When Dad got home on Christmas Eve he found two packages in our mailbox. Two packages that contained several Secret Santa custom action figures. For the last three years now, Dad participated in
Yakface.com's Secret Santa event. This year, Dad was assigned Star Wars customizer
Justin Cook aka
Chewie as the recipient of his holiday custom creations.
Chewie had us our first year participating in the event and he was kind enough to send us two custom action figures rather than just the single required figure the event promoted.
Dad wanted to return the favor when he participated in this year's event. Dad thought Justin would appreciate two unique Star Wars zombies. Off went the figures and we awaited to see who our Secret Santa would be. Dad was floored when he saw who our Secret Santa was...and even further blown away when he saw what was inside the package that was sent. Chewie was our Secret Santa and he had sent us three Star Wars custom action figures. He also sent us Dad's favorite figure of his, Kelos! Also included in the package was an Utai Traveler and one cool looking Weequay. The paint apps on the Utai really excentuated the sculpt of the figure. The Weequay's paint had beautiful contrasts and masterful use of paint washes. The gift was so generous. Thank so much, Justin. Dad's going to be sporting a permagrin for months
YAKFACE.COM SECRET SANTA
CUSTOM ACTION FIGURES
created by CHEWIE
"WEEQUAY"
created by Chewie
"UTAI TRAVELER"
created by CHEWIE
"KRELOS"
created by CHEWIE
SECRET SANTA FIGURES SENT:
Abyssin & Vurk Zombies
created by Darth Daddy
Imperial Shipyard's Secret Santa
Custom Action Figure
Yakface.com's Secret Santa event has always been a huge provider of Christmas spirit in our home and was a real influence on Dad's decision to run a
Secret Santa over at
Imperial Shipyards this year.
Darth Optimus created the
Falleen custom action figure pictured below for Dad's Secret Santa gift for participating in the Imperial Shipyard's Secret Santa event Dad hosted. We were really impressed with the action figure when we got in the mail earlier this month. It's been torture waiting to post this figure and having to hold out until our other Secret Santa action figures arrive. The figure even came with a great short story attached to it. Dad was really happy that we had another Black Sun member in the house. Especially since Dad had recently created a
Guri. Hope you enjoy the Falleen action figure as much as we do. Thank you, Mike!
Darth Optimus hails from Texas. His name reflects his love of both Star Wars & Transformers.
Darth Optimus works in the animal care field and is married with two children. He has been customizing off & on for 12 years....more so in the last two than in the last ten. He started out painting Battle Tech minis and progressed to making custom figs from Toy Biz X-men figs.
Darth Optimus next went to Transformers and completed probably two dozen figures....including a team of Junkions. Most recently he made the transition to Star Wars figures due to swappability with the different 3 3/4" lines...as well as, the possibility to do vehicles.
Fan Fiction Story by
Darth Optimus:
"The Falleen known as Xeven was a young, promising, up-and-coming mercenary serving a long-term contract with Black Sun during the Clone Wars. After the execution of Order 66, the newly-formed Empire placed bounties on the heads of all surviving Jedi. The Black Sun organization picked up several deathmark contracts and assigned several in-house hunters to the task of finding the Jedi. Xeven was among those chosen.
A capable tracker, Xeven found and dispatched several Padawans and minor Knights over the next three years. His confidence grew with each victory and he believed that no Jedicould defeat him. He was wrong.
An encounter with an unidentified Jedi (but surely of Master level) left Xeven without both his hands. Turning to a Black Sun affiliated cyberneticist, Xeven chose to utilize hands from a Magna Guard series droid as replacements. Xeven meshed quickly with the robotics, and was on the hunt within a week. He is constantly on the look out for the Jedi who maimed him.
Xeven's weapons of choice are fairly basic. He prefers the Relby-v10 micro grenade launcher favored by Trandoshans as his main weapon. He carries an onyx-handled Westar-34 blaster pistol on his hip as back up. The weapon is the same style carried by his idol, Jango Fett. Lastly, Xeven carries an adamantium battle blade that has been in his clan for generations."
"XEVEN"
created by Darth Optimus
Darth Optimus even included this custom Star Wars stand.
RECIPE:
Topknot: AOTC Aurra Sing
Head: Comic Pack Prince Xizor
Torso, Arms and Kama/Sarrong: TCW Embo
Hands: TCW Magna Guard
Legs: TFU Kota's Elite
Large Gun: TVC Bossk
Pistol and Holster: TVC Jango Fett
Melee Blade: Parts bin
SECRET SANTA SENT:
SECRET SANTA MANDO
created by Darth Daddy
CHRISTMAS FIGURE SWAP
with Darksider80
When Dad organized this year's
Secret Santa over at
Imperial Shipyards,
Darksider80
stated that he wanted to participate early in the sign-up process, but
forgot to send his mailing address before the deadline arrived. Dad
matched everyone up, and then after all the emails were sent, Dad heard a
response from him. Dad felt bad leaving him out of the event,
especially since he was relatively new to the custom action figure forum
community. The last thing Dad wanted was for this talented customizer
to feel left out by a new community he was choosing to participate in.
