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.

Friday, January 23, 2015

DARTH DADDY's CUSTOMIZING CORNER: WILLROW HOOD

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.
































Tuesday, January 20, 2015

"Zeb's Extended Bo-Rifle" created by Darth Daddy

As soon as I finished creating the extended bo-rifle for my custom Agent Kallus action figure, I knew I needed to create an extended bo-rifle to use with our Zeb action figures.  Especially if we wanted to recreate that epic battle between Kallus and Zeb in the Rebels episode Droids in Distress.

To make the extended version of Zeb's AB-75 bo-rifle I used some clear styrene rod and then used twisted clear rubber bands to simulate the pulsing energy strands found at the ends.  It used two of Zeb's rifles to arrange the bo-rifle the way that I did it.  I included work in progress pictures at the bottom so you can see where I extended the bo-rifle with the polystyrene rod.  The clear rubber bands are glued in place with krazy glue.  I drilled through and into some of the Hasbro bow rifle parts so the polystyrene would have stronger connections when glued into place.


"Zeb's Extended AB-75 Bo-Rifle"
created by Darth Daddy









SKILL LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE



SUPER-ARTICULATED
"GARAZEB ORRELIOS aka ZEB"
created by SWK KUSTOMS

 &
SUPER-ARTICULATED
"AGENT KALLUS" 
created by Darth Daddy













WORK IN PROGRESS

PICTURES


 Dad used 2 bo-rifles, clear styrene rod, krazy glue and clear rubber bands to create an extended bo-rifle for Zeb.



 After I painted the bo-rifle a uniform color and painted the clear rubber bands purple, I added a brown wash to bring out the details.  Afterwards, I painted the bandages on the weapon a light beige color, and then added a brown wash over that paint layer as well.



Dad's version of "Zeb's Extended Bo-Rifle" was featured on the front page of Imperial Shipyards.




"AGENT KALLUS" 
created by Darth Daddy





SUPER-ARTICULATED
"GARAZEB ORRELIOS aka ZEB"
created by SWK KUSTOMS