Miscellaneous Gallery - Friends et al

Last Updated: 5/1/08

Attacktix me, Pizza accessory added.

This is mostly work done of friends, or of their characters, or inspired by them. It also holds some self-portraiture and any works I can't really classify any other way.

Of/For Friends

The Laughing Ogre: This is the mascot of a great comic shop in Columbus, Ohio (and the place where I get Army Ants, see above). Here's a picture of the Ogre from their business card. The base toy I used was the Cyclops from Disney's Hercules toy line. Most of the detail I added was with Milliputt epoxy modeling putty, regular grade (which I found to be a LOT easier to work with than the fine grade I'd been using), with the tattered cuffs and hair built from structural paint. I disabled the toy's spring-action gimmick for two reasons: to get better sculpt on the torso, and to keep the pillar from whacking off the figure's newly-added nose. Yes, the toy's supposed to hit itself in the face after missing Hercules. For that minty green color the Ogre has, I picked up a bottle of Sage Green (ironic choice of color name) for sixty cents...so what if I never use the color again? :) After I finished painting, I realized the buckles were nonfunctional, since the belts didn't actually loop through them. Oops. Just following the model sheet.... Oh, and while it may not be obvious in this scan, I used a green wash on the skin and a black wash on the clothing. The figure's belly doesn't normally glow like that, it's just an artifact of direct-scanning. 10/27/98. I'm including it here because the Laughing Ogre has appeared in a small-press comic, namely the Cow-Boy special, by Jay Hosler.
Evil Deirdre: This is mostly just a repaint of the Deirdre figure from the Mystic Knights of Tir na Nog line, done in "evil" colors as was suggested on rec.toys.action-figures.discuss. I made two significant physical changes, however. One, I cut the helmet wings down from bird wings into dragon wings, and two, I gave her an Interchangeable Action Hand! Woo. The base figure I used was the first Deirdre I got, where I discovered that the wrist joints are fragile. REALLY fragile. As in, I broke one. For a while I just pinned the hand back on with a short length of pin, but when I rebuilt the figure into Evil Deirdre I cut out the remaining peg inside the wrist. Then I cut the knob off the stock of her crossbow so that it would fit inside her wrist hole. Not being one to waste materials, I then glued the left hand onto the stock bit I'd cut off. To add a third item to her armory, I found that the flame blast from the Total Chaos Al Simmons figure's flamethrower fit nicely in the wrist hole, so I gave it to her. The figure's shield clips to her shoulder and resembles an additional piece of armor, since A) I don't want to scrape off paint by clipping the shield onto her forearm, and B) her forearms are too thin to hold the shield on well anyway. Completed 11/9/98. UPDATE 12/25/99: Now I also have a second version based on the Deirdre that comes with the Battle Car set. Made this as a present for a friend named Deirdre.
Dr. Leonard Jossem: An emeritus professor here at the Ohio State University and part of my research group. He recently turned 80, on the same day that The Phantom Menace hit theaters. Someone joked that Hasbro should release an action figure of him...so I got a Grand Moff Tarkin and went to work. I cut down the collar and built up the business suit top using epoxy putty. I also used putty to add length to the pants. The glasses were made from a strip of overhead transparency sheet and some paint. The sheaf of documents was made from gluing some styrene sheeting together until it was thick enough to be held in the figure's hand. Finally, to give it some gimmick factor, I cut off one boot heel and replaced it with a rare earth magnet from Radio Shack. The figure can walk up metal walls now. Completed 5/31/99 (held off on posting the scan until I could present the figure to him at a group meeting).
Mecha-Alex: A friend of mine alternately known as Alex, Squid and "who the heck let HIM in?" is into mecha and stuff with tentacles, among other things. I happened to have a bunch of spare tentacles from a recent Doctor Octopus figure (four go onto his motorized gimmick backpack, the other four can go directly on the figure if you prefer a classic look). I used a beat up Iron Man figure I picked up at a resale store as the base, the boots of a Dillfam (Round Vernian model kit) on the feet, replaced his left hand with a Lego block (which I drilled out so it now looks like a missile launcher attachment), added various connector pieces with plastic rods and Lego, filled in shapes with Milliput, etc. For the head, I sliced down into the skull with my Dremel cutter, then inserted a piece of styrene sheet for the blade/frill. I covered the face in putty and added googly eyes (which I then painted over). The boots are filled with copper BBs for stability, and all 8 tentacles are removable (or, as Alex would probably prefer to think of them as, independently mobile). The upper four tentacles work like bendy straws, the lower four are the traditional wire-in-plastic bendems. The little figure in one of the claws came with my Iron Giant toy. Completed 11/14/99.
Monax: Ellen Kiley's Aberrant character, created from a Turok-line Adon figure and some putty. Removed the stupid spurs the Adon figure had, flattened out the collar area and gave her new hair and a bigger skull (Monax has some Taint). The Team Tomorrow logo on the collar area isn't too visible in the scans, ah well. Adon's eyes are just big enough that I was able to not only paint in irises and pupils, but also the obligatory pinpoint highlights. 4/26/00.
Wedding Cake Topper: A friend of mine from Transformers fandom is getting married in 2007, or was married in 2007, depending on when you read this. :) He asked me to customize him a wedding cake topper reflecting both his fandom and his fiancee's. Her interest was in the Magic School Bus's Ms. Frizzle, plus turtles. He supplied an Axer for me to spiff up, the rest is stuff I found.
- The Groom: Actionmaster Axer. All I really did was repaint it in metallics to represent being all polished up for the ceremony.
- The Bride: I ended up hacking together two Polly Pocket figures (one had the right hairstyle more or less, the other had a magnetic hard plastic dress I could customize). I made the hair a little frizzier with hot glue. The earrings were made from metal beads and putty, and I painted turtles on the dress. After toying with a doll base (one of those metal bar things) I gave up on that and glued a pair of Polly's shoes to a piece of clear plastic.
- Liz: Optional. I tried making Liz, Ms. Frizzle's reptilian sidekick, from a toy Triceratops and some BBs. It's a tad disturbing.
- The Base: A dollar store dollhouse table spraypainted white and then painted with an oval projection of the world (the Winkel Triple Projection) on it. The table straddles a turtle, just to work in more turtles. For a proper Discworld (or ancient real world mythology) reference I would have needed some elephants too.
Marah "Peep": My niece Marah got interested in classic Fisher Price Little People, and calls them "Peeps". I got a bunch for her on eBay, and at my sister's suggestion repainted some of the doubles. A little girl with a missing pigtail became Marah (who is in an only-wears-pink phase). November 2007.

