A LONG time in the making...I originally made a Crowe Jor-el several months before Man of Steel was released, right after the first leaked pics of him in his costume made their way to the Internet. Looking back on it, it wasn't that great of an attempt.

Flash forward a few years...my custom skills have improved a great deal and I felt ready to tackle this project. I wanted this figure to look as much like the Hot Toys 1/6 figure as I could possibly make it, so I gobbled up pics of THAT figure and got to work.

Clearly the hard part was making the costume. This entire suit is made from a very thin, flexible pleather. The tunic portion was made from two pieces (upper and lower) and then had the different strips applied to give it a layered look. The piping was superglued in place and it's made from Christmas ornament plastic hooks that I shaped. I used the same method for the sleeves, except the piping there is made of a braided thick thread so it could remain flexible enough for the arms to bend. The gauntlets are sculpted. The tunic portion is slightly poseable, but it's probably best to pose it as is. The cape came from one of those 7-inch Superman Returns gimmick figures. Seemed appropriate to use that cape for this figure. The entire suit/robes (minus the cape) were given a very heavy drybrush of a righ crimson/maroon paint mix and then the piping was painted gold.

Naturally the head came from a Movie Masters Jor-el, and it's a cast I got from the Casting Cave. Another difficult part was the armor. The chest symbol was sculpted separately and in stages, then superglued into place. Same goes for the shoulder armor which was attached with pleather strips and remain loose enough for the figure's arms to raise. All the paint work on the armor was done in stages. First in black and then with various shades of brown. It's also worth pointing out that I sculpted the "Superman suit texture" on the arms to complete the look.

Overall, I'm really happy with it and I'm gonna wait to see if I get any good offers on this one before I list it on eBay. Sorry for the long write-up, but I DID want to share how this was put together as I know several of you Superman fans would love to (and are totally capable of) make one of these for yourself! Thanks for looking!