learned from customizing larger action figures provided him greater ability to create more complex Star Wars customs.

Quantum 7 customs now customizes many different toy lines: Marvel Legends, Masters of the Universe Classics, GI Joe , DC Universe Classics, Marvel Universe 3 3/4'', but he will ALWAYS return to his first love, the line that got him into customizing, STAR WARS!! 

"I find so much inspiration in other artists work. There are some truly GREAT talents out there. I draw inspiration from all of them...and I might borrow a technique or two , LOL!"
- Quantum 7 customs


Quantum 7 customs












"I'm just a normal, run of the mill, average guy who loves toys and and art. I grew up in central Florida before I moved away when I was 27. I now reside in South Carolina where I have converted an entire room in my house to display my toy collection. It is in this room where I work diligently..."
- Quantum 7 customs






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The Spectre
 



This month for our "Custom I Wish I Owned" feature, we figured we'd introduce you to the army building of talented customizer The Spectre.  Not only does this customizer know how to swell his ranks with style, but he has created the coolest horde of Star Wars space pirates that we have ever seen - complete with ship.

Hailing from northeast New Jersey, The Spectre has deemed himself the President and Founder of the CSOTC (Customize Something Other Than Clones) Society.  It's cool to see what can be accomplished with the old POTF figures because with Hasbro going back to limited articulation in their Star Wars figure line, we need someone like The Spectre to give us hope that customizing won't die out with super articulated figures showing up in only limited amounts.




The Spectre







 
Visit The Spectre on Facebook:
Check out his custom action figure thread on Imperial Shipyards:




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I-AM-BOBA-FETT




Like most children of the 70's I-AM-BOBA-FETT was blown away by Star Wars when he saw it in the theater in 1977. Even as a very young boy he knew this movie was special and was more than just a summer Saturday night's entertainment. Star Wars has continued to be a part of I-AM-BOBA-FETT's life all the way through to the present. He began customizing figures at the age of five. I-AM-BOBA-FETT began sculpting in 1999 as a way to alleviate boredom and stress. He has continued to make custom figures, vehicles, and full scale life size props (including his own complete suit of hand forged Mandalorian armor, jetpack, and helmet made of stainless steel) for over 25 years now for fun and profit.

I-AM BOBA-FETT takes commission work. For those looking to have an awesome custom item made give him a shout. He offers fair prices and quick build times for his custom creations. He can be reached at: riffvalleydesignworks@yahoo.com.



I-AM-BOBA-FETT













4 links to I-AM-BOBA-FETT's work:
(click on "show albums and stories") for the pictures of his work.
http://www.imperialshipyards.com
under I-AM-BOBA-FETT screen name there.

http://www.ebay.com
under I-AM-BOBA-FETT screen name there too.






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D&DCUSTOMS




We love nothing more than finding a customizing outfit that just blows our minds.  I mean these figures are just off the charts! One look at the 6" creations of D&DCUSTOMS and you will spend your money on this artistry to compliment Hasbro's Black Series line.  These figures are just amazing and are sold exclusively on eBay.  In 2008, D&DCUSTOMS mostly created Dungeons and Dragons, G.I. Joe and Marvel figures.  Fortunately for Star Wars fans they have made some of our favorite characters too.  These figures are perfect collectibles for adults who like articulation and poseability in their figures.  Their Ahsoka's to die for.  What are you waiting for? Watch the video and run to their eBay store before these figures are all sold out!



D&DCUSTOMS












D&DCUSTOMS
sell their customs exclusively with the two eBay stores below:

LOTRTOYS

D-DTOYCUSTOMS





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EMPIRE



Yes, usually "Customs I Wish I Owned" features Star Wars custom action figure artists, but this time we could not help but feature a diorama artist that created the mother of all sci-fi playsets.  EMPIRE built a spaceport for his two young sons and pulled out all the stops.

About 99% of the structure is wood, mainly a mix of 5/8" plywood for the actual buildings and 3/4" for the landing platforms. Most all the piping, panels, circuit boxes, furniture, cabinets and other greeblies are wood also. EMPIRE can usually do the construction of a building within an afternoon but the interior layout, painting, details and props/furniture can take a week or so.....usually longer because he works on about 6 different sections at the same time plus he didn't really draw up any plans ahead of time. Each building can be removed so the whole playset is basically modular. By the time EMPIRE had built the 3rd or 4th building, he realized the whole thing was pretty much going to be a 3 dimensional jigsaw puzzle. So far, it all measures about 6 feet long, around 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall.....yeah, it takes up a little bit of space, but several kids can play on it at the same time.  Built on top of a Thomas the Train Engine track table that his children out grew, EMPIRE decided to just build on top of it to keep the diorama all contained. It reminded him of an oil platform and he thought that would make a neat idea for a shanty town built atop some giant abandoned mining rig. He figured if he built the buildings completely separate of each other with out test fitting then it might give a bit more random haphazard appearance as he wanted the spaceport to look. Once the large buildings were in place then he could see what gaps he had available to add more structures. Since he started running out of space, the whole playset grew upward in levels and EMPIRE started bridging platforms with stairs and catwalks. It was really more of a free build situation and just see what happens.  EMPIRE stacked the modules as high as he needed because with the structure made of plywood, he could attach the individual buildings in odd ways but the entire structure would still be strong enough to support a Millennium Falcon or any other over-sized ship or building.  EMPIRE caught his 6 year old standing in the middle of the street level one day, and when he asked what his son was doing, he told him, he was Godzilla. EMPIRE kinda knew then that it would probably survive at least a few years.

