I made this little guy months ago and am just now getting around to posting about him. Sometimes that happens.

There isn’t too much to detail about making Deadpool, as he is fairly straightforward from a construction standpoint. I sculpted his tool belt and mask from Sculpey, baking it in the oven and sanding it smooth when dry.

From there I primed the Munny and used spray paint to color the bulk of the figure, taping off sections to get clean lines. The eyes and other small details were done by hand.

The various weapons are ones that I’ve accrued from random action figures over the years, and fortuitously decided to keep around. The guns and grapple are unaltered, but the twin swords were modified from different designs to appear as a matching pair.

Simple enough, right? I’m really happy with how Deadpool turned out, and I think his new owner is as well!

Enjoy the photos!

You can check out some of my other custom work below!

I’ve been on a bit of a Silent Hill kick the past few weeks and these little guys are the reason why. After creating my first custom Munny figures a few weeks back, I began feverishly debating what I should take on next. I almost instantly had my mind made up to pay tribute to BioShock with a Big Daddy and Big Sister duo, but got sidetracked by the thought of bringing to life two of Silent Hill’s most iconic monstrosities – Pyramid Head and a Nurse. Trapping myself into finishing these guys this week, I preemptively tied my CosBlog entry on Wednesday to Silent Hill. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do so here!

On to the specifics! I spent quite a bit of time researching the various iterations of each character that I could draw from, and ultimately decided to reference the Silent Hill movie for several reasons. Not only do I find them the most interesting, but the source material coming from a movie allowed me to watch and rewatch clips in order to get a good grasp on the costumes. You can read my breakdown of creating these critters below. Or you can skip to the photos. Your choice!

Creating the nurse gave me an opportunity to bond clay to a Munny for the first time. After washing, sanding and priming, I covered her head with Super Sculpy and began working it into the final form with a dull butter knife. I decided to augment the Munny’s chest with clay as well. Let’s face it; the odd fascination most have with Silent Hill’s nurse population stems from the juxtaposition of sex and gore. So really, I couldn’t leave her cleavage out.

Working the clay took a few hours to finish, and when done I began the drying process. After reading the instructions online several times over, I baked the Munny head and body in the oven for fifteen minutes. The vinyl figure came out of the oven a bit soft, but didn’t lose any of its shape in the process. After a half hour everything cooled down and hardened as expected.

From there I primed the Munny again with a base coat of flesh-colored paint and began mixing various skin shades and yellow hues which I stippled all over her body. I intentionally layered colors to give her skin a mottled look, using toilet paper instead of a brush so that fibers would stick to the figure and make her skin look like it was peeling. The result is pretty cool. I used more yellow and green tones in the mask, with darker browns in the crevasses to play up the change in depth. To make her veins pop, I painted stark lines of purple and red on her chest, arms, and legs, then went over it again with the yellow color to slightly subdue the look.

Moving onto clothing, I stained a white nylon sock with coffee grounds in order to make it look grimy. Then I glued it to her body using liquid latex, making sure to accentuate her chest and legs. I added little pockets on the front of the dress for more detail, and continued to stain the outfit with, of all things, chicken and beef bouillon cubes. I was having trouble finding small enough circular objects to use for buttons, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and use nails. The nails secured the dress in place and once painted, the heads worked perfectly.

Almost finished at that point, I made the nurse hat out of Wonderflex, and then used some extra stained fabric to line it. Her switchblade razor is made from the same material. For the last step I added spots of blood to introduce a bit more color, coating her dress, hat and razor with various diluted and non-diluted mixtures of special FX blood. With that, she was done!

Obviously, Pyramid Head’s helmet was the biggest time vampire of the whole project. So let’s start with the easy stuff. I scavenged through the craft store to find fabric that could pass for human skin, sewing it together with leather cording for extra detail. Once finished, I rubbed leather stain and oil in a few places to make it more interesting. Easy enough. I painted the body with the same technique as the Nurse – layering shades of color dobbed on with toilet paper for extra texture.

On to the helmet. I drew heavily from the design in the movie, except for a few slight modifications so not to obscure the endearing Munny elements – namely the iconic ears. I didn’t want to cover the entire head with the helmet, so I lobbed off the top half, leaving just a bit of the lower half showing. I started creating the helmet with Wonderflex after working out a template in paper. From there I glued layers of thin foam to the base of the helmet, securing the seams with black electrical tape. Drywall tape was used to get the grid-like pattern, and a second layer of foam was added on top. The hardware came last. When finally finished layering things on, I coated the entire thing with several layers of plastic primer, allowing nearly a week to pass and insure it was fully dry before I started the detail work.

