A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 30 - Marvel Legends Outback Colossus by Face Customs

1/31/2015

Collosus is one of the first three figures in a long line of custom pieces that I purchased from Face Customs over in the UK. Armored & Poofy Psylocke were in the same batch and started my Marvel Legends collection. Face had done the entire Outback team. He had even done customs of Wolverine, Longshot & Havok; characters that Toy Biz had already tackled in plastic. They were all perfect. I already had a Longshot because he was an Art Adams creation and Art is my favorite comic artist, ok I had a handful of Legends figures in my collection, some females and a few random others that I liked throughtout the years (like Jim Lee Rogue) but I was far from a completist let alone a focused collector. I don't tend to buy customs of characters that already have figures made so I picked up brown costume Wolverine & a Havok on the cheap off of eBay once I had Piotr & Betsy on their way across the pond.

Face was working on revising Storm's head sculpt so she wouldn't come until later on and his versions of Dazzler and Rogue, although superbly crafted they weren't quite the looks that matched Art Adams' style so I filled those slots elsewhere.

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A Custom A Day....

Since I began toy collecting as a hobby back in 1990 I have always had a need for custom figures. Toy companies begin action figure lines, begin to release individual characters to create teams and, more often than not leave them incomplete. Many collectors find that custom figures pollute their collection's authenticity by not being mass produced creations from the toy companies that created the preexisting toy lines. I disagree. I feel a quality custom action figure enhances a collection and help create a complete picture.

When characters are chosen for a toy line several factors come in to play. The character's current media relevance (if any), their most iconic look (they may have had multiple costumes through their sometimes vast histories) and gender. Female action figures tend to not sell to parents of the boys who are playing with them so a great many of the female characters are never rendered in plastic in the way the male characters are leaving holes in the collections.

I am a fan of the female heroes primarily so I have purchased and made quite a few "customs" throughout my years as a collector. I find it challenging (ok impossible) to get a smooth, quality finish to my sculpt work, downgrading the quality of my figure's appearance that I create so my custom work tend to be of a Frankenstein type nature where I use different parts such as a torso and arms from one figure attached to the hips and legs of another, and a different head with a full cost of paint to create my pieces. I also struggle with painting facial details on figures. The small areas, the eyes in particular give me the biggest issues. I prefer to reuse another head from a different character that will allow me to not have to paint the facial details since I am heavy handed and tend to paint in clumps rather than smooth, factory produced finishes that many of the customizers I work with can achieve.

Most of the figures that I have in my collection that have intricate sculpting and paint details have been created by other artists from around the world. The UK, The Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and from several states throughout the US through personal communication or via eBay, which can be an outstanding resource for quality custom work. I've had the pleasure of meeting some incredibly talented artists through websites & social media. Over the past two years seeking out quality custom figures has become the main focus of my collection. Which is at over 5,000 loose pieces. As you will see over the course of this year this does not just affect super hero toy lines. I collect different toy lines spanning the 1960's through today covering cartoons, movies and television in addition to comic books. Some of the custom pieces I have had done wouldn't have been made as toys because of lack of consumer interest or based on licensing issues simply cannot be made in to toys. I haven't let that stop me from using several different toy lines to amass a complete plastic collection of all of the media I have enjoyed throughout my life.

I have decided to begin a project called A Custom A Day.... to showcase my custom pieces one a day, every day throughout 2015. If you follow me on social media or on this site you may have seen many of them before but with this project I will give a little background of each figure and its relevance to my collection. So check back daily!!!

A CUSTOM A DAY.... 365 Days of custom figures

A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 30 - Marvel Legends Outback Colossus by Face Customs

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A Custom A Day....

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