MaulFan's Customs

[MaulFan]

Well, after seeing many Jack Sparrow repaints over the last several months, I finally scored myself a second Medicom Jack Sparrow and picked up some paints to work on Witty Jack. We have some fabulous custom painters out here and I deffinately would have thrown him to one of them, but ever since I saw what could be brought out of this sculpt, I've had a vision of bringing out Johnny Depp and making a believable paint job, and I wanted to challenge myself. I've decided to document my progress, so here it is.

The most critical part of a portrait is the eyes, they’re the most defining aspect of the human portrait and if they aren’t right, then no matter how well you do the rest, it won’t look like who it should. I’ve always felt the Medi Jack Sparrow sculpt looked like Johnny Depp, but the eyes were painted in a manner than doesn’t look like him and takes away from t he impact of the sculpt, and it’s my main reason for doing this repaint, I also feel the flesh tone could be more tan and reddish, but I could’ve looked past that if the eyes had been stellar. Jack’s eyes basically look very very white with pure black iris’, so to start my repaint, I’m going to make my first layer white for the eyes, then I will apply my skin tone and mix black in around the eyes to create they eye shadow he wore, worrying about the iris’ after the shape of the eyes is defined correctly. While I was painting with white, I gave his head bandana a white wash to fade the maroon a bit, in POTC 2&3 it was quite clear Jack's bandana was a very mute, greyish, faded red, not very vivid, it's not so clear in my photos, but in person you can tell the difference.

 

[DarkArtist81]

Nice work so far and good luck with the future! It's a fun figure to repaint that is for sure. Wish I had another crack at it too. Mikey has my old one...

And I too agree with you on the bandana, it's much better with a light wash.

 

[MaulFan]

Thanks Josh, now that I look at it, I wish I had shown a bit more patience, I was very happy at one point, but I thought I could keep going, mainly the eyes, but I'm a bit tired and my vision and focus wasn't there, so I'll be revisiting the eyes later and what not but I'm very happy with the dirty hands and the matte of the paints.

 

[figuremasterles]

Cool stuff Maulfan! Great to see you venture forth into repaint land!
It ain't easy, but it is rewarding. Looking good so far.

 

[MaulFan]

Thanks Les, I was actually really happy with how it looked with the flesh tone and eye shadow I had first done, but once I added the white and all it just got ugly and I really didn't give the facial hair the focus I had wanted to, but I am finding that my methods for painting on canvas work on a 3D piece as well.

Les or Josh or anyone that reads in here and has been doing this for a while, do you use a magnifying glass to see the eyes closer when painting them or do you do it without an aids?

 

[El Roranous]

I need to re-do mine soon as well. The eyes are the hardest part...I think I need a thinner paint brush.

Keep us updated, I can't wait to see more.

 

[MaulFan]

I need to re-do mine soon as well. The eyes are the hardest part...I think I need a thinner paint brush.

Keep us updated, I can't wait to see more.

Ya, I found the finest brush I had wasn't fine enough for the eyes and fine facial hairs, I picked up the finest pointed brush I could today. I've also decapitated my NECA Jack from my office to have the head handy for reference, I'll post a picture after but you'll see where I'm trying to make mine go and I really think the sculpt is there it just got lost in the paint. I really like the acrylics I'm using, they have the kind of finish I like from Sideshow, quite matte.

 

[DarkArtist81]

Les or Josh or anyone that reads in here and has been doing this for a while, do you use a magnifying glass to see the eyes closer when painting them or do you do it without an aids?

Well, I don't myself... I think Les uses some magnifying glasses, but not sure about that. I have learned that a really thin brush just messes me up. I like to use a small brush with a round tip, not the pointy tip. It works a lot better and keeps you from making a wonky eye with sharp edges in it. At least for me. An thin the paint down with water... to an almost ink like state.

It just takes a lot of practice and time. My first eyes were a nightmare. I kept messing it up and I could not understand how the rest of the guys did it. I really thought it would never be a skill that I could have, but in time it all came together.

 

[MaulFan]

Well, after diving into the custom waters, I decided to step away from Jack a bit and try something a little simpler and build my way up to Jack, although I have done some work on Jack's hands, I found a metalic paint that worked great for his rings, a few more fine details and those will be set and I'm going to work on his boots shortly.

In the mean time, here are some shots of my custom painted NECA Hannibal Lecter. This is the 7" version, which for it's scale, is a great figure. I bought the 18" version last week and it's phenominal, really makes me hope Sideshow makes a 1/6 Lecter some day. One big difference is the 7" figure was painted with black hair and given a very low grade balding spot in the back, where the 18" has more accurrate, graying brown and realistic balding strokes. I wanted to apply this to the small version ever since I got it, and now that I've gotten into the spirit of customizing, I've done it. The pictures don't show it as well as room lighting does, but I'm a bit too lazy to break out the tripod, maybe later. Original images have been borrowed from CoolToyReview.com.

Back of Original Paint:

3/4 of Original Paint:

My Paint Work:

 

[Darren Carnall]

there ya go! much better!! .... that looks great! :chew

 

[MaulFan]

Been awhile since I had done this, so I almost forgot about it. Here are some old images of my first ever custom figure. Sideshow's Jabba setup is fantastic, but for me, the big guy just isn't whole without Slave Leia, but the Hasbro figures just would not do. With guidance from CustomMikey, I constructed my own figure. I started with Hasbro's first release Slave Leia, I prefer it because her skirt is a velvety cloth instead of the thin material used for later versions. Next, I ordered this body through the Triad Toys website:

I then removed all of the clothing elements and the head from the Hasbro figure. I had to trim some rubber from the bikini bottom elements in order to have it fit to the new body, then I used a thread and needle to tie all of the pieces of the lower bikini together and in place, and using some rubber eraser material, I fattened the neck of the new body so that the Hasbro head would sit on it. I also had to remove the feet from the new body and just slid the calves into the Hasbro boots. My final step was to swap out the Hasbro neck chain with a necklace I had laying around home, the final result being this:

And finally, a minimalistic reproduction of the famous Luke and Leia Sail Barge swing image.

 

[thundergod]

That Leia with Jabba set-up looks fantastic MaulFan , wish I had the display space for something similar , unfortunately , my wife might have something to say about it! Although , thinking about it , if I only had a single bed , then I might ....Mmmm .(Thinks!)

 

[MaulFan]

Alright, like many, I was dissappointed with the Faramir paint apps on the head sculpt, but I love the figure so it's not a matter of sending it back, just repainting him to show his "true quality". So for starters, here's some images of the HS before I do anything to it. Thankfully, removing his hair was infinitely easier than Aragorn's (I tried doing an Aragorn repaint a while back and I ruined it and moved on.) and so this is Faramir minus hair awaiting a repaint.

 

[pixletwin]

Actually Faramir's paint doesn't look too bad in those pics.

 

[El Roranous]

Geeze the factory paint is terrible. Hopefully you can do something with it. I am out of this one. Not going to touch it.

 

[MaulFan]

It's just dissappoint, his beard is too dark, and the "flesh" tone they used to thin out his beard actually borders pink where his skin has a tan shade. This one is taking priority over captain Jack, I can live with Medi how he is but this thing is on life support and I'm breaking out the paddles.

 

[dekadentdave]

Quick! Hide the pics before Captain Faramir sees them!

The beard paint is truly horrid. That's Hasbro or Toy Biz quality. And the eyebrows look like the paint has been scraped off. Totally unacceptable.

 

[bwayne]

The beard looks like it was applied using a sharpie!

 

[MaulFan]

Here he is with my skin coat on.

 

[MaulFan]

My next step was to put a light brown / golden wash over his beard area, it's quite light so I'm going to darken it up a little bit. After the wash, I put a starting coat on Faramir's hair. I searched for reference images and his hair color most consistently appears as a shade of dirty blonde, so I'm going for that.