DARTH DADDY'S CUSTOMIZING CORNER: FOCUS ON SOME FANGIRLS

This time around, I thought it would be cool to feature some custom art from some female Star Wars artists for a change. Contrary to the stereotype, Star Wars customizing is not just practiced by nerdy, awkward men working diligently in their man caves.  There is also a thriving contingent of female fans hard at work producing some extremely noteworthy additions to the customizing community as well. While their creations may contain the standard 3.75" or 6" action figure creation, some of their work stretches outside the usual parameters we are all used to seeing in my column.

For a few years now, I have been featuring the work of these artists on my blog on our "Customs for the Fangirls" page, but I thought it was about time I opened up their work to a much larger audience by displaying a sample of some of the art I feature there.  These are just a few of the artists whose work  can be found there.

First up is Jedi Ash Designs run by Ashley M. Kalfas from Colorado Springs, Colorado.  She makes some really unique Star Wars poseable dolls inspired by the Monster High line that are just extraordinary.  Her work is so eye catching I strongly considered running over to her Etsy store to pick up one of her figures to add to our home collection.

Her work can also be found at these links:

JEDI ASH DESIGNS ETSY STORE

JEDI ASH DESIGNS FACEBOOK PAGE

JEDI ASH DESIGNS WEBPAGE

The next artist on display I discovered on Instagram.  I saw a one-of-a-kind handmade "Youngling Ahsoka Tano" doll that was made by missupsetter that I wish was available for purchase.  I would have bought it on the spot.  She details the build process she went through and documents the countless hours she invested into creating this beautiful piece.  This is something I wish we could see mass produced one day.  

missupsetter on Instagram

Our last artist is well known in the Star Wars super fan community. For the longest time now, we thought that we were only one of two individuals who owned a Sabine Tie Fighter from the Star Wars Rebels television series. That is until we saw the newly painted Tie Fighter created by The Dorky Diva, Savanna Kiefer who created her stellar creation as a gift. 

www.thedorkydiva.com

We're always on the hunt for more female customizers so if you have some work that you'd like to share feel free to send it my way.  My email can be located in the sidebar of the blog.  

If you want to see more Fangirl related customs, click the link below:

CUSTOMS FOR THE FANGIRLS

UPCOMING CUSTOMIZING CONTEST @ IMPERIAL SHIPYARDS

It has been awhile since Imperial Shipyards has had a custom contest and they are asking for your help to decide the theme of their next customizing challenge. Click to post your idea for what you think the theme should be. Look for the vote to start sometime around noon on Sunday!

CLONE WARS "SENATOR RIYO CHUCHI" by Elias of "Customs for the Kid"

This is my first 100% sculpted action figure. I have been working on her for almost a year now, so it feels really good to have her finally completed. When I first started, being only 13 years old, I was really concerned that I might not be able to pull off this custom of Riyo Chuchi. Even with six years experience with making my own figures, it still felt like a daunting task. Rather than being paralyzed with fear, I just dove right in and my persistence really paid off. Perseverance went a long way when putting this figure together.

It took a few different action figures and a lot of sculpting to put this figure together. The base of the figure was a Star Trek "Uhura action" figure that was severely modified.  I used Aves Fixit to sculpt and then sanded the torso to get it where I needed.  I borrowed the lower legs from a Clone Wars Aayla Secura that I sculpted onto with ProCreate, and the arms were originally from a Clone Wars MicroSeries "Snow Bunny" Padme Amidala which were also modified with the same sculpting material. The head, believe it or not, was from a modified Ahsoka Tano action figure that was sanded very heavily to remove her montrals, and then, had Chuchi's hair sculpted with Aves Fixit to replace what we removed.  

My Dad helped me fabricate the headdress from scratch. We sculpted it with ProCreate to keep the accessory durable. I was worried about using ProCreate because of the quick dry time with me being relatively new to sculpting. We made the headdress removable by placing saran wrap over the head before sculpting the piece onto the head. The crystal jewels on the back of the crown were glued to sewing thread before being sculpted into the accessory to maintain both strength and accuracy. My favorite part about the headdress is that it's removable.

At first, I was very intimidated by the pattern on her dress, due to its intricacies. My dad suggested that in order to make the painting process simpler, I could map out my pattern using dots.  I placed the dots on the dress, then used a fine detail paintbrush to connect these dots and added the three circles. The Porcelain Rose paint was too bright, so to darken the pattern, I used a wash of the color I used on the rest of her dress.  To get the right color on the lips, I painted them white then applied a darker blue wash to make them pop.

Now that she is done, I couldn't be happier. I feel like now that I completed my first 100% sculpted piece, I completed a rite of passage in the customizing community. It is a figure I couldn't have made when I first started out as a customizer 6 years ago.  It took many years of building up my skill set to get me where I needed to be to pull this off.  Now she is my favorite custom!

I hope when people think that they could never make their own Star Wars custom action figure, that they look to me for inspiration, because if I can pull off a figure that looks this good at 13 years old, they can at least give customizing a try.

Riyo Chuchi was a female Pantoran politician from the moon of Pantora which orbited the planet, Orto Plutonia. Chuchi served as a senator and represented her people in the Galactic Senate of the Republic during the Clone Wars.

"SENATOR RIYO CHUCHI"

created by Elias

"Work In Progress"
Pictures

SKILL LEVEL: ADVANCED

"CUSTOMIZING THE CLONE WARS" - EPISODE 38

Celebration Anaheim featured Clone Wars custom action figure artists, Peak-OB1 Custom Creations & Darth Daddy and Elias of "Customs for the Kid" display some more Clone Wars custom action figures as they continue to recreate Season 3 of The Clone Wars TV series by making characters from the episode "Sphere of Influence".

"SENATOR RIYO CHUCHI"

created by Elias

CUSTOMIZER SPOTLIGHT #49: "Rogue One - The Death Star Plans" by Phill Scott

Recently, Star Wars customizer Phillip Scott created a 3.75" accessory for the Jyn Erso action figure that I wish we all got on store pegs...the Death Star Plans. After making the piece, he molded it and produced a limited run of casts.  When he asked if any fellow artists were interested in obtaining a cast, we jumped at the chance to add the small cartridge to the hand of our Black Series figure.  As soon as we received it in the mail, we took some pictures to show it off.

"Rogue One - The Death Star Plans"

by Phillip Scott

THE ORIGINAL POST ON REBELSCUM:

"Rogue One - The Death Star Plans" by Phillip Scott

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