Me!

Action Figure: Yep, me. I made an action figure of myself as a Christmas present for my grandma. I'm pretty sure she's not online, so it's safe to put this picture up now. The base was a WWF Superstars Savio Vega, who had the major advantages of being pudgy and wearing pants. Unfortunately, it turned out that the head and arms are rubbery plastic, so I decided it would be a bad idea to use putty or Sculpey. After filing down or cutting off extraneous details like jewelry and the too-wide nose, I built up the hair and sleeves with structural paint, which dries as rubbery as the figure. I built the glasses from a piece of trading card "clamshell", a short bit of copper wire and some gold paint. I don't actually own a shirt with the Ohio State block-O on it, but figured it'd help identify the figure as me in case Grandma doesn't see the likeness. :) 10/8/98
Stuffed Dave: A branch of the Hobby Lobby chain recently opened in Columbus, and I found a series of blank rag dolls there. Grabbing the 24" one for five bucks, I decided to make it into a version of myself, another present for Grandma. Basically, I just drew on this with fabric markers. The one I was using for fleshtone burned out halfway through, and unfortunately the replacement was a lighter color. Ah well. In despair over his uneven skin tone, the doll tried to commit suicide, but I stopped him. 3/6/00
"Peep" Dave: A classic Fisher-Price Little People figure repainted to resemble me, done as a gift for my niece Marah. November 2007.
Attacktix Dave: A Pops Racer action figure from the 2008 Speed Racer movie line with a reshaped head, glasses, a watch and PDA. Placed on the base from Grand Moff Tarkin's Attacktix and given his gun, but neither is glued on. April 2008.
- Finished figure: 1, 2, 3
- Works in Progress: 1, 2

Everything Else

iPod Shufffle Minimate: I painted an iPod Shuffle control wheel on the chest of a white "Free Comic Book Day" Mini-Mate figure. 5/24/05.
Scythe: I give a quiz on physical pendulums each year, and I like to use a scythe as the example. Unfortunately, a small but significant number of my students don't know what the word means (either they're hopelessly urban, or don't speak English as a first language and didn't learn the word yet). So I made one out of styrene pieces (shaft and blade are 1/4" by 1/8" rectangular rod pieces) and a lot of Dremeling and filing. Leaving the wood parts rough from the Dremel sander made it easier to ink wash for a wood grain effect. 11/16/07.
1:12 Scale Pizza: I decided to use the Dvandomtix figure to shoot some video letters for Marah (and Anne, although she's too young to follow what's happening), and one scene called for a pizza party. I managed to buy sodas of the right scale, and a table, but no pizza. So I made some. The "peel" is sheet styrene, the pizza itself is Apoxie Sculpt. I got the woodgrain effect (albeit in the wrong direction, oops) by streaking darker brown paint onto wet light brown paint. April 2008.