Custom Resin Figure – The Toxic Avenger

 This was a side project that I finished back in October and to be perfectly honest, I was kind of on the fence about giving it a write-up but since I haven’t updated in over a month due to the usual combination of holiday stuff, work stuff, and generally prioritizing catching up on my projects over blogging. But since I haven’t made a mind-blowing amount of progress on my major projects (the Mecha Burger action figure being chief among them but I’ve also gotten more into improving my sculpting skills as well with various practice projects), I decided to just go ahead and post this to tide the blog over while I continue to chip away at the big ticket items.

This project started life at a random resin recast of a Lex Luger from Galoob’s early 90’s WCW line of non-articulated figures. I had initially made the mold of this figure to pour melted Monster Clay into to use as a kind of base body type for sculpting projects but I ended up making a few urethane resin castings from it as well. I didn’t have any real idea what to do with these castings until I saw that I also had some head casts that I duplicated from my vintage Toxie figure from the Toxic Crusaders line. It dawned on me that the scale of the Toxie head seemed a decent match for the Luger body and I was off to the races.

After decapitating the Lexorcist with my trusty coping saw, I cleaned up the neck stump with my dremel. I made sure to sand off what remained of his mullet and drilled a little hole in both the neck as well as the bottom of the Toxie head. I cut off a little piece of a dowel rod and glued it upright in the neck hole so that it would provide more of a mechanical connection to secure the head.

I covered up the piece of dowel rod with some Green Stuff to add some volume to the neck.

Once the Green Stuff was cured, I started supergluing on some Dollar Tree bead stickers to act as the various bumps and boils that cover this hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength. These are especially prominent in the original Toxie figure from the Playmates Toxic Crusaders line and I wanted to do my best to replicate that look here.

Then I mixed up some Milliput to sculpt on Toxie’s iconic tutu as well as the straps on his singlet and the rips in his tights. I placed the rips just above the knees because I liked how Toxie looked in kneepads and wrestling boots. It seemed like something he would wear in the movies (even though I don’t think it was ever part of the costume).

I also sculpted some more bumps and boils in different sizes to add some variation and make the surface details look less uniform.

Once the Milliput was cured, I primed the figure first with Duplicolor adhesion promoter and then a white undercoat. No particular reason for choosing white over my usual black or gray primer coats. I just felt like doing something a little different.

Since this project was quite a while ago, I’m going to have to guess at what I used for the basecoat colors. I believe the skin is a mix of Citadel Bugman’s Glow and Rakarth Flex with a little Orruk Flesh to add a greenish tinge. I wanted to go for a more move-inspired look than a Toxic Crusader’s cartoon look, hence why I didn’t paint him all green.

The pink was probably my go-to mix of Citadel Mephiston Red and a white (either Vallejo White or Citadel White Scar). The boots might have been Vallejo Dark Gray and all the other shades of gray seen here is likely Reaper Mountain Stone

Also, that base is a urethane resin copy of a 3D printed stand for Masters of the Universe figures that I bought on ebay, sanded down, molded and resin casted many, many times. This particular stand, I chopped off the little hooks where you place the MOTU figure’s feet and glued Toxie to it shortly before painting him. I think this base was also cast in resin that I dyed a darker gray and just dry brushed my lighter gray mixture over it.

I went really heavy on the washes here, giving his skin a generous helping of Reikland Fleshshade and slathered everything else in Agrax Earthshade. Again, I was going for a grungier, movie-inspired look here and I thought Agrax Earthshade achieved that end especially well.

After that was a simple dry brushing of the base pink color for his tights and what I think was a mixture of Orruk Flesh and Vallejo basic flesh tone to add some highlights to the skin. Then I hit the figure with a protective clearcoat (I went with a matte finish this time) and called it a day.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison with the original Lex Luger figure on the left, some extra castings of the figure and the Toxie head in the middle, and the finished product on the right. Overall, this was a fun little diversion from my major projects and I’m pleased with how it came out given how little time I put into it.