AGE APPROPRIATE WARNING

*ADULT SUPERVISION & PROPER SAFETY EQUIPMENT ARE REQUIRED WHEN UTILIZING THE TOOLS, PRODUCTS & TECHNIQUES DESCRIBED HERE ON OUR BLOG TO CREATE STAR WARS CUSTOMS.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: DAN OF THE DEAD



Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer Dan of the Dead in the latest Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.


CLICK HERE TO READ



One of my favorite parts about writing the "Customizing Corner" feature is introducing you all to the artists who have influenced me on my journey through the world of Star Wars custom action figures. One artist that really stands out and always releases one exciting figure after another is Dan of the Dead.

Although Dan gets most of his notoriety for his G.I. Joe custom action figures, his Star Wars figures are certainly nothing to scoff at. He always makes such creative characters and his color pallette constantly demands my eye's attention. He always takes such great photos of his action figures, and a lot of customizers could learn a lot from Dan about how to present one's art. Best of all, Dan of the Dead is another artist that provides the recipe that he used to make every one of his figures. A trait I have always admired a great deal.

Dan has played with and taken apart toys all his life. On his blog, he's very open about his dabbling with customizing action figures for as long as he can remember. Dan of the Dead really got involved in the hobby in 2009 after he was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma/vestibular schwannoma. His surgery came and went, and somewhere during his recovery, toys became art and art became therapy.

Not only is Dan an incredibly talented artist, but he also pens some super cool stories about the action figures that he makes that are always a lot of fun to read.  Hopefully his art will be just as inspirational for you as it was for me.
































Click the link below for more of Dan the Dead:




or go to his blog:

  

Friday, May 16, 2014

CLONE WARS ARC TROOPER "FIVES" created by Darth Daddy

This custom action figure was just a simple repaint of an ARC Trooper Blitz created by Hasbro.  I used the head of the Fives action figure that came in the Battle Pack with the Echo.  The neck peg hole in the Fives head was exactly the same size as the one for the ARC Trooper helmet so no modification was needed.  This is only the second clone custom that I've ever done.  Usually you'll find me making an action figure of some strange alien, but after watching Season 6 of The Clone Wars, I felt his character deserved an action figure standing alongside the rest of Elias' action figure collection  from The Clone Wars TV series.



CLONE WARS
ARC TROOPER "FIVES"
created by Darth Daddy






















KITS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE



SKILL LEVEL: BEGINNER


"Fives" was featured on the front page of Imperial Shipyards.



"CLONE WARS CUSTOM ACTION FIGURES"
on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CloneWarsCustomActionFigures




Wednesday, May 14, 2014

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: LUCASCLONES


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






When it comes to Star Wars customs, Chad Hitchcock aka Lucasclones creates some of the best Star Wars clone figures out there today. He's particularly fond of making ARC troopers.

As a commissioned artist, his figures have been some of the best selling I've seen in the community.  Lucasclones is a customizer that dives into everything. He customizes Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Desolation, and several other toy lines. He even created an H.P. Lovecraft inspired custom.

He also has an extremely active Youtube channel complete with figure reviews, tutorials, and custom action figure debuts.

Lucasclone's podcast, Custom Action Figure News, has been gaining traction for a few years now and its creation has been a boon to the custom action figure community. On his show he has interviewed the most famous customizers around. Working with Imperial Shipyards administrator Tamer, his podcast's success has made customizers accessible to their fans, all while providing some great tips on how to make one-of-a-kind toys. His recent addition of "Roundtable" discusssions to his podcast need to be archived for all interested in the artform. These roundtable  discussions feature the experts who have teamed up to provide a free custom action figure education that's worth a fortune to the beginner and advanced customizer alike.

I can't even begin to list the many contributions Lucasclones has brought to the community.  He's definitely an artist to watch.








ARC Trooper "Fives"




















Lucasclones on Imperial Shipyards:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=3618.0


Lucasclones on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasclones/


Lucasclones on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/cha1man2?feature



Lucasclones' blog:
 http://lucasclonecustoms.blogspot.com/







Go here to listen to the Custom Action Figure News podcast:
http://www.imperialshipyards.net/CAFN/index.html



If there is anything you would like him to feature on a future podcast be sure to let him know at:
chad.cafnpodcast@yahoo.com


Sunday, May 11, 2014

Custom Action Figure News - Episode #69: JRNY FAN










Custom Action Figure News had an absolute blast talking with Brian aka JRNY FAN this past Thursday. Get yourself a cup of jawa juice, kick back, and listen to Lucasclones and Tamer talk about JRNY FAN's great Kenner inspired play-sets, hear about a cool product called Instamorph that you may want to add to your tool box, as well as a small tutorial and preview of what you are in for if you want to do some of your own 3D Printing. Hats off to JRNY FAN for giving CAFN a bit of his time. Don't forget to visit the ISY CAFN Archive Page where you can find this latest offering as well as all of their past episodes. 

We were really happy to hear that this artist was the one being featured.  We here at  home have been wanting to show his work on here for a long time now.  So happy that we can expose you to JRNY FAN if you haven't heard of him already!


Friday, May 9, 2014

The prize winner for the STAR WARS: REBELS Customizing Challenge has been announced!