The painting process started with a coat of black paint, and then I stippled grey over the top to provide texture – again with toilet paper. From there I added various shades of burnt orange and red for rust around the hardware, and took a knife to the foam to scratch in silver in various locations. Last, I flicked the entire thing with some fake blood dobbed on a toothbrush, which has since been decommissioned from active duty.

I left a small vertical band of the Munny’s head attached, which I stuck inside the bottom of the helmet for support. From there I glued the piece on with hot glue, coated it with liquid latex, and layered purple and reds along the joint to make it look like his skull had fused with the metal. All done!

Last came the Great Knife. I used an actual steak knife for this thing, filing down the serrated edges by hand before wising up and using a massive grinder to do the rest of the work, including shaving down the handle to be a bit more proportional. I used the same painting technique for the knife as the helmet, and used silver to highlight the sharpened edge. For the final touch I added some brown leather cording to the hilt. Then came the blood. Blood on the fused section of the helmet, on his skirt, and his sword. I let it dry in coats to make it look crusty. You can check out the final product in the gallery below! Thanks to Nick for the photos!

Overall, I am really happy with how these guys turned out. They were a ton of fun to make and gave me a chance to test my skill in a few new mediums. I plan on entering them in a custom contest at a local collector’s shop that runs until the end of the month, but will sell them through Etsy or eBay afterwards. If anyone is interested in picking them up before I list them, let me know.

So what’s next? I don’t want to spoil it, but my next custom Munny will involve clay and carving vinyl once again. I’ll be sure to blog about it when it’s finished! Thanks for reading!

[Interested in making your own custom creations? Kidrobot.com has all the information you’ll need to get started.]

It’s no secret that I like stuff. Toys in particular. I’ve been collecting comic book and video game paraphernalia for years now. But the designer toy scene – in particular, vinyl figures – is new territory for me. I’ve been dabbling in Kid Robot offerings for a few years now and have developed some favorite artists, but never tried playing around with the DIY items till this weekend.  I figured I would show them off here! Let me know what you think!

Kratos/God of War
As far as beginner customs go, this one seemed obvious. With the large white dome standard to Munny figures, I deduced that resident video-game badass Kratos would be a good place to start. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, though. I went through two iterations of this guy after I initially screwed up his body paint, tried to wipe it off and ended up with a pink-headed Munny on accident. The second time around I worked smarter, using thick red marker and painter’s tape to create solid and smooth lines.

I used black, brown and gold felt with a leather pattern for the loincloth, and spray painted/modified charms for a necklace for his belt. The chains are from a necklace kit, which I also spray painted to match, and the goatee is some fur I picked up with the rest of the supplies. Funny enough, I was going to make the Chaos Blades from scratch, but found out that the blades from Kratos’ action figure fit perfectly into my Munny’s hands.

I intentionally left Kratos’ face blank because I like the abstractness of the piece.

The whole thing took 3-4 hours to complete, not including the time I wasted before scrapping the first attempt. The total cost was somewhere around $30.

Original/Egg-Head Munny
I also wanted to try my hand at a totally original custom creation, to see where my imagination took me when not limited by a character concept. I love when custom designers heavily modify Munny anatomy, so I decided to lop off the top of its head and create a bird nest/birdbath out of the two pieces.

I started by spraying the money with (ridiculously overpriced!) textured spray paint to make it look like stone. It took forever to dry, resulting the project lasting most of my weekend. From there, I glued a layer of fake moss to a base and the lip of each half of the head, and decorated the stand with flowers and twigs. I purchased the fake eggs and bird from JoAnn Fabrics, where I also found a gel substance that can be used to mimic water in silk floral arrangements. After heating the gel up it becomes liquid, which allowed me to pour the substance into the birdbath to finish off the figure.

This guy cost me around $40 to finish.

I am really happy with the results – Tomopop even showed me some love! I am currently working on a BioShock family – a Munny Big Daddy and Big Sister, and a Dunny Little Sister.

Commissions
I’ve gotten some pretty positive feedback about my first creations, and have decided to take commissions since I’ve gotten so many requests. If you are interested in a custom Munny, let me know. Simple pieces (Kratos) start at $60, and more complex designs (Egg-head) range from $75 – $100. If you agree to purchase a custom Munny, high-resolution photographs will be provided before the piece is sent, to insure it meets your standards and you are happy with the end results!