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  • A Custom A Day.... 2015 365 days of custom figures
  • Arthur Adams’ Art
  • Pop Up Paint Night Parties
  • Murals
  • The Artwork
  • The Toy Collection
  • Contact
  • Colorin'
  • A Custom A Day.... 2015 365 days of custom figures
  • Arthur Adams’ Art

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

A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 88 - Fangface Kim by Psyguy

3/30/2015

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Kim, is she black? Spanish? Who knows? Who cares? The diversity of the 70's pet detectives, gotta love it.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 87 - Fangface Puggsy by Psyguy

3/29/2015

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Puggsy has very extreme proportions; huge chest and short. He uses a bulked up chest block and slipper feet. The hat is a Lego piece. I wasn't sure how he would turn out but he's fantastic. The bulked up chest block wouldn't work well for the leading men like Alan, Biff or Freddy but for Puggsy's odd shape it works great.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 86 - Fangface Biff by Psyguy

3/27/2015

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Ok so Fangface isn't Hanna Barbera, it was produced by Ruby-Spears but the pet detective formula gave it the same feel as a Hanna Barbera cartoon so it was another favorite of mine from the late 70's.

Biff is another of those male designs that have unrealistically broad chests. Not ideal for the block figure design but I prefer the female characters be more accurate and they are so I'm happy.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 85 - Jabberjaw Shelly by Psyguy

3/26/2015

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Shelly, the Alexandra of the Jabberjaw Gang. If it weren't for the shark there wouldn't be anything original about this show and we have Jaws to thank for him. I loved it all the same.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 84 - Jabberjaw Clamhead by Psyguy

3/26/2015

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Clamhead, the Shaggy of the group. He uses a Lego sailor cap and a belt piece to create his look. Perfect and he looks great next to Jabberjaw

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 83 - Jabberjaw Bubbles by Psyguy

3/25/2015

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Where Biff lacks, Bubbles makes up for it. She is short and stout and the block figure translates her look perfectly. She uses a Dana hairpiece from the Ghostbusters box set with some sculpt to capture the curls. The rest is paint and a facial decal.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 82 - Jabberjaw Biff by Psyguy

3/24/2015

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Biff is another one of those Hanna Barbera leading men that has an unrealistic bulk to his chest that doesn't translate well. A bulked up chest block would make him too buff and he's just a bit to small without it. Regardless he looks great with the rest of his group. I really need to make some instruments for them.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 81 - Clue Club Woofer & Wimper by 4:F

3/22/2015

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I had to share them as a team. You can't have one without the other. It took me a while to find the right scale Bassett Hound for Wimper So they were done a couple of months apart. Woofer was easy, he's a lego cap on a Mystery Mates Scooby Doo with some sculpt for his brow. Psyguy does the Minimates and I handle the non-Minimate animals to complete the teams.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 80 - Clue Club Dottie by Psyguy

3/22/2015

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I tout Minimates as the best toy ever because of its adaptability & versatility. There are a few things that someone has to get past to see it; you have to enjoy block figures and you can't be preoccupied with scale. Dottie is a perfect example of this. In the Cartoon Dottie is half the size of the Gang because she's half their age. Needing a sculpted hair piece and and a belt piece to extend her baggy shirt even the slipper feet she uses can't take away enough from her height to keep her from being the same height as Larry & Pepper. Oh well. She stays at home anyway and isn't much more than face on their TV screen. Scale be damned, I love her.

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A Custom A Day.... 365 days of custom figures Day 79 - Clue Club Larry by Psyguy

3/20/2015

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Larry is a perfect example of the type of artist Psyguy is. There aren't a great many clear photos of Clue Club on the Internet. The show ran for one season in 1976, 16 episodes and there wasn't a great deal of merchandise so finding the best pictures for him to work from was challenging. Even with an eye for nailing color hues, Psyguy struggled to decipher the color of Larry's shirt so I got TWO chest blocks! Both look correct. It made me laugh when I got him because I too struggle with the exact shade it should be. I love the way this man thinks and I love having the extra display option.

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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!!!

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