"FEMME MANDO" created by Darth Daddy

Recently JediStyle, one of Dad's all-time favorite customizers, sent him a message, and asked Dad if he could commission him to make a custom Star Wars action figure.   Since Dad was always such a huge fan of his work, Dad immediately asked if they could do a figure swap as payment.

Dad has long admired JediStyle's creative character creations, his ability to apply paint in such a way that the colors REALLY pop, and are expressed with such beautiful contrasts.  JediStyle has a great eye for color and he's one of the best painters in the Star Wars custom action figure community.

I don't have a Star Wars custom created by JediStyle in my collection, and I can't tell you how happy I am that I will soon. 

For the figure swap they both agreed to create either a bounty hunter or a Jedi for each other and mail it when they were finished.

Dad didn't feel like he had any good Jedi fodder, at least not at the level to reach his standards.

Which meant that Dad would be making a bounty hunter.  As I saw Dad make this action figure, I kept trying to talk him into letting me have it.  I tried to talk him into just starting a completely new figure for JediStyle.  It didn't work.

At first Dad was going to try and create some crazy alien bounty hunter, but after seeing JediStyle's Mandalorian series, Dad noticed that there were no female Mandalorians on display.  That's when Dad decided that instead of doing an alien bounty hunter, he was going to create a female Mandalorian bounty hunter.

Dad also wanted to make this his first attempt at creating a steam punk action figure.  Dad used metallic paints and healthy amount of dark washes to add the steam punk touches.  The rocket pack contributed well to the look as well.  Dad wanted to keep the figure versatile by keeping the steam punk elements subtle and not too overt.  To do this he made the headpiece removable; held in place with magnets when being used. We had recently watched Tank Girl with Lori Petty and Dad said the shapes of the headgear were influenced by the imagery of the movie.  I love how Dad highlighted the femininity of the figure with the bright hot pink colored tones against the worn desert mud washed yellow.

I love female Star Wars action figures because they aren't produced as widely as the males. I know. Many would argue the the Star Wars action figure line has been the most generous toy line when it comes to creating toys featuring characters of both sexes.  I would agree, but toy customization really brings out possibilities that would never come into realization at the mass production level.  I definitely try to even things out in the street scenes of my play environments and to do that we have created a lot of female custom action figures in this house.  This figure ended being one of my favorites of Dad's.  I especially loved the sword with the Mandalorian symbol sculpted into the hilt. 

As hard as she was to give up, it's cool to know that I have a JediStyle custom action figure coming my way.  Definitely worth it!  Look for the action figure that JediStyle created in December's Customizer Spotlight.

FEMME MANDO

created by Darth Daddy

 
Dad's Femme Mando was featured on the front page of Imperial Shipyards.

Techniques for Painting Eyes

CINDEL TOWANI & NOA BRIQUALON created by Customs for the Kid

For my 4 year old cousin's last birthday, we gave him the entire Star Wars video library complete with all the films, the Clone Wars TV episodes, and the old Ewok movies that were made for television when my Dad was a little kid.  When my cousin began to watch some of the content that we gave him, he started with the "The Battle for Endor" movie.  He loved the movie so much that he watched it 3-4 times a day for weeks on end. 

When we visited his house this summer, we brought him the new Wicket action figure from the Vintage collection and the Ewok Battle Pack that was exclusive to Toys R' Us.  While we were visiting for the week, my cousin saw Dad make custom action figures for the blog and was really impressed with our ability to make our own toys.  So much so, that he asked if we could make him a Noa and a Cindel for Christmas.  Before we left that week, Dad ordered a Teek action figure to be mailed to his house, and told him to keep an eye on the mailbox around Christmas time.  When we returned home, Dad started to acquire the fodder we needed to complete his request.  When Dad started to obtain the fodder, he bought double of everything so that he could make me a set too.

Since time was limited, we only had the chance to make this first set for my cousin, but once the New Year rolls around, we'll most likely make the second set for my collection as well.  This project was a lot of  fun because it was a real team effort between me and Dad.  To create the action figures, we modified an Anakin Skywalker from Episode I to create the Cindel Towani, and we used a Willrow Hood body and a Henry Jones head from the "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" toy line to make the Noa Briqualon action figure.  Dad worked on the head sculpts and the soft goods, while I worked on creating Noa's staff and painting the figures.  I really liked the way that they both came out and I can't wait to add these two characters to my own collection now that I know what needs to be done.  My favorite part of this project was using the Dremel for the first time to sand a wooden chopstick into Noa's staff.  It was my first time working with the tool and it was a lot of fun to use.

I hope my little cousin enjoys the new toys that we made for him and even more importantly that his dog doesn't eat them.  Let us know what you think.

NOA BRIQUALON & CINDEL TOWANI

created by Customs for the Kid

 
Our Noa and Cindel were featured on the front page of Imperial Shipyards.

The Classic Star Wars Facebook group also featured our Noa and Cindel in their feed.

Evilivo Added to "Customs I Wish I Owned"

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.

Wonderful Figure Painting Tutorial

A few customizers posted this YouTube video on Facebook of Marion Ball demonstrating how to best paint your action figures.  I have to say, even as a seasoned customizer, I learned a LOT from this video.  I definitely recommend that you all give it a view.  It was well worth the time invested to watch it.