Miniature Customization – Dollar Tree Disco Skeletor

During one of my occasional trips to the Dollar Tree (the ultimate source for dirty cheap crafting materials), I found some neat little Masters of the Universe figurines. Like everything in the store, they were only a dollar so I picked up two Skeletors and would have picked up two He-Mans as well but the only other He-Man they had was broken inside the package. Ah well. They had a Merman too, but I decided to pass because his face was just…hoo boy. I should I gotten it just for the picture alone.

At any rate, I knew I was going to do some customizing and the gears in my head started turning before I even got the figurines home. It didn’t take me long to come up with a new color scheme for one of my Skeletors and I knew right then and there that I would transform him into an homage to the now-legendary variant from the 200X MOTU series…the infamous Disco Skeletor! I highly recommend watching Spector Creative’s video on this history of Disco Skeletor (as well as pretty much all of his videos if you’re at all interested in action figures and how they’re made, it’s great stuff).

But enough background, on to the painting. Here is the Skeletor I plan on converting primed in gray alongside the default figurine.

Before priming, I washed the figure in water and dish soap after some light sanding. The figurine is a soft, rubbery plastic (if you couldn’t already tell from his noodle staff) so I didn’t have to score the surface as much as I would have with a miniature cast in harder plastic. The lines on his mouth were individually painted on the surface and knowing that I didn’t have a steady enough hand or fine enough brush to replicate them (nor would I have had much fun trying), I scored the lines with a hobby knife in the hopes that the paint would flow into the recesses this would create as if they were details etched into the figurine. I probably should have cut a but deeper, but it was difficult to see just how wide and deep the cuts were because of how tiny and black the lines were.

After I primed the figure, I ran into the same problem I did when I primed my custom Ninja Commando action figure kitbash (which also had a similar softer plastic material) with the same Rustoleum gray. Even after letting it cure for two or three days, the figure still felt sticky to the touch. My previous solution to this (as seen in the making of my Fireteam X customs) was dunking it in baking soda but I decided to use this project as a guinea pig for a different method of dealing with this to see if it would work for my Ninja Commando project. Instead of baking soda, I would spray the figure with the same Krylon crystal clear coat that I typically reserve for sealing in completed paintjobs.

I had apprehensions about this because I was worried that the figure wouldn’t take paint due to the glossy finish. I suppose I could have used my recently purchased matte clear coat protective spray, but I heard somewhere that clear coats with a glossy finish were better at dealing with sticky/tacky paints so that what I tried. And it worked! Like with my bootleg Transformer redeco, my fears that my paints wouldn’t stick to a glossy surface were once again unfounded.

The minor hurdles now behind me, I set about laying down my basecoat.

Going forward, I want to try to streamline these articles somewhat, so I’m just going to start listing off the paints I used like so:

• Citadel Abbadon Black
• Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue
• Orange - Citadel Averland Sunset (mixed w/bit of Citadel Mephiston Red)
• Gold – Citadel Retributor Armor
• Light blue (hands and feet) - Macragge Blue w/Corax White for hands and feet
• The stand/base - Citadel Mechanicus Standard Gray, dry brushed with Runefang Silver and Runelord Brass
• Vallejo thinner medium (I mix a drop or two with everything on my wet palette using a damp long-bristled brush that I use just for the purpose of mixing paints since it’s gentle enough not to tear up the parchment paper)

Oh and a note about Corax White. I heard from other youtube videos about miniature painting that it was a garbage product but no one really explained why (I’d just assumed they didn’t like the color). When I opened the lid on it, I immediately found out why: the paint had streaks of black gunk in it and about half the bottle was a dried-up ball of gunk. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it when I fished it out of the paint pot, but believe me when I say that it resembled a tiny volcanic rock and was dry to the touch. Out of the dozen or so paints in the Warhammer 40k paints and tools set that it came with, Corax White was the only one that was messed up to such a degree. So if you’re looking to buy an individual pot of Corax White, do not. Still, after mixing some drops of Vallejo thinner medium into the bottle and giving it a good shake, I was able to get some onto my wet palette to mix for the light blue. But I'm probably never going to use that crap ever again.

It’s probably hard to see in the picture below, but I did add a wash to the figure (just Citadel Nuln Oil) as I mostly tried to get into the recesses on his skull and between the details in his gold armor.

After the wash, I did some touching up and dry brushing here and there though admittedly, it wasn’t much and the areas where I got some metallic paint on his feet weren’t noticeable to me until I took these zoomed in pictures. Oops. I went ahead and went over the figure with another protective clear coat and called it a day.

For a bonus, here he is once again side-by-side with the original figurine:

This was an enjoyable little project and I’m glad I learned that using a protective clear coat after a primer can be used as an alternate solution to the age old problem of sticky surfaces. Still, between this and my struggles with my Ninja Commando project, I think I’m going to invest in a different, more slightly expensive primer. I’ve heard Duplicolor Adhesion Promoter recommended by people who customize Marvel Legends figures (which, I’m told, also utilize a softer plastic) so I’m probably going to pick up a can or two when I get a chance.