As a solution Dad decided to create one extra figure and do a figure
swap with
Darksider80 on top of the one he was formally doing for the event.
After being totally wowed by the plethora of Star Wars custom figures on
the internet
Darksider80 was inspired to bust a couple out himself! The purpose of
his blog is just to share his work, get feedback and make connections
with other people who love Star Wars, toys, and creative expression as
much as he does. He love comments, whether you love his stuff or downright
hate it, so leave your opinions for him to see! He is always open to ideas
and suggestions for new projects as well.
Inside our package from
Darksider80 was a Darth Zannah custom action figure from The Old Republic and masterfully produced at that. Thanks so much Noah. She's gorgeous!
DARTH ZANNAH
"Zannah, known as "Rain" during her childhood, was a
Human female from the
planet Somov Rit. She was
recruited to fight for the
Jedi's
Army of Light during the
Ruusan campaign of the
New Sith Wars but, after arriving on
Ruusan, was separated from the group during a
Sith attack and presumed
dead. Unbeknownst to the Jedi, she had been saved and befriended by a member of the native
Bouncerspecies called
Laa. When the
Brotherhood of Darkness later
unleashed a planet-wide
Force storm, Rain survived by instinctively enveloping herself and Laa with a
bubble of
Force energy. Not long afterward, the young girl watched as Laa was haplessly killed by Jedi scouts. Stricken with anger and grief, she unwittingly gave in to the
dark side and murdered the Jedi. Her display of rage attracted the attention of the war's only surviving
Dark Lord,
Darth Bane, who decided to take her as his
apprentice. Rain cast away the handle of her youth and instead embraced her birth name, becoming Darth Zannah.
Zannah's preliminary
Force training took place on the planet
Ambria and involved the study of ancient
Sith magic. In her
tutelage under Darth Bane, Zannah executed a variety of missions designed to incite anarchist movements throughout the
Galactic Republic, including manipulating the
terrorist Anti-Republic Liberation Front into a botched
assassination attempt on former
Supreme Chancellor Tarsus Valorum. From
Hetton, the ARLF's leader, Zannah also recovered information regarding the creation of
holocrons, a secret highly sought by her
Master, who later killed Hetton after Zannah tricked him into an
attack on the Dark
Lord. When the
parasites that comprised Bane's
body armor began to cause him concern, Zannah was tasked with infiltrating the
Jedi Temple archives on
Coruscant to obtain information about the creatures. Her mission complete, Zannah was surprised to encounter her cousin
Darovit, who confessed that he had exposed her presence to the Jedi. Zannah fled Coruscant with him and met Darth Bane on
Tython, where the Sith prepared to
battle the pursuant Jedi. Despite their numbers, all of the Jedi were slain, although Bane was grievously wounded and on the brink of dying. Zannah returned with her Master to Ambria and demanded on threat of death that the
local healer save the Dark Lord, which he agreed to do only after Zannah revealed the Sith presence on Ambria to the Jedi. She betrayed and killed the healer upon completion of the procedure and also used her power to drive Darovit
mad. The
respondent Jedi assumed that he was the
Sith Lord they sought and
killed him, effectively convincing the Jedi of the Sith's final eradication. With no surviving witnesses, the existence of Darth Zannah and her Master remained safely anonymous.
The Sith relocated to
Ciutric IV, and over the course of
ten years, Zannah grew to be an accomplished
Sith sorceress who equaled Darth Bane in strength. When she failed to confront him for the position of Dark Lord, Bane believed she lacked initiative. However, Zannah had already begun to contemplate his demise. On a
mission to
Doan, she learned of a
Dark Jedi named
Set Harth and
enlisted the reluctant young man as her apprentice. Zannah returned with him to Ciutric IV to confront her own Master, only to find that Bane had been
captured by the
Doan Royal Guard. She then returned to Doan, where she infiltrated the
place of Bane's imprisonment. She located Bane and
fought him, but their
duel ended in a draw when both were forced to flee the
prison. Soon after, Bane, who had taken the
Iktotchi Darth Cognus as his new apprentice, called Zannah to meet him on Ambria, where they
dueled for the final time. Zannah was initially overwhelmed by her Master's attacks, but she was able to use her
sorcery to injure him. As a last resort, Bane attempted to
transfer his essence into her body, but was defeated when Zannah's spirit condemned his to the void of the dark side. Zannah then took Darth Cognus as her apprentice and continued Bane's
legacy as Dark Lord of the Sith.
"Darth Zannah"
created by Darksider80
SECRET SANTA SENT:
RODIAN SNOWSPEEDER PILOT
created by Darth Daddy
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