The winner for the joint STAR WARS: REBELS Customizing Challenge held by Imperialshipyards.net and Yakface.com has been announced. We feel it's a great thing to see fan sites come together, and see fans across the world take part in creating custom figures in these events. For their most recent customizing challenge, they had many entries - of those, ONE RANDOM WINNER was selected... but before we announce that, we'd like to recognize all the various customizers who took part: CHEWIE, darthcrassus, darth_sidous, Elias, I-am-Boba-Fett, mousedroidhoojib, OC47150, Scarrviper, THEMADJAWA, and ThrawnFan01. Click on through to see the winner!


Contest winner announcement.



Thursday, May 8, 2014

Hunter Knight Customs Added to "Customs I Wish I Owned"




Hunter Knight Customs began in 2008 when they made a car for the Hollywood movie "Sex Drive".  After that they started a custom action figure division which became their main product line. HKC is owned by Chris "Hunter" Diaz, and since then they have made more than 1.000 figures for the commercial market, from Masters of the Universe, Marvel Legends, Marvel Universe, DC Universe Classics, and Star Wars. HKC has been featured on sites like MTV and He-man.org. Hunter Knight Customs main website http://www.hunterknightonline.com/ has a collection of videos dating to the very first figure that was made in 2008 to his latest releases... all featured in video format!

We have two action figures created by Hunter Knight Customs and we couldn't be happier with his figures.


HUNTER KNIGHT CUSTOMS










Facebook page:

Instagram:

Online store:

Youtube channel:

Check our weekly Ebay custom figure auctions:
http://tinyurl.com/hunterknight






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


CLICK HERE TO READ




The Realm Recap: Episode #13 - Episode VII - It's real and it's spectacular




Sunday, May 4, 2014

CUSTOMS FOR THE KID - THE STAR WARS DAY TOUR

Hello everyone, Happy Star Wars Day!  Today we thought we'd do something really special to celebrate our love of Star Wars.  A Star Wars party at our house.  A behind the scenes look at where the blog is created.  

We thought it would be cool if our audience saw how simple our facilities here are and that it doesn't take a fancy workshop to make something really cool.  

We also threw together a video slideshow featuring a small selection of our work that includes super easy custom action figures that are great projects for a beginner customizer through to more complex sculpted figures for the advanced veterans.  

The YouTube version of the slideshow is a bit muddier than the high definition Animoto version we posted below, but the behind the scenes footage is only available on the YouTube video.  The YouTube video also features a quick thank you from Dad to Vanessa Marshall who will be voicing Hera Syndulla on Disney's Star Wars: Rebels this fall on Disney XD!  She gave Dad's Bo Katan custom action figure a shout out on Twitter and it totally made Dad's weekend.






For a high definition version of our video slideshow PLAY THIS VIDEO.















http://customsforthekid.blogspot.com/2014/02/bo-katan-created-by-darth-daddy-jay.html
BO KATAN


Wednesday, April 30, 2014

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: Sith_fire30


Darth Daddy's Customizing Corner featured Star Wars customizer Sith_fire30 in the latest Customizing Corner over at The Star Wars Underworld.


CLICK HERE TO READ




Now Dayton Allen aka Sith_fire30 is always the first name you will hear out of pretty much every customizer's mouth when you ask them who's the best Star Wars customizer out there today, and I will second that statement without any hesitation. Dayton has definitely influenced me more than any other artist I've come across since I became part of the community. If it weren't for Dayton, I don't think I ever would have started sculpting.

His sculpt work and his paint applications are downright phenomenal, and his talents have already earned him some serious recognition. Sith_fire30 is one of the few customizing artists to ever appear within the pages of Star Wars Insider (Issue 121). Sith_fire30 was also chosen as one of the customizers asked to host the first ever Star Wars Custom Action Figure Panel at Star Wars Celebration VI, alongside artists Sillof and Luke Sprywalker.

Sith_fire30 has taken the bar and raised it so high, I just can't see any artist surpassing what he has accomplished. He is constantly adding new techniques to his toolbox enhancing his art.  Just take a look at the image of the Savage Opress below. The entire figure has little magnets inserted into the body at different points throughout the figure, all hidden, drilled into place, and sculpted over. He also sculpted magnets into Savage's armor so the it just clings to the body when it's brought near. 

Genius!

Dayton creates the ultimate editions of our favorite characters complete with alternate head sculpts and armor with battle damage, consistently creating the most ideal figure for every situation. And the best part about Sith_fire30 is that he knows how to keep the action in the figure. He gives all of his action figures super-articulation. His figures have silenced even the harshest of critics. He has taken action figure art beyond where we ever dreamed it could go. It's just amazing how he fits in all the detail and articulation in a 3 3/4" scale action figure.

This talented customizer and diorama builder also writes a super informative blog that takes you step by step through his creative process while also providing great educational bits like his wonderful eye painting tutorialSith_fire30 has one of the best custom action figure blogs out there. His video tutorials on Youtube detailing how to do molding and casting were absolutely priceless when I began to teach myself those techniques at home.  He hasn't been posting on his blog quite as often as he used to, but he is always updating his Facebook page with the latest progress on his current projects.

Unfortunately it has been a while since Dayton has created any new Star Wars offerings due to being tied up with his current projects, but if you are a fan of the Alien franchise, head to his Flickr page now. His latest work is even more mind-blowing than his older projects.



































Click any of the links below for more from Sith_Fire30: