DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: YakFace

Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer YakFace in his latest post over at The Star Wars Underworld.

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Brent Gothold aka YakFace just graduated from film school (F.I.R.S.T Institute of Recording Sound and Technology) and has been working as a freelance FX artist specializing in building miniatures. He was living and working in Los Angeles, but moved to Florida 8 months ago and just started work for Universal Studios Orlando doing FX makeup for Halloween Horror Nights. He has a new website that features the professional work that he's been doing for the film industry. His career goal is to open up his own FX studio that will be a full service FX company that blends traditional FX techniques like scale models, practical makeup, and props with cutting edge computer graphics. He's currently learning as much as he can about the traditional techniques and plans to advance his skills with CGI over the next year.

He posted his first custom Star Wars diorama of the Sarlaac Pit at age 15 and is currently posting custom figures over 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. YakFace is a talented sculptor and painter who transforms "toys" into art pieces.

 YakFace can be contacted at:

http://brentgothold.wix.com/brentgothold

 brent.gothold@gmail.com 

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: SWK KUSTOMS

Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer SWK Kustoms in the latest Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.

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Kevin Ferrier, aka SWK KUSTOMS / kr2700, created two very cool figures in our collection at home. A Jedi version of my son Elias that he sent as a gift for showcasing his work on our blog and a Vergere action figure that we bought on eBay way back when we first started collecting custom Star Wars action figures.

SWK Kustoms 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.

His wife then suggested that other people might be interested in his figures, so he put some on eBay and his new hobby started to generate some interest!

Now seven years later with more customs than you could count under his belt, SWK Kustoms is still at it, specializing in fully articulated figures. SWK Kustoms creates fully articulated and detailed custom 4” figures from 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, Stormtrooper, 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 and name plate stands.

Check out his eBay page and add an SWK Kustoms action figure to your collection today!

Vergere action figure from my son's collection

 Action figure of my son created by SWK Kustoms.

Check out his "profile page" on eBay at:
http://myworld.ebay.com/kr2700?ssPageName=ADME:X:CEM:US:1181

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: WookieBalls Customs

Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer WookieBalls Customs in the latest Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.

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Ray McDonald aka WookieBalls Customs started to post his Star Wars custom action figures on the web about a year after I started to customize.  When he started to post, I knew right away that he was going to be a customizer to be reckoned with.  He was definitely my favorite newcomer that year.  His art was always very welcoming to the eyes.  Years later and he is still at it and even more impressive than ever.  Customizing in a variety of scales and when not making something new, restoring some of his old Vintage toys, WookieBalls is always keeping busy.

When I saw he started a special Star Wars custom action figure sale a few hours ago on his Facebook page, I knew he was the artist I had to feature this week.  If you hurry over to his page, you may be a one of the lucky individuals able to procure one of his beautiful pieces of art.  Be sure to take a look at his offerings on the Facebook link below.  A lot of these customs are carded and look absolutely beautiful.  Hopefully, you get there before his figures are all sold out.

https://www.facebook.com/wookieballs.customs

DARTH DADDY'S CUSTOMIZING CORNER: TONY "THE MAD JAWA" DEIDA

Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer Tony "The Mad Jawa" Deida in the latest Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.

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So far I have been showcasing the work of the seasoned veterans within the Star Wars customizing community, but I thought it would be cool to give a shout out to some of the newer artists in the community as well.  Tony 'The Mad Jawa' Deida is a 38 year old customizer from New Jersey.  He has been seriously customizing for less than 1 year, and his devotion to the craft is quite evident.  He was one of the first customizers I saw to tackle the Star Wars Rebels characters and it was cool that he made them to fit with the realistic line rather in their animated for.  He has also produced some super creative droids that deserve a look.  The tall Jawa custom that he made from the appearance at the sale of the droids from A New Hope is a figure I'd like to make for my own collection one day.  What a great idea!

His interest in customizing Star Wars toys started because he found that he never had much money to purchase new figures due to the increasing price point, as well as not being totally happy with the look of the figures he was paying for.  Mainly being a flea market and toy show shopper led to a build up of lots of fodder. Heavily influenced by seeing all the incredible artists on Facebook, he told himself, "I can do this!"

Around this very same week, one year ago, he gave up drinking, smoking, TV and all other aspects of the mainstream media the same day, and totally committed himself, and all his time, to learning everything he could about customizing.  Tony said he learned his craft by watching hours and endless hours of YouTube to see how other customizers acheived their results.  Customizing quickly become a passion for him. With his new found time and saved money, he studied paint technique, molding, casting, sculpting, and his favorite technique weathering.  He said he will use real rust, and dirt to get the look he wants.  Tony said while all the technical skills have been necessary to add to his repertoire,  patience has been the most important skill of all.

Tony feels like he never would have made it this far in his skill set without the support of his friends in the online community, and his wife Stacy.

 

TONY "THE MAD JAWA" DEIDA

on Facebook