This spaceport started out with the idea of being basically a nexus of all sci-fi worlds. EMPIRE's kids play this way anyway, (EMPIRE does too) mixing all their 3.75" toylines into their adventures. If every sci-fi universe were a major city then this spaceport would be a back roads truck stop where your action figures can all converge, refuel, pick up supplies, get drunk, have an alien tryst, and get into a gun fight. This also frees EMPIRE from anything needing to be screen or story accurate. Basically anything goes when it comes to the design theme of the whole structure. He wanted something along the lines of Mos Eisley meets Blade Runner meets Deadwood. EMPIRE thought the name "Rot Gut Station" sounded great for this.





ROT-GUT STATION (Spaceport Playset) 
 created by EMPIRE




This diorama is just packed full of cool environments. The diner you can access from the back of the bar. It's all a marketing ploy, place the only true restaurant on the station where you have to walk past the bar to get to it. However, they do serve actual waffles there. There is also a spiraling tower directly above the bar along with the gun shack. The doctors office lobby is a lot of fun. EMPIRE did a search for medical wartime propaganda posters and medical lobby posters and found some great material. Sure it's skirting the line of "mature" a little bit but he figured the playset will "grow" with the kids as they get the in-jokes hidden around the spaceport.  EMPIRE just recently released pictures of the Council Chamber/Courthouse building. He wanted something for all the political robed figures to gather in with out needing to build an immense Galactic Senate chamber. He figured it would make a neat conference room for crime bosses or shady senators. Plus he wanted it to perform double duty as a courthouse setting. (EMPIRE loves those random "on trial" episodes you see on Farscape and Star Trek etc.) He figured with the spaceport being somewhat less refined than a more "civilized" outpost, that the courtroom would probably have ads posted within it, sort of like a little league ball field.  Just below the courthouse is the jail, cargo bay and garage. EMPIRE had no intention of building the entire 3 room wing off the side of the playset table, but when he finished constructing the courthouse he realized that it was WAY bigger than he thought it was going to be, much heavier too. The new section was built to support the courthouse but EMPIRE really dug how it turned out, and a jail adds a bunch of adventure possibilities especially for a small city. He originally was going to do an actual cell with bars and a locking door but once locked up, it's difficult to interact with the figures that are in the jail. The cheap, easy and effective "sci-fi force field" seemed to work much better. Plus it gave him a way of attaching and hiding the lights behind the force "ring".  EMPIRE's still adding more to the cargo bay but his kids realized it made a great getaway route when breaking out of jail and jumping off the loading dock onto a waiting speeder.  To the left of the jail is a garage/launch bay for a Police cruiser. A Robocop Police Jet fits the bill nicely. EMPIRE will be adding a catwalk from the jail to the garage.  One of our favorite additions is a docking port for TIE fighters off the edge of the main landing platform. Basically the rear end of the TIE's old battery compartment slips right into the socket and it places the hatch at a convenient easy in easy out level for the pilot. It also frees up a good chunk of platform area for other ships. I really loved the 7-Eleven news stand and Wang's Taco's.  We were really excited when we saw he posted pictures of the inside of the Hotel too.


A lot of the detail work like grime on the walls or slight shadows where edges meet are just quick dry brushing techniques, usually taking no real time at all. The posters, place mats, signs, banners, the vending machine etc. are just grabbed from image searches, re-sized or manipulated, printed from EMPIRE's home printer and then glued directly to the painted wood surfaces. He uses either spray adhesive on the back or super-glue over the paper to give it a slight sheen with a worn thru appearance. The cash registers in Mel's Diner and The Blue Waffle are from a couple of Playmobil school cafeteria sets. The cash registers in the 7-11 and the Toy Barn are wood that he just sanded in to shape. The computer with keyboard in the med center came from a dollhouse miniatures shop.  The vending machine and arcade games are actually pieces of a 2x4. He just cut the basic shape, sanded it all smooth, printed a little artwork and glued it to the wood.  He found tons of great items in dollhouse shops like miniature pots and pans, coffee cup, food, bottles etc. Oh and everything, minus the obvious action figures and vehicles, is basically glued, screwed or pegged in place.  This way the kids won't lose all the little bits and EMPIRE won't have to set it up more than once. His kids do have a box of random items and props they can use and setup in the playset like fire extinguishers, tools, storage boxes, flashlights etc. He also used industrial strength double-sided mounting tape to lock down some items where it's too awkward to put a peg or screw down. The items won't break free unless it is pried loose with a blade.

This is by far the coolest action figure playset that we have ever seen and it's a more than worthy addition to our "Customs I Wish I Owned" page.







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Harry Flügge of StarconstruX Customs




Lately Facebook has been a great place for us to find Star Wars customizers.  Our latest customizer, Harry Flügge of StarconstruX Customs has been posting some spectacular eye candy lately and we just had to share his latest offerings with all of you.  This customizer from Germany has an OTC focus specializing in Dad's favorite Star Wars scenes...the Cantina and Jabba's Palace.  Harry has been doing his best to fill in all of the unreleased background characters, as well as modifying existing figures to create an incredibly awesone custom collection.  Hope you all enjoy his work as much as we do.  Be sure to click the links at the bottom to see more from this amazing artist!



Harry Flügge of StarconstruX Customs











Check out more of Harry Flügge's Star Wars custom action figures on his Facebook page.


Also be sure to visit his webpage:







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Patricio Berroeta
aka Pato Berroeta
 

One of my favorite thing about Star Wars custom action figure art is that it's a global phenomenon.  Patricio Berroeta aka Pato Berroeta lives in Santiago, Chile. He is a graphic designer, art digital director, illustrator, comic artist, Star Wars figures collector, soccer fan, goalkeeper, drummer and action figure customizer.

Pato started to display his customs in 2011, and he has had a personal goal to complete all the characters that were not produced by Hasbro for the Battle of Carkoon, Jabba's Palace and the Mos Eisley Cantina scenes to add to his personal collection.  His representations of these characters are just spot on and every time I look at them I think about how much I'd like to add one of his customs to my own collection.

Sometimes he does figures from other Star Wars episodes, but only when spare pieces allow .  He is inspiring me to take up his cause and make these much needed additions to my own collection.





Patricio Berroeta aka Pato Berroeta











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PULPY FICTION



"BOBA FETT"
created by Pulpy Fiction




Pulpy Fiction from Brantford, Ontario has a signature style when it comes to customizing his 6" Star Wars custom action figures. His work looks as if it just jumped off the page of a beautiful comic book. He is remarkably skilled. This is an artist you will want to watch. Not only can he paint his awesome creations with great precision but he can create tailor made soft goods to dress them in. His sculpts of Chewbacca and Boba Fett are just jaw dropping and his photos look like they could adorn the cover of an old pulp novel. If his future projects look as eye catching as these figures, we have one very cool journey ahead of us.   He still has many projects on the way, and I mean MANY.



PULPY FICTION






"CHEWBACCA"
created by Pulpy Fiction





LINKS for PULPY FICTION: 



 
PULPY FICTION Blog:
http://pulpyfiction.blogspot.com/

 







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JVCustoms

"Ahsoka Tano"
created by JVCustoms




Recently Dad set up a deviantART page to help promote my blog.  While setting up the page, Dad found the art of JVCustoms on the site.

JVCustoms is a professional figure customizer of 3 ¾ inch through 1/6 scale figures, as well as, vehicles from miniatures to 3 ¾ inch figure scale. He also dabbles in traditional drawing and digital art.

His tools of the trade include Vallejo Artist Acrylics & Varnishes, X-Acto Knives, Custom-Made Tools, Sandpaper (120 thru 400 Grit), Nail Files, Detail Paintbrushes, and more for Custom Figures. Pencils, Inks and Charcoal for Drawing and Photoshop for Digital Art.

JVCustoms is not currently accepting new commissions but he sells from his own collection often and will entertain offers for many of his already-completed customs. He also sells his customs on eBay.




JVCustoms





"CUSTOM Y-WING"
created by JVCustoms





JVCustoms on deviantART:
http://jvcustoms.deviantart.com/

JVCustoms on eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/usr/psychotropia76






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Evilivo




This holiday, Customs for the Kid can't express how thankful we are that we can keep adding to our archival list of super talented Star Wars custom action figure artists, month after month.  Customizing Star Wars action figures is an art form that continues to grow more and more popular with each coming year.  Every time we start to fear we'll eventually run out of new artists to introduce you all to, ten more artists pop up that show us how silly our worries were.  More and more artists are continuously springing up all over the world.   Our latest customizer hails from Eastern Europe.  Featuring some of the most impressive paint applications in the community today, Evilivo is shaping up to be one of our favorite Star Wars customizers!

Evilivo (Ivo Domozetov from Bulgaria) was introduced to Star Wars at age 5, and immediately fell in love with the movies and the toys. He's been doing fixes to his action figures since his early years with the Vintage Kenner toy line and now later with Hasbro's revived line. Over the years customizing action figures replaced playing with the figures. Evilivo works as professional sculptor and jeweler and the attention to detail that his job requires definitely spills over into his artistic creations as well. He usually just alters and improves existing figures, since securing multiples of some figures is much harder to do in his part of the world, but don't let that diminish your curiosity.  His work is just beautiful and he has the ability to make the paint applications on his figures "pop" like no other artists out there.  The internet gave Star Wars customizer Evilivo the opportunity to discover the customizing forums at different Star Wars sites where he said he has found his "new family".  We love having him as a part of it.  His work continues to inspire.  Take a look.



Evilivo

















Here is the link to Evilivo's thread in Yakface forums:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7321

 
And this is Evilivo's Star Wars Customs album in Photobucket:
http://s1180.photobucket.com/user/domoz ... t=4&page=1





His e-mail address is domozetov@yahoo.com and he would like to try his hand at commission work, so reach out and contact him if you are as impressed with his work as we are.






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Glorbes




Glorbes has been customizing for just under ten years, but he can remember fashioning crude representations of Star Trek and Star Wars subjects from cardboard as a child in the 80s.  The idea of modifying existing figures never occurred to Glorbes until he stumbled upon several online customzing sites, and was primarily spurred on by the works of Iron Cow and Doubledealer, who specialized in super hero customs in 6” scale.  Over time, Glorbes began experimenting with several methods, and eventually embraced mixed media, combining sculpting compounds, plumber’s epoxy, fabric, and leather.  He eventually developed a signature style that evoked elements of old sci-fi and horror movies, lurid pulp fiction covers, and ‘diesel punk’ aesthetic, giving classic character designs a bizarre, but familiar twist. 

By 2007, Glorbes began making vehicles for 6” scale figures, starting with a Flash Gordon rocket composed of large juice bottles.  This transitioned into some crude styrene creations, and then things went crazy from there.  While action figures are what got him into customizing (and he still makes them!), creating custom vehicles and props from scratch has developed into his passion.  Having kids has also emphasized the importance of creating quick, cheap, and sturdy builds that look good and can be played with, which has led Glorbes to trying his hand at using various types of cardboard as a medium.  His cardboard Star Destroyer and Jabba's Sail Barge are two must see builds.  He now builds most of his stuff with his kids in mind, which has made his projects even more fun.




Glorbes










You can find more of Glorbes work at his blog:




 


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localgotal









Star Wars customizer localgotal does not physically create his action figures with plastic.  Instead he makes a digital custom. 

What is a digital custom you ask?  Let's hear a description from localgotal himself. 

"By "digital custom" I mean that I've taken various images of other figures from across the web and in Photoshop pieced them together to create an image." - localgotal

His imagery can best be described as a Star Wars collector's wishlist  of vehicles and action figure that they'd like to see released before it is too late.  If Hasbro wants to know what collectors would like to see in 2014, check out Yakface.com presents...Concept Series: Action Figure Customs by localgotal.   I can't pick a better voice to speak to what I know I want as a collector.  His recurring feature on Yakface.com only started in November of last year, but what he has put on display is exactly what I I'd like to see next month when Hasbro has it's big reveal at Toy Fair in NYC.  Clear the parking lot!  This is the last chance for these figures to be released with all the new product that will be produced with the new films. Once the new Trilogy comes out, OTC and Prequel

localgotal has such great eye and his representations of the character from the films is spot on.  He definitely picks the best parts from everywhere and fits everything together seamlessly.  I almost wish this stuff was reality and I'd be able to bring it all home.  Hasbro's investors are sleeping at the wheel.  Stockholders need to take a more active role in the companies that they invest in.  I wish this was Hasbro's selection in 2014 giving a last hurrah's to the OTC to prep everyone for 2015.  They'd make a fortune of off me!

I want localgotal in charge of the Star Wars line going forward. We need to change the guard. Yakface.com stumbled upon greatness when they found localgotal.




WARNING: THE IMAGES YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE ARE MOCK UPS AND ARE NOT PRODUCT THAT YOU WILL SEE RELEASED... ALTHOUGH, I WISH IT WERE.




localgotal














http://www.yakfaceforums.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=140
CLICK BANNER TO GO TO THE CONCEPT SERIES INDEX







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Parintachin73




Parintachin73, aka Blaise Bear, hails from Kingston, NY where his time is divided between working full-time, being a parent to a beautiful little girl, freelance graphic designing, and cramming in as many hours at his customs workspace as possible. He has been doing custom figures for about 7-8 years now with an emphasis on Star Wars figures. Although he has been known to delve into the world of superheroes from time to time, his primary goal these days is to expand his skill set and take on new challenges.

Parintachin73 is a veteran with powerhouse skills.  I really love his paint work. His colors are so rich and warm.  Very nice on the eyes!

The creativity in his builds is evident too.  The head he used for his Mara Jade custom action figure is a head that I've never seen used before and it is the most flattering version I've come across.  His Mythos Obi Wan Kenobi in 3 3/4" scale is just awesome!  So well done!

Parintachin73












Link for his work on rebelscum.com:
Parintachin73's customs thread




For commissions please contact:
 blaisebear@yahoo.com






Also check out DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER featuring
Parintachin73:

http://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2014/02/darth-daddys-customizing-corner_26.html



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CloneTroopr



CloneTroopr started customizing in 2010. He aims to make figures that either Hasbro will never make (especially characters from games, books, etc., since Disney has now forbidden Hasbro from making any EU figures), has made badly, or sell for ridiculous prices online. Since his start, CloneTroopr’s learned many techniques in customizing from his fellow customizers, practice, experience, and just plain accidents. To keep the cost low, CloneTroopr’s fond of utilizing household materials to make his figures with items such as bread ties, old pens, and otherwise recyclable plastic. CloneTroopr also loves the Knights of the Old Republic and the Old Republic video games, which is where he gets most of his customizing inspiration (he currently plays as Kavyne, Republic faction on the Harbinger server).

Here on Customs for the Kid, we recognize we haven't given enough love to the Old Republic when it comes to putting custom action figure art from these games on display, which is why we felt it was so important for us to feature CloneTroopr this month. Hope you all enjoy!

Unfortunately, although CloneTroopr has been asked on multiple occasions, he doesn’t have any plans to do commission work in the in the present or near-future because of how busy he is with work (although you never know, “the future is always in motion”).



CloneTroopr














If you really want to contact him with a commission offer, you can always reach him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clone.troopr



Links to see his work on Imperial Shipyards:

http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=7528.0


*Note: There is a table of contents of his work on the first post on page one of the ISY thread



Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/CloneTrooprs-Customs/174144516097873



YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CloneTroopr

*Note: He has plans to make videos of his work.



YakFace Forums:

http://www.yakfaceforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7540



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Hunter Knight Customs began in 2008 when they made a car for the Hollywood movie "Sex Drive" after that they started a custom action figure division which became their main product line. HKC is owned by Chris "Hunter" Diaz and since then they have made more than 1000 figures for the commercial market, from Masters of the Universe, Marvel Legends, Marvel Universe, DC Universe Classics, and Star Wars. HKC has been featured on sites like MTV and He-man.org. Hunter Knight Customs main website http://www.hunterknightonline.com/ has a collection of videos dating to the very first figure that was made in 2008 to his latest releases all featured in video format.

We have two action figures created by Hunter Knight Customs and we couldn't be happier with his figures.


HUNTER KNIGHT CUSTOMS








Facebook page:

Instagram:

Online store:

Youtube channel:

Check our weekly Ebay custom figure auctions:
http://tinyurl.com/hunterknight






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DarthSinister





Charlie White aka DarthSinister got his start customizing MEGO superheroes at a young age in the 1970’s and eventually moved on to Star Wars and Micronauts. After putting down customizing for decades he began to feel the artistic flicker resurge after becoming inspired by the artists around the web. His first step back into the hobby began on the RebelScum web site when he launched his digital customs or “PoorMan’s Customs” thread in 2009 using only images from the internet and a photoshop program. He heavily promoted the old MARVEL comics Star Wars series, giving them a much needed facelift in an attempt to bring modern relevance back to the beloved characters. He now resides mainly on the Imperial Shipyards, and while still doing digital imagery, he has begun a shift to actual hard customs since 2013.

DarthSinister's work is really nice on the eyes so be sure to take it all in. We never were exposed to the Marvel Star Wars comics here at home, but upon seeing the figures DarthSinister has created inspired by these comics, we'd sure like to see this part of the Star Wars universe more in depth.



DarthSinister













DarthSinister on Imperial Shipyards:




DarthSinister: A Different Point of View:



DarthSinister on eBay:









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Whiskeytango




Whiskeytango started customizing in 2009 after finding the excellent work of some of the greats on thefwoosh.com. He toiled away on comic book figures, ignoring his true love, Star Wars, until his dream of 6" figures was realized with the release of the Black Series. 

