Custom Figures – Based on a True Story

I confess that I’m deliberately not showing my best work at the start. If following these in order, I’m hoping that some semblance of progress will be visible.

Or maybe none at all. Every piece is different and has its own challenges, especially when trying to make custom figures of real people, and not necessarily having the best reference pictures. You’ll see what I mean by the end.

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JOHNNY DEPP

Not Jack Sparrow or Ichabod Crane or Sweeney Todd or Gilbert Grape, but… just Johnny Depp, man about town. I don’t count this as one of my bad pieces because of the facial likeness. BUT…

See, I make no claims to sculpting his likeness.  That was the work of the fine artist(s) at NECA.  One of their inaction figures was a 12″ Jack Sparrow with an uncannily accurate head sculpt of Johnny.  I’ve tried numerous times to get his face right, and keep blowing it, so I cheated and tore off NECA Jack’s head, removed the giant vinyl “hair” and ground off the beard and mustache.  Removing the hair left big gouges in the head, so I filled those in with Aves Apoxie (IMHO, an improvement over Magic Sculp) and got his head shape back to normal.  Bald, but normal.  No ears had been sculpted, so I had to do that myself. Same for the fedora-like white hat. That was all epoxy.

My goal was to create a generic Johnny head that I could then cast as needed for different characters.  Ironically, since Johnny is often sporting a Sparrow-like beard and mustache (minus those little chin braids), I had to sculpt those back on with Apoxie. The glasses were purchased from somebody on Ebay that prints doll-sized glasses onto very thin, clear plastic sheets.

Johnny likes bling and tattoos, so I did what I could to recreate them. In the case of the tattoos – just some Sharpie markers, folks. No needles. Because needles on plastic would make no sense.

Where is he now? For some reason I decided to gift him to a coworker who is a… er, great admirer of his, to the point where she was willing to watch Sweeney Todd twice because it meant being able to stare at closeups of his face.

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JESUS, Last Temptation style

I was a member of a Christian church long ago, and consider myself only a visitor at the one I attend now, but my decision to make a custom figure of Jesus wasn’t inspired by devotion or faith, I don’t think. It’s mostly because a friend had given me a 1/6 scale resin head of Willem Dafoe for a doll of his Platoon character. I didn’t want to make a Green Goblin figure, but the fact that Willem Dafoe, one of our creepier-looking actors, had played Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ, well… the temptation was too great.

There are three materials for the head. The main part is resin. The beard and mustache is either Magic Sculp or Aves Apoxie Sculpt – at one time I switched brands – and the mass of hair is plain Super Sculpey. The dark color tells me that it was baked for a particularly long time.

I bake Super Sculpey at 200 degrees, which guarantees curing without burning it, too. Sometimes I, um… forget that the oven is on when I leave for work. I consider myself a rather lucky girl for still having a house.

The original mop of hair and headband that the Platoon character had, had been filed and sanded away before I started adding Jesus’ own hair.

And now for the body!

His costume in the movie was very, very simple, as you can see. Except for one scene, when he had a purple shawl over his shoulders, this white robe and leather sandals were it. That made my sewing work easier, but it did worry me that there was nothing to embellish.

Look at them baby blues!

I ended up donating 1/6 Jesus to my church’s fundraising auction. I think it ended up with the Sunday School as a teaching tool, but don’t ask me what they’re using the doll to teach.

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LEX LUTHOR… or bald VINCE MCMAHON?

Both, actually.

This was a commissioned piece of none other than Vince McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Federation. I would never, under any other circumstances, be interested in capturing Vince McMahon’s likeness in any medium. Before you say, “Hey!  Vince has a full head of hair, you twit!”   both I and my client know this. You might also say, “Hey! That doesn’t look like him at all!” and I’d be inclined to agree, but my client liked it, so I can’t complain too much.

For some reason it was very important that Vince’s look be captured right after he’d lost his bet with Donald Trump. For those unfamiliar with the works of WWF, the two kajillionnaires made a public bet to shave off his hair if his selected wrestling champion lost whatever match they’d organize. I’m no fan of WWF, so did not watch the match, but my client told me that Vince’s champion lost, so Vince had to go bald.

If you’re thinking, “That looks more like Lex Luthor than anyone else,” you’re getting warmer!

Vince began as a DC Direct 12″ Lex Luthor action figure.  For those unfamiliar with the 12″ DC Direct line of figures, each figure was ridiculously muscled, which impacted poseability.  This didn’t bother my client, so onward and upward.

So. Vince started as a bald guy already, but Lex’s face needed work before it would resemble Vince’s. Also, the Lex figure was in an old “Superfriends”-style purple and green costume, with “gloves” that had molded gadgets on top. This required some grinding down, and then touches here and there of epoxy to fill in gouged-out spots. Epoxy was also used for the facial modifications.

Vince’s suit was donated by the Clark Kent side of DC Direct’s Clark Kent/Superman figure (Yes, I KNOW how much I could’ve gotten on Ebay for that doll).

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REVEREND LAURA

The same person who paid me to customize Lex Luthor into Vince McMahon also wanted me to make a figure of our then-church’s pastor, Rev.Laura. Like Alanis Morrisette as God from the previous post, I saved the worst for last. This is an example of how important it is to have good reference photos, lest ye suffer.

Adding to the pain are the very blurry photos. This piece had a deadline, you see, which I made somewhere around 1am the morning the piece was to be delivered to her. At the time I did not have my digital camera and could not check the clarity of the pictures right away. I groggily snapped the pictures of her doll against my microwave, wrapped it up, and went to bed, only to get up at 8 that same morning to attend church.

You may be wondering about the monkey puppet.  Rev. Laura is also a puppeteer who sometimes uses them as part of Children’s Time, and believe it or not, incorporates them into sermons, albeit more rarely. Her apparent favorite is Pedro, a monkey always adorned with a scarf, bandana (not banana) and shades. Due to the clandestine nature of this commission, the only photos I had of Rev. Laura were long-distance shots taken by my client, and being candids, showed different expressions and not all the angles I needed. As for Pedro, he was recreated from memory. Thus, details I got wrong are that Pedro is actually operated with his legs wrapped all the way around her waist, and Rev. Laura’s vestments are too short. The facial likeness isn’t perfect, either, but I only had long-distance shots to work from.

But I won’t leave you entirely in the lurch…

  

What’s this, now? This is a sculpted version of Rev. Laura, made entirely of colored blocks of Sculpey, marketed as Sculpey III. It was not commissioned, but made as a get-well gift for when she had foot surgery. That’s why her puppet monkey Pedro is wearing a sympathy cast.

Those aren’t real names on the cast, but scribbles, so no need to strain to read them.