Click above to see what customs I'm selling this week and check out my, customizing tutorials, guides, and more!
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But I'm only selling them on Ebay right now. Like this week my Iron Man:1 Tank:0 is up for auction. I see a lot of comments on submissions of mine like, "How much do you want for this?" and "Will you make me that figure?" But why don't I do commissions you ask?

I know a lot of artists out there do commissions but it's not that simple for me. Artists who draw commissons already have their basic raw materials right there in their homes to make any commission, their pencil/paints and paper. (or Photoshop in digital art cases)

With me, I have to research past/present figures to determine which one is right for a custom, order certain ones online, hunt down parts, head to different towns to find base bodies, and then put it all together, sculpt intricate parts, then paint it. If all that sounds complex, it is! It doesn't have to be that complex for every customizer but for me to make my style of customs, a lot has to go into a figure.
Now put all that together and factor in there's thousands of you out there and only one of me, I'm pretty overwhelmed. I'll spend a week working on one person's custom 8+ hours a day and will have to charge for that time spent. That gets very pricey and very hard for me to estimate how long/how much effort a custom will take.

I had one sour experience where a long time ago someone commissioned me to make a Deadpool. Easy right? I quoted a basic cost, asked for part up front, and we agreed. He sent me a list of specifics and wanted scratch-built steel swords, working boot-knife sheathes, real leather harness sections, a removable Wade Wilson head, articulated trigger fingers, custom metal buckles, magnetic grenades, all this stuff. By the time I was finished 2 weeks had gone by and that's all I worked on. I quoted him the final price (I think it was around $400) and he went ballistic.

There was no way for me to make him understand just how much time goes into making a custom figure and I ended up giving him his partial payment back to avoid more problems. A few more similar experiences like that and I gave up on doing commissions completly. It's just easier for me to put a custom up on Ebay and let everyone set their own price. That way nobody can complain, they put up the bid, not me.

This of course leaves a large number of you out there in the cold, unable to afford my customs. And for that I apologize. To try and balance things out I make an effort to answer every email asking for advice/techniques and host a wide array of guides and tutorials on my site so you can make your own figures. But should you want to try and snag one of my customs just head to my site and see what I have up for auction that week.

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Holy cheese I had my first phone interview this morning And it was with Wired Magazine! They apparently stumbled across my customs on EBay and asked, nay, demanded that I pony up for some exclusive chat. Wanna see the article? Head to Wired.com and I should still be on the first page. If not that link will take you right to the article. Every pic has more of the interview so check out all 12! Of course there's the classic mistake of them calling action figures 'dolls' but I think everyone does that unless you're in the figure collecting biz. I'll let it slide, cause like, it's Wired Magazine!

Ok, done tooting my horn. Back to customizing.

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Since my last entry here [link] my custom S.W.A.R.M. has officially made it into the top 3! He will be featured on the official Hasbro GI Joe website along with the other two customs, Red Laser and Ripcord, to be voted on one last time to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Thanks to everyone who signed up and voted! There's no word when the three customs will appear on Hasbro's site but I'll be sure to drop you all a link when they appear. You'll then be able to vote again and tell Hasbro which out of the top 3 is your favorite custom!

In other news I'm busy busy busy! ToyFare has me working on projects, Sony (the actual company as well as the PSM magazine) has me working on something, and a major online retailer has gotten ahold of me for a huge promotional/sweepstakes thing that we're still ironing out the details with. So I have all that plus my custom Ebay auctions each week and my regular home stuff going on. I know a lot of you want me to do commissions and openup spots like regular DA'ers here do but I just can't pull that off. I hard a hard enough time doing the freebies for friends and I still have another one that isn't even finished for my RL buddy, gah!

So I appreciate you asking me, that's way cool! Someday when I have time (or clone myself a few times) I'll actually do a few commissions here and there. Until then thanks for watching my DA page and I'll have updates as often as I can, keep my weekly EBay auctions going, and pester you all with comments on your work. Laters!

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End of the contest comes monday and then the top 3 move on to the official GI Joe Hasbro website! My entry was the Cobra S.W.A.R.M. To vote, head to the GI Joe Club [link] and join at their free 'trooper level'. Then after you've registered, head to their forums here [link] and vote for Swarm if he's your fave. He lights up!

Here's some more images of em'





Assuming me can make it in the top 3 and ends up on the Hasbro webpage, if he wins the final round of voting they might make him into an actual figure. But I'll need everyone's help to vote in this round, and the next!

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Hey all! Here's my entry into the GIJoeClub.com's Custom Figure Contest. It's the Cobra S.W.A.R.M. with light-up chest sensor. If you're a club member you can vote among the 25 top custom figures in their Forums (their Trooper membership is free) and help determine the top 3 which will later be voted on at the official GI Joe website. After that 1st place goes to Hasbro! To my knowledge SWARM is the first 25th Anniv custom to have a light-up system. *crosses fingers* So, wanna vote for my custom? Head here [link] and sign up for the free Trooper membership, then visit their Forums and vote!




Click here for tons more pics including the flying shots! --->[link]

Parts used:
Head: Patlabor Phantom Labor model kit head
Body, upper arms, upper legs, hands, feet: 25th Anniv Firefly (80%)
Shoulderpads: Superhero Showdown Iron Man
Lower arms, lower legs: Microman
Flightpack: Sigma 6 Cobra Commander weapon piece
Wings: House of M Iron Man wings.
Lower leg panels: Destroyer Droid shoulderpads
Chest circle, neck hoses wires: random parts
LED unit: Dollar store toy
Base: Firefly's base

The flightpack is removable that reveals the battery/LED unit. There's an on/off button on the flightpack which operates the LED in the unit's chest. The figure can be mounted on the display stand or flightstand. The custom was painted with Testors Model Master acryl paints. The tiny silver Cobra logo on the chest was painted freehand as well.

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