Now he spends his time working on custom versions of characters who get official releases announced right after he finishes, which doesn't make him angry at all. Not a bit. Not... not even a little bit.

We figured it was time we show off some of the talented artists working in the 6" scale since we haven't dove into the larger custom action figures that are currently being produced just yet.  Whiskeytango has been making some amazing figures in the new action figure sca;e and after seeing what he's accomplished, we're eager to see what else he produces in the future.



Whiskeytango









Figurerealm gallery:


Fwoosh gallery:


Whiskeytango on Facebook:





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IRON-COW PRODUCTIONS





Matt ‘Iron-Cow’ Cauley’s background lies in the visual arts. Born in Dallas in the fall of 1973, he eventually relocated to New York to attend Parsons School of Design. Shortly after obtaining his degree in Illustration, he began working for Bloomberg LP as a Broadcast Designer while further developing his illustration and toy design work.

In 1999, Matt formed Iron-Cow ProductionsLLC to better serve his illustration, animation, design, and toy production clients.  Matt's work is regularly published and exhibited worldwide. He gained further exposure in the toy design world as a featured contributer to ToyFare Magazine. There are over 50 ICP-designed action figures that have hit the shelves since that time.

Matt eventually relocated the Iron-Cow Studios from New Jersey to New York in February 2013. During this upheaval, Matt decided to take on some small action figure customizing projects here and there until his studio was fully up and running. To keep things simple, he began experimenting with some Vintage Star Wars projects. These were never meant to be anything too complicated: simple headswaps and repaints were all he wanted to do. As luck would have it, nostalgia, combined with fun quickly blossomed into a massive 28 figure endeavor. 

This was just the beginning. Matt had such a fun experience with the retro figures that he quickly began work on his next wave of Vintage Star Wars. There are currently over 60 new figure projects in the works that will be unveiled early next year.


IRON-COW PRODUCTIONS









You can see the first wave of Vintage Star Wars custom action figures here:
 http://www.ironcowprod.com/plastic/odds-ends/



Matt’s illustration, broadcast, fine art, and toy design portfolios can be seen at the official Iron-Cow Prod. website at:







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JRNY FAN




Last time we featured a customizer that made Star Wars playsets it went over really well and ended up being one of our most popular posts.  That's why we're giving you some more of what you all desire, and there is no other artist that is better to take you along for a ride than JRNY FAN!
His Mission? Star Wars Playset Awesomeness.  And this guy really brings it!

JRNY FAN gave up hope long ago that Hasbro would ever give him the playsets he'd want. When the Star Wars line was relaunched in 1995, he wanted to have “one of every figure” that appeared in the films. He's been collecting Star Wars since he was 4 in 1980, so he really likes to integrate homages back to the vintage Kenner playsets wherever possible. His goal is to create playsets that would fit in his shelf space and give his figures worlds to inhabit, just as the old Kenner playsets used to. So, he tried his hand at crafting his own using a plastic called Instamorph (learn more about working with it). And even more recently entered the world of 3-D printing, which is helping him achieve some very impressive looking pieces.

Much like how George felt about his films, JRNY FAN's playsets aren’t “done.” He's always revising them, integrating new ideas, and reinventing past creations that are super functional from a design standpoint.. He wants them to be constructed entirely of plastic - no foam, glue, clay, and ideally no paint. While he's certainly going for the spirit of the film, he's not trying to create a inch-by-inch recreation of the set and shooting exteriors. Instead, he's trying to create something that would come close to a "toy.” Aside from furnishings and accessories, these playsets are generally one piece, not held together by glue. He's been using a combination of PCL moldable plastic and PLA for 3-D printed pieces. He finds that the more that he works with the material, the better he gets at manipulating it. JRNY FAN has no real art background and he hasn't sculpted anything since he was in 4th grade.

The bad news is, Star Wars and the toys are the property of Lucasfilm/Disney/20th Century Fox and Kenner/Hasbro. His playsets are not for sale, simply personal custom display pieces.  The good news is that he offers a link on his website for Downloadable 3-D Models.  He also has a small web store with small diorama pieces that are worth a look at too. 




JRNY FAN























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MARK TELFER




Mark Telfer, is a 42 year old Star Wars customizer from Edinburgh, Scotland where he lives with his loving wife, and 7 year old daughter who likes to join in his painting activities. Although imaginative as a kid, he never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, at 42 he can safely say that he still doesn’t. In fact if you could see his Star Wars collection you may argue that he has never really grown up. He originally started towards a career in football with a local Edinburgh club Hibernian, but unfortunately experienced several injuries, which still trouble him today, and had to forgo his dream. He later found himself working in banking, for 20 years now, which was more through necessity rather than by design. Mark hasn’t really complained, while not very satisfying, it afforded him a happy life with his family.

As a kid born in 1972, Mark spent a good portion of his life with Star Wars than without, something that many generations since thankfully also share. He attended each of the 6 films with much anticipation and was lucky enough to attend local 1st day releases for each. The arrival of his early bird mail away figures remains a happy memory. Today, he owns a massive 3 ¾" collection and blossomed into a new hobby… customizing. 

He’s collected 3 ¾” figures since childhood, from Episode IV to date, encompassing Vintage, POTF, Prequels, Clones, Rebels and most likely onwards. He’s managed to hold onto most of his collection, although he sold a near mint Vintage Blue Snaggletooth and carded Lando General when he needed some money. He admits a slight tinge of regret regarding the two figures sold. 

Balancing full-time work, raising a young family and coping with an illness, Mark wanted to find something to distract him that he could be passionate about. With his love for collecting Star Wars figures, Mark decided he could take on customizing action figures as his new past time. So for the past year, Mark has been visiting and reading websites dedicated to customizing. Through the many fantastic sites out there, Mark discovered a thriving community. 

