A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 5 - Toy Biz 5 inch Jack of Hearts by 4:F

1/6/2015

Day 5 is a Toy Biz pre-Marvel Legends 5 inch scale Jack of Hearts figure that I made back in the late 90's.

I don't collect Marvel Legends. I passed the line up when Toy Biz changed their scale from 5 to 6 inches. I started toy collecting as a hobby because of the 5 inch Ⅹ-Men line. Back in 1990 my brother brought home a Nightcrawler & Collosus figure from Toys R Us and I was hooked. I went and bought two sets of the first series; one to open and one to keep mint on card. I did this with most if not all of the Toy Biz 5 inch lines. Ⅹ-Force, Generation Ⅹ, 2099 and the various Ⅹ lines, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, all of the Spider-Man lines, the Toyfare magazine mail away figures, the Puzzle Zoo exclusives, the vehicles, the playsets, the KB Toys, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us exclusives, the multi packs and the repaints. All of it. Nearly a decades worth of collecting and they turn around and change the scale. I was bitter and was in no rush to start all over building the Avengers and Ⅹ-Men when I already had all of the heavy hitters in 5 inch form, not to mention dozens of custom figures that I had made to fill in some of the holes on my shelves. I moved on to DC Direct so that I could have an in scale DC Comics figure collection and didn't return to Marvel until Minimates and then the 4 inch Marvel Universe line from Hasbro.

A perfect custom Marvel Legends Psylocke figure on eBay recently changed my collecting habits and I now have more than a few Marvel Legends figures most of which are customs and from the Ⅹ-Men side of the Marvel Universe but more on that another day. Today we're talking about Jack of Hearts.

Of all of the 5 inch custom figures I've made, I'm the most proud of this one. His detailing was a bitch but it was very rewarding when it was all finished. He is Frankensteined together with parts from 3 separate figures; the head from the Ⅹ-cutioner, arms from an Ⅹ-Man and the rest of his body is Black Tom. His boot cuffs are rubberband and his tunic is toothpaste tube. The rest is acrylic paint and marker. He was put together in a way that he maintains all of his articulation but I never pose him. Jack of Hearts has yet to be done as a figure. Marvel Legends nor Marvel Universe have done him yet. I would imagine that his paint scheme would be costly to reproduce but I love his design and had to have him with my Avengers. I hope Hasbro gets to him eventually but for now, here he is.

3 Comments

George

1/5/2015 02:28:00 am

Nice work on this one. Especially the imaginative use of rubber bands and toothpaste tube!

When I got into customs (mostly Titans, so that I did not go overly crazy spending money), one of the biggest things that annoyed me was when I would get a custom and then DC Direct would announce the figure. I never thought they'd do Jericho (the official one was better than my custom) or Blackfire (my custom was better than that weird one they released).

Cheers.

George

Freddie link

1/11/2015 05:38:52 pm

I've done a pretty good job of avoiding characters that the toy companies wound up doing. There are a few exceptions, none of which I can think of right now lol but as we move forward I'll be sure to call them out.

Santo

4/5/2018 02:07:07 pm

Please tell me: 5 inch size? Do you sell it?

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 5 - Toy Biz 5 inch Jack of Hearts by 4:F

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