Customs for the Kid

Elias of "Customs for the Kid" · at Tuesday, July 08, 2014

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

Elias of "Customs for the Kid" · at Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Unknown · at Friday, July 04, 2014

Around 20 BBY, this pirate assisted Hondo Ohnaka and Gwarm in boarding the Crucible to steal the Jedi Lightsaber crystals. This pirate, along with a few others, located Professor Huyang, and four of the Jedi Younglings, Petro, Katooni, Gungi, and Byph. As a trick, Petro activated his incomplete lightsaber and then tossed it at this pirate. The pirate caught it and activated it, remarking that he always wanted one. Petro, however, had built the lightsaber incorrectly causing it to detonate and knock this pirate unconscious, allowing the younglings and Huyang to escape.

This pirate reawakened and followed the younglings and Huyang towards where Hondo and the other pirates were. Huyang sealed this pirate off from the others in order for he and the younglings to escape. While Ahsoka Tano held off the pirates, she ordered Zatt to activate the engines which would break the connecting bridge and cause a vacuum that would suck the pirates out into space. As this happened, this pirate was able to pry open the blast door, only to get sucked out of the Jedi ship. He managed to grab hold of an object in the connecting bridge along with several other pirates, leaving Ahsoka and Hondo to try to keep hold of the wall of the Jedi ship. Ahsoka used the Force and knocked an incoming pirate into Hondo and knock him into the bridge. This pirate managed to keep his grip on the object and grab Hondo at the same time as the bridge slipped away, taking Ahsoka and the pirates with it.

After the pirates captured Ahsoka, they had a feast on Florrum. This pirate drank too much alcohol, and he was lying around drunk and sleeping. Meanwhile, the younglings came pretending to be parts of Preigo's Traveling World of Wonder, and rescued Ahsoka. The pirate later took part in the battle of Florrum, when General Grievous attacked Florrum. This pirate and a few of his companions cooperated with the Jedi younglings in order to escape.

Later in the year, along with Jiro, he and some other pirates joined Darth Maul and Savage Opress against their former leader Hondo Ohnaka. Later on, when the two Sith were overpowered by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hondo, he and the remaining pirates re-joined Hondo again, and helped him to chase the Sith brothers away from Florrum. One of the pirates managed to shoot the ship with a rocket launcher, and Maul and Savage barely escaped in the ship's escape pod. The pirates, believing that the two were vaporized, started searching for what they left behind. This pirate found a Z-6 rotary blaster cannon.

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As soon as I saw this pirate in "Revival", the premiere episode of the The Clone Wars fifth season, I knew I wanted to make him. I can't really explain it, but he immediately became my favorite pirate in Hondo's pirate gang. Especially after his appearance in the Jedi youngling arc later in the year. There was something about his look that really caught my eye. I felt like he was exactly what I needed to diversify the look of our custom Pirate Gang collection and I wanted to take on the challenge.

When I looked at all the Star Wars figures that had been released over the years, I realized that I couldn't really find a decent base figure to make it happen. I settled on a Marvel action figure of "Thing" from the Fantastic Four. I say settled, because I feel like this action figure is a little too tall to be screen accurate. When I weighed my options for reducing his height, I decided that I risked compromising articulation and the integrity of the figure if I really made a fuss and I decided to leave the figure as is. From there I completely sanded and resculpted an entirely new figure on top of what was present and made an entirely new action figure.

I really love the way he came out and I couldn't be happier with the overall results. I'm not really sure how many more pirates I will do in the future, now that this one is finished. I guess only time will tell. Hope you all enjoy the holiday weekend and be safe out there!

CLONE WARS

"WEEQUAY CRAGGY TOOTH PIRATE A"

created by Darth Daddy

Pictured with Hasbro's Hondo Ohnaka and Peakob1's Gwarm and Parsel.

Pictured with Hasbro's Hondo Ohnaka, Elias' Weequay Pirate with Massiff and Peakob1's Gwarm and Parsel.

Pictured with Hasbro's Hondo Ohnaka.

SKILL LEVEL: ADVANCED

Work in Progress

PICTURES

Base figure

First I completely sanded down the figure and did the head sculpt in Green Stuff.

I switched the hands out for the hands of a Hulk action figure so he could grasp weapons. I then started to sculpt the skeleton for his clothing.

The hardest part was sculpting the the chest armor so it would look symmetrical.

Sculpt complete. Time for paint.

Base coats applied. Time for the fine detail paintwork.

The "Craggy Tooth Pirate A" was featured on the front page of Imperial Shipyards.

Unknown · at Thursday, July 03, 2014

HOW TO ENTER THE CONTEST

Elias of "Customs for the Kid" · at Thursday, July 03, 2014

Custom Action Figures News just debuted their new video format in their latest interview with customizer Chad Peak aka Peakob1 of Peakob1 Custom Creations. Definitely take the time to watch Lucasclones and Tamer talk about Peakob1's artwork, and you may even learn a new customizing technique or two. Chad Peak has been a close friend of Customs for the Kid for many years. We have over 34 Star Wars custom action figures of his in our collection, many of which were featured in this episode. We wouldn't be surprised if that number continued to grow. It's nice to hear how Peakob1 built all these masterpieces and get to see all his figures up on screen as they are being discussed. We love the new format guys and we're sure you will to.