Since then Mark has been gathering fodder, fabrics, epoxy putty, molding kits, paints and tools over the past year. Roughly one year into his new hobby, Mark ventured outside of just repainting figures and has worked his way into part swaps, and hard sculpting. Because Mark just got his start, he doesn't feel particularly good in any one discipline, but continues to persevere. He prefers to work with fodder from damaged figures, since he doesn’t have the heart to dismantle a perfectly good figure. 

He doesn’t plan his figures out too much, he just rakes through his fodder and uses his imagination. He always tries to look out for things around the home which can be re-cycled and repurposed for his new hobby. 

In March this year, Mark was invited along with Rebel Allegiance UK member Keith Armour, designs Clone Trooper armor, to Edinburgh local FM radio ‘CastleFM’ for a show dedicated to Star Wars movies and collecting. He’s currently in discussions to continue this program through podcasts, which should be fun.

Star Wars Custom Action Figures
created by Mark Telfer








Mark's website:
http://aberhibsfc.wix.com/tmark-customistation



Mark Telfer was also featured in this week's Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.





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BRAD HARRIS



With 3-D printing now becoming more and more popular, Star Wars fans are quickly approaching a new golden era where artists can manufacture their own custom toy designs and make them look just as good as the large manufacturers.  

One of these artists, Industrial Designer Brad Harris, has had some of his work make the rounds on some Star Wars fan sites recently and for good reason.  His designs and execution were just top notch!  Not only did he create some pretty awesome additions to any Star Wars collection, but he even took the time to do the packaging for his creations.  Harris is definitely a designer we'd love to see working for Hasbro in the near future.  The Krayt DragonRathtarRancor, and TIE Defender he produced are some must see designs!  I don't know about you, but I will be bookmarking his webpage to see what else this amazing artist will produce.  I envy his skills!












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OLDBOY CTTS




Oldboy Custom Tattoo Shop are a small pack of Thai tattooists located in Bangkok, Thailand that have followed their interest in action figures and collectibles to create some truly original custom sculpt work with realistic details and paint apps. They started off a few years ago in 2012 collecting 1/6th scale figures. After collecting for a while, they explored different techniques of sculpting and painting figures heads with the objective of trying to achieve the most realistic effects possible. They told us that it took a very long time to refine their techniques, but during that time their interests moved down to the 6" scale due to there being very limited artists/customizers for this scale. They wanted to position themselves as a recognizable and distinctive 6" scale customs maker. For now, their focus is totally on 6" scale headsculpts and soft goods for mainly the Star Wars line (Black Series/Bandai S.H. Figuarts) due to their passion and love for the movie. They also have plans in the future to explore the Marvel line and have speculated moving into the Art/Designer toys industry. 

As for materials and techniques used to achieve their works, Oldboy CTTS sculpting is done with Super Sculpey Firm, along with carving/sculpting tools that are all available online. Their head repaints/paint are done purely with a hand brush using a variety of different paint types (acrylics mostly, and washes/enamels) to achieve different effects desired. 

As for their future work, they will be striving to accomplish the very challenging work of creating characters from the Star Wars universe that have not received the attention that many fans that they talk to really want! Therefore, a few characters shortlisted are Qui-Gon Jinn, variations of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and as for the Marvel line, they really want to have a take on Tony Stark. Also some projects on hand that are really close to going on pre-order within the next few months are their Daniel Craig headsculpt. Last but not least, they will be doing a special give-away when their Facebook page reaches the 5k "likes" milestone, which will be their George Lucas headsculpt. This will be a really limited piece ( >10 worldwide). They will be announcing a small activity for all their fans to have a chance to receive it!



Oldboy CTTS










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TheRealMarch4th





TheRealMarch4th has been customizing for 2 years now.  His work immediately caught our eye because he was one of the few artists out there making Clone Wars custom action figures.  He paints, he kitbashes, and he sculpts too.  The entire customizing package.  He loves customizing figures from the Star Wars animated TV shows and making Mandalorians.  The scope of his work even dives into the Expanded Universe/Legends.  His early work like most customizers focused on making Jedi action figures, but once his skill set expanded so did his character choices from which he drew his inspiration.  He is hoping to create more figures from Star Wars Rebels, Clone Wars and even the old Droids series in the upcoming months.  We talk to this customizer frequently and his enthusiasm for the hobby is infectious.


TheRealMarch4th








To see more of his work visit his Instagram page:





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Lately, there are a large number of Star Wars custom action figure artists displaying their work on Instagram, and there is where I found the latest artist to be added to our "Customs I Wish I Owned" page, CANTINA_SCUM.  The artist's customs remind me of figures I used to see in the Yakface Forums when I first started customizing myself, back when there were an abundance of super-articulated figures on shelves and a plethora of parts to choose from.  Fan fiction customs were everywhere to be found in those times and new creative creations could be found around every corner.  Then the 5poa figures started to dominate the collection and well, beautiful figures like CANTINA_SCUM's started to disappear and weren't as prominent as they once were.  His builds totally tap into some nostalgia for the good ole' days here at home reminding us of artists like ChewieIncom aka Mr. Black's Customs and Dan of the Dead.  We really are excited to see more customs from this artist in the years to come.


CANTINA_SCUM











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STAN



Stan has done something that we have been wanting to accomplish for a long time, fill in a Mos Eisley Cantina and Jabba Palace display with many of the unreleased characters that were never turned into action figures. He even took some of the characters that had been released and improved upon them by adding articulation and more screen accuracy.  We have been slowing adding some of these figures to our collection and hope to fill in our shelves as well as Stan has with his collection.

We had the pleasure of becoming friends with this Star Wars custom action figure artist earlier this year and we are really impressed with his creations.  Recently, he started making some head casts of some of his original sculpts and sent some samples to some of us in the customizing community.  We were big fans of the Tzizvvt and Atheloe head sculpts that we received, and we highly recommend following this artist's work as he continues to create his noteworthy contributions!


