Constructing a Custom Con entry

With Custom Con right around the corner I thought I'd take some time to maybe help out those interested in entering for their first time. Last year was my first Custom Con, and I wound up biting off more than I could chew.

First, I decided on the characters I wanted to make, which in this case were- Professor Zoom, Killer Croc, Hades, Onomatopoeia, Kryptonite Man, Wotan and Black Hand. My next step was finding reference art to base my customs on. I mainly used Comicvine in addition my own collection in gathering the pics I needed. Turned out these were the easiest steps for me

From there it was all about deciding who would take the most work to finish and go from there. Killer Croc was my first foray into sculpting anything with that amount of detail in it, so I knew I had to tackle him first. Tracking down the fodder needed to start on him was almost as difficult as sculpting was. I started on other figures while I waited for Croc fodder to arrive. Time is the main factor in the game.

If you waste too much like I tend to do, you won’t finish all the characters you planned on doing, see Black Hand. You’re almost guaranteed to run into a few hitches along the way, my main hitch being yellow paint on a red base. Professor Zoom’s yellow outfit was my Kryptonite. No matter how many coats I gave the DCUC Flash I was using for him, I could still see the red underneath. So Prof. Zoom was swapped with Black Flash and I got back on track. From there on everything was smooth sailing until I started on Black Hand.

Black Hand was my last figure to make. I started on him about a week before the deadline and what I thought was going to be a simple one turned into a huge headache after a few days of working on him. I decided at the last second before I started on him that instead of just painting on all the details I'd take a whack at sculpting them like I did on Croc. Taking on a huge task like that at the last minute was a rookie mistake. It took me six days just to assemble the parts and finish the piping on the figure. After I tried sculpting the symbol on his chest, resulting in something a 5^th grader could top, I had a less than 5 hours to submit my entry, so I gave in and called it a day with what I had done. The bite I couldn’t finish.

The wrap up was simple enough. Take some nice pics, follow the instructions during the write up and send it off in a nice little email containing many hours of blood, sweat and tears caused my plastic bits flung into my eye by my dremel.

Overall I was extremely pleased with my first entry and I had a great time during the whole process. Pushing myself to the limits of my abilities paid off. This year has been a little easier since I decided to tone it down on sculpting.