Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What's up with your spelling?

How dare you, I'm an English graduate! I live in England, so my spelling is UK English.

Can you teach me how to customise?

I can't give individual tuition, but I can point you to some helpful tips:

Where do you get the parts to make these customs?

I buy action figures on eBay, or online toy stores. I pay full price, like a normal buyer. Sometimes I can find them cheap, sometimes they're expensive. If I see something really interesting, like the "essence of..." statues, I pay a fortune, and make no profit from altering and reselling them. My muse is stupid like that.

What do the toy companies think about you using their figures to make customs? Do they mind?

No. In fact they support customising online forums. Clayburn Moore (head of MAC) was kind enough to compliment my work. Diamond Select Toys have hired staff from BtVSFigs Forum, and post Q&A's there. Retailers, such as Time and Space Toys and CineQuest, have donated prizes for forum contests.

 

These are the reasons that I think the toy companies don't mind customisers:

When you are describing each custom figure, why do you write details about what you've sculpted, but not about what you've painted?

To build the structure of the custom figure, I use existing parts from action figures. I alter them, and add parts by sculpting. I feel that I should describe exactly what parts I've retained as they were, and what parts I've sculpted myself. That's why I usually include a photo of the unpainted sculpt.

 

When it comes to painting, I always repaint absolutely every part of the custom - facial features, hair, skin, clothes, and usually the stand. It is all entirely my own paint job. There's nothing that needs clarifying.

Why do you always photograph your custom figures in that stone stable set, and stamp the images with your website URL?

Some years ago, I had a problem with a couple of people claiming credit for my work. One person even entered photos of my custom figures into an online competition! Luckily, a friend spotted it and alerted me. Since then, I started using the stone stable as my signature background, and stamping my URL at the bottom of every image.

You used to include reference images and figure parts images on your old website. Why don't you do that here?

Because of the fact that I stamp my URL on my images, I had to re-capture every single image when I moved over to using this content management system and a different URL. I captured an average of three images per web-page, and I have over a thousand pages on this site. It was just a question of logistics, that it would take too long to capture five images per page.

There are plenty of websites that show screencaps of shows as reference images, so you can look through them. As for action figure parts, it is possible that I will add a section showing base figures in the future, but it won't be on a custom-by-custom basis.

Why do your unpainted sculpt photos look weird, with colours showing through the pink stuff?

The pink stuff is super sculpey clay that I add onto the plastic parts of existing action figures. If the application of sculpey is thin, the original paint job on the action figures shows through.

Why do you sometimes use female action figure body parts to make male figures?

There is no sinister reason. It's not a comment on their masculinity. Action figures come in all different sizes. I have to mix-and-match to find realistic-looking body proportions when I make a custom. Sometimes the female parts, which are smaller and slimmer, are just the right size. I always resculpt the shape of the limbs to look like the correct gender.

Why have you sometimes used another action figure head when there is a professionally made head sculpt available for that character?

I try not to do this, but it can be for one of two reasons:

Why is there a difference in quality between your customs? Some seem really accomplished, and others are very basic

It depends on when they were made. I was a complete novice when I started out in 2003. My skills grew as the years progressed, the likenesses became more accurate and the sculpting smoother. If you look at the pages where my work is displayed by the Date Made, you will see the differences from month to month, and year to year.

Two Customs of Lilah from Angel Season 4 - the First Was Made in 2003, the Second in 2009

Posthumous-Evil-Deal-Broker Lilah - 2003 Dead-but-Still-Pretty Lilah - 2009

 

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