Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars custom action figure artist Willrow Hood in his latest post over at The Star Wars Underworld.
The Star Wars customs made at Mos Eisley Salvage and the ever present visage of Willrow Hood are the creative efforts of Gabriel Marc Xavier Nowlin. He is a real life "Space Cowboy" who grew up in the lonely desert country of West Texas. He currently lives on a ranch outside Fort Worth,Texas with his wife, who is a professional artist. They share their spread with two ranch dogs, a sketchy Pekingese, a 20 year old box turtle, livestock and an interloper cat. He has had a life long interest in Star Wars, robots, model building, art, surfing, aircraft, ships and science fiction.
The focus of Mos Eisley Salvage, as the name implies, is to take broken Star Wars toys of all kinds and then turn them into something new, unconventional and imaginative. The projects are limited to broken toys and discarded plastics. Nothing goes unused - a light saber handle, some Astromech domes from X-Wings and a laser cannon from Slave One become key pieces in an R2-D2 Battle Droid. Wings and cockpits from a mix of broken Tie Fighters become a star ship for the Red Baron.
Like Michael J. Fox and many others, Gabriel lives his life with the daily challenges of Young Onset Parkinson's Disease. To add to that, he also lost his right eye in an accident. He does not allow those things to limit him. He views them as further creative challenges to figure out. The customs he makes are not intended as "for sale" products. The process of making them doesn't lend itself to mass production. Rather, the goal is to produce something that people enjoy seeing. His current customs are a continuing series he calls "Rise of the Astromechs" in which Astromech Droids are the central characters for a host of vehicles, figures and dioramas.
