Here’s why I chose to dye those figures before painting them : Like a lot of toy lines nowadays, figures have a lot of complex articulations. Painting those articulations is often fighting a losing battle. Friction will most likely rub off the paint no matter how many coats and touch ups you apply. I’ve heard that sanding down the right parts is an option as it will reduce friction, but I haven’t investigated that option yet. The other technique, the one I went with, is to dye the figure in order to get the desired base color…so those articulations won’t need to be painted.

In the picture above, you can see the figures after they were dyed, getting ready to be painted. For this project, I used a graphite colored dye just to get the figures darker (Always get the Rit DyMore Synthetic Fiber Dye!!! It is said that it’s the only one that works fine). I let them simmered for 3 hours in a mix of hot water and dye, stirring them once in a while. I also often bent and twisted the articulations to make sure the dye would get everywhere in those cracks and splits. Oh, and always make sure it’s not too hot so you don’t ruin your figures. Plastic can warped or melt and you don’t want that!

Dyeing is also great for accessories by the way. Accessories are often made of soft plastic that takes in the dye very well. And since accessories are often taken in and out of figure hands, it again solves the friction issue. But dye is not magic…you won’t be able to dye a dark plastic with a light colored dye…going darker is pretty much the only option I guess. Another downside, aside from being super messy, is that it is not cheap. So dyeing as much pieces as you can in one batch might be a good idea.

So, now that I had dark turtles, I just had to paint the lighter zones, leaving the articulations unpainted. The best way I found to get a good transition from a painted to an unpainted zone is to use the glazing and the dry brush techniques which I’ll be talking about in one of my next posts.

I hope this has been useful! Like always, feel free to comment, ask questions and share your positive and/or negative experiments!! See you soon!!!

That is the most ambitious project I’ve worked on so far. I think all the techniques I have acquired since I’ve started customizing were needed in this set. I even had to learn a couple of new tricks. Let’s keep it simple for now. Here’s a list of what I used. Of course you can go with your own goods and stuff, but always try to make some tests to guarantee a good result.

• Rit DyeMore – Synthetic Fiber Dye.
• Super Glue. There a many brands, but I trust LePage.
• Hot glue sticks. You will need only a little lenght. So if you don’t have some at home and you don’t plan on using it in the future, something else should be considered. We’ll come back to it later.
• Liquitex – Matte Medium.
• Acrylic Paint. I mostly use Liquitex, Pebeo and Demco. I suggest to buy those in art supply stores…Here’s a good one in my neck of the woods : Deserres.
  • Orange, red, purple and blue
  • 4 shades of green
  • 4 sahdes of yellow
  • 2 shades of Brown
  • Silver
  • Black
  • White
• Glow in the dark pigments (Optional).
• Mat varnish.
• Brushes.
• Utility Knife. I wouldn’t suggest anything…go with your needs.
• Needle Files. What will be done with the files can be done with a utility knife. Again, go with your needs.
• Medical tape. Bought mine at the drugstore. I wanted to see them to choose the right one.

I will try to be back real soon to continue this tutorial step by step…in the meantime you can go watch this awesome video about dyeing action figures : How To Dye an Action Figure video. Have fun!!!

Most of the sanding can be done with sanding paper. It’s easy to find, it’s cheap and if you don’t already have some at home, you might find it quite useful. But custom projects often mean working with small pieces and hard to access recesses. That’s when to needle file will come into play!

Unlike working with metal or hard materials, plastic is easy to work with so tools don’t need to be of the highest quality. I got myself this cheap set on Amazon and I love them :

As you can see on the picture above, they come in various sizes and shapes to fit your needs. I often carry my projects around so I like to keep my toolbox light, but these files are now following me everywhere!

And if you don’t want to buy those or you have a problem that needs to be fixed right away and you can’t wait for them to be delivered, you can always wrap some sanding paper around a rod of some kind or a sturdy wire or something or even just roll a piece of sanding paper onto itself. I did that a lot.

