1998

A while back some of my favorite customizers were talking in the comments here remarking about how wonderful this format is, because you can take a quick glance and see all of a customizer's work. They're right. This is a great format. But almost none of my work is here. Well I've seen people post older customs here, and I thought, why not me? So I'm just gonna start at the beginning and go through everything, and anything before this can be ignored or deleted. Is that all right?

This was one of the first projects I ever did. Like a lot of folks, it was McFarlane Toys that got me into action figures as an adult. Specifically the Manga Spawn line. I saw that Manga Samurai Spawn on the shelf and it blew my mind. I was hooked. But McFarlane had beautiful photos of beautiful prototypes that never quite came out as good in production, especially the ill-fated Manga Spawn II line. Those had serious issues. That factory was never used again. A shame too because some of those toys were really nice in design, like the Manga Freak here.

So while most of my early McFarlane toys were touched up to some extent, this one was a major project. This is a repaint, but there's more than just that. The wire on the right side of his head was missing. I replaced it with some actual wire. The red button/light on his chest was missing. I used a thumbtack that I sanded smooth and painted bright. The panel lines on his chest were gone. And then there was the detailing. Boy the factory sure missed the mark - even the basic colors of the prototype - pale yellow, darker pale yellow and black - came out pale yellow, dark brown and black. So all of that secondary yellow color was replaced. And I went so far as to drill a hole into the toy, drop some silver in it, and then paint in the scorch marks for all the bullet holes. Every little bit of paint detail had to be redone. It was a lot of work, but I love the result. In fact, there are some areas I left brown originally on the inner legs, I'm not sure why, greater variety? And I went back in and matched the secondary yellow color and touched up those areas and did their detailing again. So while this is one of my first customs, it is also my latest.