STAN












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clubobiwan





Jason Peterson aka clubobiwan doesn't like to recreate what we've all seen on screen before. He more or less explores the gaps between the stories, and even creates his own with original characters. He started off displaying his builds in the art cabinet at his local toy store. He received lots of favorable feedback from the store employees about patrons reactions to his work, but always seemed to miss them viewing his builds.

In the summer of 2016, Jason Peterson started an Instagram account called clubobiwan as a reference to Indiana Jones and Star Wars. clubobiwan has become very important to Jason. Although he only recently started using the persona on Instagram, before that he used the moniker for over 10 years starting as the name he used with online gaming. He says that the account provides him with an amazing amount of inspiration from all of his feedback from fans. He said that his relationships there have really helped him hone his skills. 

Jason said his older brother pressed him to start the Instagram account.  Both of them have had a passion for Star Wars long before it was cool. He hesitated to post on Instagram at first, because he felt the builds didn't display as nicely when they were photographed. It was the desire for feedback that made him take the plunge.   

His process typically starts with finding as many G.I. Joe base figures and accessories that can be converted from their military usage to the Star Wars galaxy. Converting G.I. Joes is important to him because for nearly 30 years he's always loved the articulation of G.I. Joes, but not so much the characters or the universe itself. Now his figures receive all the best Star Wars accessories from his 5poa Star Wars figs and became something entirely different in the end.

We're a big fan of Jason's creative builds and the noticeable Ralph McQuarrie influence on his work. We wish we had his photography skills too.  The way he incorporates nature into the photos of his custom figures is just gorgeous!  

Be sure to visit the link to his Instagram account below!


clubobiwan







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Sneekpick Custom Studio



Based out of California, Sneekpick Custom Studio started about six years ago. Inspired by a love for action figures, and for the lack of characters that we really wanted to see in the market with no chance they would be made, Sneekpick tried their best to fill in the gaps in our collections with  the help of friends and clients from all over the world. Sneekpick Custom Studio is pretty confident that they can make any character that you can imagine. While they hold a special love for the Star wars Universe, they also love G.I. Joe, DC, Marvel, Robotech, and Call of Duty among many others. They take very seriously every commission they receive, and try to represent each character as closely to the original as possible, working in the small details and articulation to make sure that at the end you are happy with the custom figure that you receive from them. 

Sneekpick loves the creative process, the design, the building, painting and the passion! Just head to their Facebook page for all inquiries!



Sneekpick Custom Studio











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JASON HARROP aka HARROP CUSTOMS




While it is true that we solely collect 3.75" figures, we found the work of Jason Harrop aka Harrop Customs noteworthy enough that we wanted to feature his work nonetheless.  One of our biggest reasons for featuring him is for what he has been giving back to the community.  I was first exposed to his work over at the Star Wars Two Suns 6" Customs Facebook group that he created and put together with friends, Cubescity Customs. The page was created to help out action figure enthusiasts who are interested in customizing by bringing many talented individuals together to inspire and collaborate on their creative action figure ideas.  The group was a really cool place for me to see what Star Wars custom action figure artists are doing in another scale.  From resin cast character kits to informative tutorials that will help you fine tune your skills, Jason has made some awesome contributions to the page and to his portfolio. We highly recommend 6" collectors take notice of this artist so you don't miss out!


HARROP CUSTOMS







LINKS TO HIS WORK:

FB Group (Star Wars Two Suns 6" Customs)


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CubesCity Customs





Bryce Cooper aka CubesCity Customs started with purchasing just a few 6" figures 3 years ago, and from there his mild curiosity grew into a full collection. Soon he began seeing customs that others were making and decided he'd give it a go, making some of his own customs. Bryce got his name out there with his first big commission project, an old Ben Kenobi. Unfortunately, he later realized that commissions were taking up all his free time, and customizing felt like more like a second job than a hobby. So he stopped taking commissions and focused more on individual customs for himself. 

He then met Jason Harrop, and they both realized that we had a real knack for making these custom 6" Star Wars figures. They then formed a relationship where Bryce would supply Jason with soft goods for their projects and Jason would supply him with head sculpts and later on full casting kits. They then decided to form Two Suns 6" Customs to share their work and to help others with their customs giving advice anywhere they could. The Facebook group they formed took off like wildfire!







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BAD BATCH CUSTOMS



Some of the best customizers out in the world, still don't have a social media presence where you can see their work. This is very much the case with Bad Batch Customs. The father and son team from Louisiana have been sending me pictures of their work for a year now and their work is just amazing. They have sent me images of numerous custom Star Wars vehicles as well as an incredible Yavin Base diorama that they built in their garage.

They just sent me a ton of pictures of their latest completed "AT-OT" project that I just had to share with you all. The project consists of two AT-TE toy frames cut in half, and then secured together to make a four-legged frame. Once the frame was all set, they used a Dremel and Plexiglas to create the remaining shape by cutting up a Force Awakens Millennium Falcon and then shaped those pieces to fit cover the exterior. They said each part was a learning process, but a great learning lesson. Once the basic shape was made. the wiring, magnets, and lights went in. 

Check out the video I put together from the pictures and video they sent us. If you look at the background, you will see their epic custom Yavin Base diorama.

Want to see more of their work, well, I just had them set up an Instagram account so you can all continue to follow their future projects. I suggest that you all do!



BAD BATCH CUSTOMS
"AT-OT"











BAD BATCH CUSTOMS latest completed project is a ship that I think we all wish was released in the 3.75" toy line...the LAAT-C. The Low-Altitude Assault Transport/carrier, known more simply as the LAAT/c, was a vehicle carrier variant of Rothana Heavy Engineering's Low Altitude Assault Transport series of repulsor-lift gunships developed for the Grand Army of the Republic. Beginning with the First Battle of Geonosis in 22 BBY, the LAAT/c saw use throughout the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems and in the years afterward. Manned by a single pilot, the LAAT/c was originally designed to deploy All Terrain Tactical Enforcers onto battlefields, though it was soon modified to accommodate a number of additional vehicles as the Clone Wars progressed, using powerful magnetic clamps to hold payloads in place. The LAAT/c shared the same rear-wing configuration common to all LAAT gunships, though it lacked the undercarriage that the more common Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry used to carry clone troopers into battle, and also lacked the heavy armament of its cousins.

This is another ship we were able to watch the build from start to finish. We admittedly thought this was a near impossible ship to produce a custom version of, so it was very nice to see BAD BATCH CUSTOMS prove us wrong. We are very impressed with the way this project turned out too; from the paint all the way to the engineering that was implemented to have their LAAT/c actually carry the AT-TE toy. We especially loved the Rishi Eel nose art on the ship!


"LAAT/c"
created by BAD BATCH CUSTOMS











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RAIDER OF THE LOST ART




Hendrik Van Doorn aka RAIDER OF THE LOST ART is a one-man custom figure creating initiative, made by a fan for the fans. His work focuses on background characters from the Original Star Wars Trilogy, but he has recently made a bunch of highly desirable figures from Rogue One too. He has been creating hundreds of figures on a commission basis for collectors from all over the world. Constructed at his home in Belgium and then shipped out to his fans that span from Singapore across to the United States. He performs special requests like blister carded figures and boxes that are accomplished in cooperation with fellow customizers. He has been creating custom action figures for the last three years. While he'll humbly tell you that he is still learning, evolving, and hopefully, making progress, we are quite sure when you judge his work for yourself, you will agree, he is already well accomplished in the art form. Any interest in his work, just shoot him a message. He will reply to every possible question you have.... any at all.

















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@the.lost.waves
 


It has been quite awhile since we featured a digital action figure customizer. Truth is, there aren't many out there. What is a digital customizer you ask?  Well, a digital custom isn't something you can exactly hold in your hand. It is more conceptual, but no less fun. These customs were not created on a workbench, but were the products of a skilled artist that slaved away for hours on Photoshop. 

@the.lost.waves has been taking time between college courses to promote a "what could have been" action figure line if the animated Clone Wars action figure had returned with Season 7 of the show being launched on Disney+. In addition to that, he plans to venture into other Star Wars properties such as making battle packs for Battlefront II, and plans for The Mandalorian.

The animated Clone Wars toy line was Hasbro's most popular toy line. Hundreds of figures were made to support the show. Unfortunately, the toys that were made only covered the early seasons of the show and the later seasons being the most popular had little representation in plastic. Dedicated collectors of the toy line still fantasize about its return so they can one day achieve a complete collection. 

He hopes to venture into the world of physical customs himself, saying "I want to make a Clone Wars figure CW28 (custom) no one has ever done before."

Here at home we have been doing our part to achieve that goal and have always chopping at the bit for a Kalani action figure. Especially after him appearing in Star Wars Rebels later down the road. So when we saw his version of the droid he earned a lifelong follower. 

So many important characters were never released.  The artist states that he created the characters he did "because they never had their debut in any way. I find it really weird that they are such iconic characters and don't have their action figure yet."

We have been closely watching his Instagram feed of @the.lost.waves for months now. Every new post, he drops another release we would have snatched up in seconds if they were available in stores. 

With all things Clone Wars being such a hot property it is a real missed opportunity on Hasbro's part to not reintroduce them in the animated 3.75" scale. This artist shares our pain and that is what inspired him to create these images. That and the reduction of quality in the 3.75" action figure line.

As for the artist's plans for the future, he's most excited to create a General Pong Krell and Admiral Trench. To follow his work, you can find him on Instagram @the.lost.waves and on Twitter @waves_lost


@the.lost.waves










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Audes_Workshop

 


Cal of Audes_Workshop is a customizer from the Midwest US. He grew up watching the original trilogy on VHS but was never aware that there were toys to be had until the third grade. When a friend brought an older sibling’s AT-AT to school one day for a class presentation, he was in awe. He bought his first Star Wars figure, a TIE Fighter Pilot, soon afterward, and has been collecting ever since.

Although Cal enjoyed swapping character accessories and outfits and loved reading through the custom submissions in ToyFare magazine growing up, the process of building figures himself always felt a bit daunting. Having only performed head swaps and repaints previously, he made his first true custom figures to properly populate the TVC Tatooine Skiffs. The positive feedback and guidance he received after sharing them with the community at Imperial Shipyards encouraged him to continue his customizing journey.

What began as a sort of completist’s compulsion has become a therapeutic pastime (perhaps it is still sometimes a compulsion). Cal has come to love working with soft goods and experimenting with mixed media and plans to continue expanding his print selection. He feels honored to be in the company of so many talented artists and passionate fans. The ability to share his love for Star Wars with others has provided a wonderful respite in current times.

Dad said that Audes Workshop is one of the best 3.75" customizers out in the community today. A true standout artist. His soft goods work is just amazing. The 3D resin casts that are available in his eBay store are must purchase items. What we love most about this artist is how generous he is with his recipes and his process which are listed in detail on his Imperial Shipyards thread in their forums. His talent is just off the charts and he is an artist who will have a lot of great customs in his future!

His custom action figures from The Mandalorian are just phenomenal and we felt his work would be a fitting way to celebrate the release of Season 2 of on Disney+ today.

Audes Workshop




eBay page: Audes_Workshop


Audes_Workshop on Instagram


Audes Workshop on Facebook


Audes Workshop on Imperial Shipyards




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We encourage all customizers who would like to see some of their customs displayed on our "Customs I Wish I Owned" page to email us any links you would want us to post at: 






(Any  customizers that we have posted up on the "Customs I Wish I Owned" page  that would like their video available in high definition HD format, please contact us by email.)