As always, your comments and questions are most welcome!

It pretty much works like a screwdriver. I wasn’t too sure about it at first, might be because of my huge hands, but once you got the twist it works just fine. And I do have a sweet spot for any manual tool. I don’t like to have to plug and I hate batteries. I often carry my stuff around in my backpack and now it’s part of the essentials with the paint and brushes.

Drill bits come in crazy small sizes! I think you could drill holes so small you could root hair on a dwarf’s balls.

Reviews are sometimes hard on those drills, but I didn’t pay for top quality and I am completely satisfied. Ok, I wouldn’t try it on metal and some very hard plastic might be tough to go through, but it’s already been super handy in many projects so far!

• I drilled small holes to insert a rod while repairing something with super glue that needed a stronger bond.
• Used it to fix a rope inside of a shield to act as a strap to hold it.
• Used it to connect the pieces of a custom nunchaku I was working on for a TMNT themed commission.
• Etc.

It worked everytime. I didn’t break any bits. I’m telling you, it’s just perfect for toy customizing!

Thanks for reading! Always feel free to comment or ask questions! We are here to help and learn along the way!

Here I reproduced this katana/sword I need for a project. Just like when you are drawing, sculpting requires you understand the geometry of the object you are trying to produce or reproduce. All I needed for this weapon was an old credit card and some plastic scraps from one of my kid’s toys (Since I’ve been doing customs more seriously, I’ve been keeping and organizing the bits and pieces of plastic I used to throw away). Once I had my 2 flat pieces for the blade and guard and my 2 cylinders for the hilt, I just super glued them together.

Here’s another example. This Custom « Bootleg » Shredder needed to gear up. Again, I’ve used a credit card for the blades. The hand guard, on which I glued the 2 blades, was cut out from a balloon holder.

Balloon holder…That’s the kind of stuff I used to throw away. But not anymore! Birthday partys are great sources of plastic stuff that would end up in the garbage. Look for all the tiny plastic pieces that hold toys in their packaging. I don’t always know right away what I’ll use them for, but I’m always glad to have them when I need them.

It may all seems a bit sketchy for the moment, but I’m pretty confident on how it’ll all turn out. Now that I got their general shape ready, I could refine them, sand them, add some 3D effects using epoxy clay…I will soon show how it progress and talk about sanding and the different tools you can use.

Back in the day, before the movies, even before the cartoon and the toys, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s creation was a dark and rough looking black and white self-published comic book.

With this new project, I tried to stick to the look of those comics. This time I added gray to my palette and I chose a figure closer to the weird look of those first turtles. I went with a Jump Attack Jujitsu Raph from the Ninja Action line (1993). The Ninja Action line box even stated « ORIGINAL COMIC BOOK TURTLE STYLING ».

And if you look closely, you’ll see that they gave those turtles a tail! A very nice little touch to please all the Mirage hardcore fans. The tail was dropped off in most, if not all, other iterations…mainly because of the phallic look if I recall.

This Raph looks pretty good and is very easy to find, but I still had one little problem…I didn’t have any sai left for him…I only had a bootleg nunchaku. So I had to depersonalize the belt. I knew I wanted to fill the screw holes in the shell by using epoxy clay so here was my easy solution. I took a small bit of epoxy clay to cover the belt buckle and with the tip of a paper clip, I modeled it to look like a knot. Now this turtle could be Mikey and it was closer to the original look too.

The shell had 3 huge screw holes. At first I thought of getting another shell and get rid of the backpack but the backpack is cool and I wanted to keep the flipping action working, so I simply filled the holes with epoxy clay.

With what I had left of epoxy clay (I hate when I have to throw any away) I thought I’d make him a pizza slice. Now, with the nuchuks in one hand and the slice in the other, I really feel like the strange stance is justified.

That was a very fun custom to do and I already have many ideas for other projects around that theme. Thanks a lot for your interest! Questions and constructive criticism are always welcome!

