What’s On My Desk – 11/16/21

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I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since I last made an update post on my current works-in-progress but time has been really flying by this year. As a whole, 2021 feels like a video I’m watching in 2x playback speed. 

But without further ado, here’s what’s currently on my desk:


Starting from the back row, we have:

  • The Death Barbarian – Started this guy sometime in October and I haven’t done much with him since sculpting his skelly mask in Green Stuff. I need to sand down and smooth out the knee-high boots I sculpted out of milliput and add some additional worbla detailing before this guy is ready to paint.
  • Captain Ray (aka Capitan Rayo) – This summer, I found a Superman Returns figure at a garage sale and had no idea what to do with him until recently. Inspiration struck when I was watching youtube videos on rare action figures (collector holy grails) and thought it might be fun to paint the figure like the legendary Columbian Super Powers figure. Much like Wonderbread He-Man and to a lesser extent, Disco Skeletor, Captain Ray has taken on a life of his own and is one of those characters that I think every budding action figure customizer should try their hand at making their own unique version. I primed him in flat black and painted his belts, boots, and trunks first. I just need to add another coat of black to his suit and hair, maybe add a wash to darken his skin, and create his lightning bolt chest-insignia out of worbla.
  • The remaining two Blade Sisters (a Wolverine deco and Strider Hiryu deco) – I decided to use the last two Final Faction Shift repaints in my three-figure Blade Sisters projects as practice for painting eyes. I couldn’t quite get the left eye for the Strider one quite right so I just sculpted her an anime-esque fringe to cover up the crimes. After I touch up their paint jobs, clean up the lines, and add a protective clear coat, I need to make them some custom blade weapons (I’m thinking a tonfa-sword for the Strider one and a pair of wrist-mounted katar blades for the Wolverine homage) before I’m ready to call it a day on this project.
  • Sgt. Meltdown (tentative name) – Not sure if this guy has popped up in a WIP post before, but he’s another garage sale find from this summer. I have no idea what toyline he came from, though if I had to guess, I’d say maybe he was once part of an older Lanard Corps vehicle or playset (or one of the many Corps rip-offs). While looking at old 90’s toys on ebay for inspiration, I decided to paint him like the Meltdown Terminator from the Kenner T2 line. Just something about his yellow shirt and camo pants really appealed to me. After I add the camo pattern to his pants, I’m going to sculpt him a new haircut out of milliput since I don’t like the one he currently has (I added a Rambo-style headband but that didn’t improve the overall look of his head as much as I’d hoped). Then I’m going to clean up the messy areas, give him a black and silver bandolier (which I’m salvaging from one of the Fortnite figures I’m keeping as custom fodder), and wrap this guy up.
  • Final Fantasy-style Black Mage (Dollar Tree Batman Conversion) – I picked up a second Dollar Tree Batman figurine, identical to the one I used as the base for my Dead Cells Beheaded homage. This will be a fairly extensive conversion but it’s one I’m really excited about. And if you couldn’t tell from the pile of beads on his base, I’m giving him a Moogle partner as well.
  • Zilla Repaint – Years ago, I bought a bag of miniature Godzilla figures on Aliexpress to adorn my “monster shelf” (where I keep my horror/monster-related figure collection, naturally). But recently, I was watching a youtube video about prototypes for unproduced toys based on the late 90’s Godzilla animated series and was taken by this crazy blue and purple zilla prototype. Since I had a miniature Zilla on hand, I made up my mind to give him a similar paint job as a nod to this toy-that-never-was. So far, all I’ve done is prime him with Bulldog Adhesion promoter, but it should make for a fun quickie project.

At any rate, that's what I’m working on at the moment (some of these projects more than others) and I’ll try to wrap up what I can by the end of this week, but with the holidays fast approaching and the vacation time I’ve scheduled to be with the family in Ohio, I’ll be entering another period where I won’t be able to craft anything. My plan for this weekend is to finish up as much as I can on the below listed WIPs and pick back up on whatever’s left sometime in December.

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