We all go through phases and I thought I would share the artistic phase that I went through last year. I’ve never been much of a customizer with my toys and marvelled at how some could take one figure and completely overhaul it to make another; often ending up with a much better toy in in the process.
My initial inspiration came from my Figma Indiana Jones as I thought it would be cool to have a stand for the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol accessory along with his other treasures. Around that time I also started making my own coat hanger stands as a cheap alternative and figured that the same process could be used to combine and make bases or small dioramas. It honestly was a really cool learning process and allowed me to be creative with all types different materials and the best part is that is was really quite inexpensive.
Chachapoyan Fertility Idol
Constructed from flower arranging foam, markings made with a pen and binder clips. Painted black, greys and silver with a final clear coat. The “stone” on top is a painted plastic furniture floor protector and the moss is from model train supplies.
Sankara Stone
I took some liberties with the design of this as I could not find any clear picture from the film, but I do know it was a large skull type thing. Made from the same process as above, but took more “sculpting” than the Idol stand. The nice thing about the flower foam is that it is super forgiving and can be easily formed with your fingers and any other tools found around your home, but once it’s painted it holds really well.
Holy Grail
Pretty simple design, but just went with a basic design given the whole, Jesus was a ‘simple carpenter” thing. The benefit of the painted black base coat is pretty apparent here.
The Rocketeer
This was the first attempted stand and base combo and made for the Funko 6” Rocketeer figure. I don’t love that the wire stand is visible under the base, but I guess I went a bit too far with the cutting and didn't feel like reforming the wire. I also used a different type of flower foam that was more porous and was not as easy to work with, but more expensive… go figure. It was supposed to look like a blown-out WW2 building.
Spiderman 2099
I was going for a bit of a futuristic city building look with the silver and the red tubes. Again with the wire visibility though. I also made and added a spiderweb *twip* and I think it should be a standard accessory for all the spider people. It's basically silver wire wrapped around silver wire and painted. It's nice because it's durable and movable, but has no easy way to be attached to the figure.
Blackcat
Sorry for the poor picture; had to use some filters to brighten it up. Given the propensity for female superheroes to wear high heels it is typically very difficult for them to stand without added support. My aim was to make this look like a scene from a warehouse or docks where criminal activity is constantly a foot in the comic universe.
I took some step by step pictures of the process to show that it's really quite simple.
Most of the supplies needed were purchased from my local dollar store and anything else was picked up from WalMart and a craft store.
Start with the wire hanger stand and a general idea how you want to for the figure to stand, use 2 pliers to bend the wire section by section working from the bottom up to the figure clasp. It doesn’t need to be super tight, but enough so the figure won't fall out.
Now start cutting out the general shape of the base that you want from the foam. It can be rough or look very jagged, but the foam can be easily formed and smoothed out for the final design. Add other details and ensure that the unpainted form fits the stand and the figure because once you start painting it is difficult to make any additional changes. Also the foam is extremely fragile and will impact or break easily so handle with care.
Cover the foam with a generous amount of black craft paint. The flower foam is very porous and will soak in the paint quickly. Once dry, the base coat will protect from impacts or breakage.
Start adding other paint details; easy to get creative with colours and techniques.
Once it is fully dry you can add other landscape details like bushes or grass.
When you are happy with everything, spray with a clear coat to set the colours, being careful to not spray too heavy in one area as to prevent the paint from running and you are done!