This line, with all their swappable parts, is a very cool and affordable entry door to the world of toy customization by the way. A good way to get your kids in the boat.

So that’s it. I don’t have much to say about this one beside that I love it! And having this wonderful platform to showcase my art, I wasn’t gonna pass the opportunity this show you this bad boy. The repainted head is from Battle Armor He-Man and the body is from Skeletor. Any questions or comments are very welcome!

I would also love to invite you to follow me on my Facebook page dedicated to my custom works, Wunderkammer – Custom Toy Workshop, and/or on my Flickr account.

See you soon for some new monstrous creations Mwahahaha

And for this one (I call him The Dolphaker in homage to Dolph Lundgren…I thought I heard this head sculpt was based on him and I like to think it is), I made him with Prince Adam head and hands on a Faker body. So I had to repaint the head and hands.

Oh, and I also have painted 3 Dupli-Cats so far that needed that same blue.

Where am I going with this? If you are an army builder or if you are working around a certain theme you might have to use the same color over and over. When you can get that color straight out of the tube it’s great, but you sometimes have to make your own mix. So I like to keep my mixed color in good quantity in a resealable container.

When I need some, I dip the unhairy tip of a brush in my specially mixed color and reseal the paint right away (As seen in the top picture). Then I take the paint from that tip with another brush to do what I got to do and safely keep my mix for later or for another job. I’ve been working with the same blue for months now! And now I also have that magenta (Pinkinsh red) for Faker hair.

This little trick might save you a lot of time and frustrations! Also try to take some notes while you are mixing your colors. Who knows when you will need a new batch?

Spending too much time painting a single little detail to make it perfect can be frustrating and discouraging. Try instead to make a vision come alive. Go for the general look. If it looks good in general, it looks good. If you are planning on repainting a whole figure, try to spend your effort and attention evenly throughout the project. Just like renovations…try to plan a little and try to respect that plan. You don’t want your project to end up in the hell of the unfinished customs.

When I paint, I like to take a lot of breaks, do something else for some minutes, and when I get back at it I know right away what needs to be done and/or corrected. While I’m working, eyes close to the piece, I’m seeing lots of things that need corrections…But when I’m back from a break, I don’t see all those mini imperfections the same way. They sometimes blend and don’t seem like errors anymore. They sometimes add texture or shade or whatever. Taking pictures helps me a lot too. Looking at pictures of my work somehow changes my point of view…and again, I often know right away what needs to be done and/or corrected.

Watching all those amazing paint jobs posted in the Mythic Legions Cabal facebook group (or whatever group or community you are in on whatever platform) might give you an inferiority complex. Well, you shouldn’t worry too much. And when you see those, ask questions! I can’t speak for everyone, but I love when people asks about my work. So have fun. Paint. You’ll get better and you’ll have more fun…and soon enough you’ll be sharing those awesome paint jobs of yours.

In the same line of thoughts, here’s a very cool YouTube video showing the « same » paint job done in 10 minutes, 1 hour and 10 hours…It might help you not to get lost in those endless laborious jobs. Now I got only one last thing to say to you : Choose your destiny!

In the picture above, you can see an Iron Jaw Orc I’ve been working on. Almost done. And to be honest, I havn’t followed all the golden rules of custom painting 3D printed parts. My only rule is « Have a good time, all the time ».

For the best results, the parts may require sanding. Sanding is mainly to make those tiny lines left by the 3D printing process and other imperfections disappear. I did not sanded those parts.

Another important step is the application of a primer. It will help paint adherence and paint flow. I did not primed those parts.

You might also have heard or read the mantra “Paint in thin wet layers and take your time.” I often use paint straight out of the tube and that is mostly the case here.

I like to watch a good tutorial once in a while but I always take some and leave some. The best way to learn is to do it! In future posts I’ll try to guide you to some of those tutorials that might be helpful and I’ll entertain you about how it helped me.

In the meantime, have fun!