Clayton Emery's
Custom Action Figures

Superboy from the Smallville PVC set.  More fix than you'd think.  He was launching straight up from a star-shaped base.  I cut off his toe (Ouch!) and patched it, then reset his neck and steamed his cape to fly at the proper angle.  Still not good enough.  He had a dopey look on his face, sad-eyed and low-browed, whereas Curt Swan always drew S-boy with a high forehead.  So I trimmed back the hairline, carved down the cheeks, thickened his nose, and repainted the eyes and everything else.  Fists are still too big.  Part of my ongoing Legion of Super-Heroes diorama.

Bugs Bunny, everyone's favorite smartaleck rabbit.  Not a lot of custom, but he started as a pencil topper, so had no legs.  I had another Bugs whose face I didn't like, so stole his legs.  I added the carrots from scrap and plastic string hacked up.  And whiskers from nylon-coated silver jeweler's wire.  Then a full repaint of a gray with hint of blue, lightly textured to resemble fur.  He also needed tiny wedges under his heels to stand up.  About 4.5 inches high.

John Carter, Warlord of Mars, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Heavily modded from the original figure from the Tarzan: The Epic Adventures TV show.  The figure was badly out of proportion, but the shouting head was great.  Too many mods to detail.  I futzed with color schemes until I decided that, since JC was a former Confederate cavalry officer, he would choose gray leather with gold trim, black "boots", and muttonchops with a streak of gray in his hair.  I added a sword with exotic cut-out blade and pistol grip handle, then a side knife and ruby-red ray gun on his hip.  I was almost finished when I realized the essential problem: long hair, sideburns, leather and straps...  Oh, great, he looks like a 1980's gay porn star!  So I took him back off the shelf and gave him an ornate warlord's crown cut from Batman armor turned upside down.  Better.  He stands on what will be a wrecked Martian battleship (made from a broken Super Soaker squirt gun), holding onto a chain as he attacks a six-armed Green Martian.  Don't wait up.

Something different.  Fenrir, the giant wolf of Norse mythology.  One of the monster children of Loki.  Prophesied to help destroy the world at Ragnarok by killing Odin, so was bound with the magic ribbon Gleipnir, and so bit off Tyr's hand.  Converted from a giant two-headed wolf ridden by a knight to fight a demon, a very strange toy set sold at TRU.  Especially weird because that wolf had the binding tape molded onto his ankles.  I ground his neck down to skin to show the cruel collar abraded his neck.  I added a chain for good measure, and it still contains a few weapons and mail glove from former contenders.  I scabbed him all over with white putty to get that rough coat, then just rough-painted multiple layers and washes of brown, bronze, and black.  His size is apparent by comparing the 5" Penguin cowering in the background.

Perennial lovers, Popeye the Sailor and Olive Oyl.  I was trying for a half-real, half-cartoon look like the famous movie / bomb.  Popeye is converted from the hunter Clayton in Disney's Tarzan, cut down at neck, waist, thighs, and calves to be shorter than Olive, with his chin deeply cleft.  Olive is some skinny anime chick with her hair ground off and boot soles built up.  The magical Jeep is a rabbit cut to stand up with fox arms and a skinny tail.  The flowers are curled paper dipped in white glue on floral wire.  The base is gouged from a Fisher Price set, then mounted on acrylic painted like water.  A sign behind says "Sweethaven".  The boat is named "Olives".  Olive stands higher to heighten their size difference, and sticks her nose in the air to remain aloof.  It's funny how Popeye is crazy about her when Olive often treats him like dirt.  Such is love.

Robin Hood's lieutenant, Little John of Sherwood Forest.  Made from a Shazam character.  He wears a capuchin (shoulder-hood) from some other space character.  His shirt is brown coffee filter paper with a FedEx plastic envelope underneath the skirt for stability.  I ground down the boots and wrist braces and left them rough to look like deerhide.  The hands were cut off a Mask figure to hold the quarterstaff.  His hair is green putty in front and Barbie hair in the back - he has a great ponytail that I failed to photograph.  The trickiest part was painting the eyes, because Shazam didn't have any, just squint lines.  The hardest part is getting the eyes not the same size, but rather getting them equidistant from the nose and even with each other.  He's almost too tall for my normal 5" scale, but he's supposed to be a giant.

Loki, Thor's vicious half-brother, son of a Frost Giant.   Retrofitted closer to the original Jack Kirby design, sort of.  I stripped off the clunky armor plates and cape and reset the horns to jut forward.  His scale armor is cut from a Tyvek envelope and glued on.  The cape and skirts are chamois car-polishing cloth stiffened with glue.  His helmet-ponytail is plastic string again stiffened.  I painted his face pale with a green tinge for an evil look, and dabbed his eyepits red with a 3 mm marker.  The belt, perhaps too big, is the shank of a Green Lantern ring painted with a Kirbyesque rune.  I cut the legs at the knees so he squats in a snakey pose suitable for a god of evil.