Abare Figures made an appearance at the Northwest Comic and Gaming Event in Elgin Illinois this past Saturday, and had lots of fun! I was on hand to answer questions about figures and garage kits, show some work and talk up my customs and most of all: get some work done! This is a more old-school comic event and as such is a bit more homey feeling, great for conversations and making friends!
Northwest Comic and Gaming Event Report
Abare Figures made an appearance at the Northwest Comic and Gaming Event in Elgin Illinois this past Saturday, and had lots of fun! I was on hand to answer questions about figures and garage kits, show some work and talk up my customs and most of all: get some work done! This is a more old-school comic event and as such is a bit more homey feeling, great for conversations and making friends!
One of the biggest temptations when painting figures is exclusively using those low cost craft store paints. You know the ones. You're in the store looking for that perfect flesh tone or shade of blue, and there they are. Cheap little bottles, all pre-mixed and waiting for you to begin with little to no color mixing required. Everyone's tried them and they all have differing opinions, but let me show you a side by side comparison of what you're missing out on by not using better quality paint.
We've all had it happen. Things seem to be going along so well, you're making better time than usual when boom. Catastrophe strikes. That's what happened with my 1/4 Sayla Mass here, as you can see. Clear coat reacted funny with the paint and I'm left with a melting face. So how do we get past this? The thought of stripping everything and starting over leaves me in despair, so let's instead whip out the tool that's always at my right hand, Mod Podge!
Starting another commission, this time of New Avengers style Luke Cage. Drax the Destroyer provides the base figure this time. I was requested to do another simple mod adding a white muscle shirt and removing the knives from Drax here. Seems simple enough but let's see what kind of trouble the figure gods are going to throw at us on this one!
My fight with Luke Cage continues and much like in Marvel Comics, he is winning! After some joint fixes and sculpting the muscle shirt he was ready for paint. This picture was taken after about 70 coats of white. The green skin of Drax had the supernatural ability to show through everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I think I've invented a few new curse words for action figures on this project.
My slow uphill battle with the protagonist of the Doom series continues! What started out as a simple repaint has turned into a slow progression into madness. It seems after starting work that no modification has been done to any of the joints save attaching them to the figure, which anyone who has attempted an action figure mod knows is not good. Any reposing that isn't handled with the utmost care results in paint rub, which I didn't budget for fixing. I'm cleaning up what I can and leaving the rest to fate which makes me unhappy in a professional sense, but sometimes you have to just do what you can in the original scope of work.
Here's a look at what I've been cursing at the last few weeks. This Doom Marine project was a previous action figure mod done by the client, who asked me to do some improvements. The figure was pretty old and showing some signs of deterioration and damage, so first order of business was to take a really detailed look at the problems I'd be facing.
A friend asked me to change his DC Unlimited Sylvanas Windrunner (WoW) figure into Elspeth the Pure from Magic the Gathering without doing too many changes to the original figure. Should be fun.
This is the part of every project where it's hard to show much progress. So much cleanup is required on a figure like this, everywhere I look I find another seamline or flaw to fill in.
