Toyman

“Toyboy” made me think of “boy-toy” and now Shawn Michaels’ entrance music is stuck in my head.

I CAN’T CONCENTRATE!

This week’s mini fig: Toyman.

I was never a fan of any of the comic book versions of this character. A fat guy with too many toys…? Yeah, I fight him every time I go hunting for new DCUC figures at Toys R Us. If I can beat him, Superman–FREAKIN’ SUPERMAN–shouldn’t have a problem.

That changed with the Alex Ross version of Toyman from Justice. Holy crap, I LOVE that take on the character! A silent, soulless grinning “puppet”-robot controlled by an unseen master? Just awesome, evil and creepy, reminds me of that scene from Poltergeist. That’s the version of Toyman I based this custom on.

Looking at the finished product, I regret the pose I gave him. My goal was for Toyman to have a “waiting to be activated/is he activated and just waiting to smash me?” look, but instead he looks like he’s waiting to catch a bus.

Ingredients: The jaw is lifted from a Plastic Man HeroClix (HyperTime), the hands come courtesy of a Dove ‘Clix (Crisis) and the feet were…hmmm, drawing a blank on that one. Definitely a ‘Clix figure with oversized footsies, which means whoever I swiped ’em from was popular with the ladies.

Anyway, since the rest of Toyman’s body was so thin and mechanical looking, I harvested random bits of Mech Warrior figures (gun barrels, etc.) for his arms, legs and chest. The circular joints were chopped from multiple Moloid HeroClix (Critical Mass) and costume elements (vest, mask & belt) are bits of index card (three sheets thick) glued together with Elmer’s, then cut to shape and hardened with Krazy Glue. Acrylic paint was the near-final step (flat for wood, gloss for the “metal” & costume), then a coat of matte sealant took it home.

I opted not to add the dangling cable “puppet strings” to the figure. I started to include them, but they made the figure look too busy, messy.

Custom Toyman dial here.

Random Toyman from around the web:

Wicked Toyman MiniMate mod. Custom Super Friends Toyman action figure (scroll down a bit). Toyman & the Legion of Doom vs. the PowerPuff Girls (check the :43 mark for the Scarecrow’s finest hour). And finally, if you dig the Justice-style Toyman design, I can’t recommend the DC Direct Toyman figure enough…he’s fantastic. I have mine mixed in with my DCUC guys and he fits right in. Maybe the best figure DCD has ever produced.

Grodd

How evil is Grodd? He’s a super-intelligent gorilla that knows he should wear pants…but doesn’t. Or maybe his hyper-genius IQ has deduced something about pants the rest of us don’t know?

I’m writing the rest of this blog pantsless just to be sure.

On to this week’s time waster…

Ingredients: Sitting on the couch and watching ‘The Soup.’ Yep, that’s about it. So little work went into making this custom that I should turn in my HeroClix secret decoder ring. All I did was grab a D&D miniatures Dire Ape, slap some Grodd-colored acrylic paint on ‘im and BAM!, easy-bake evil monkey mastermind. Custom Grodd dial here.

BREAKING NEWS: Grodd has just dethroned Conan as my silver medal of least-customized custom, narrowly missing out on unseating reigning champ Ursa Major. Can I do less work and create a new gold medalist?!? I’ll get right on it.

*sits on couch, turns on TV, itches junk*

I should make a custom Titano. And by “make” I mean “go to Toys R Us, buy a six-inch plastic gorilla and claim I made a Titano custom.” My weekend plans are set!

Random Grodd from the web

The proud tradition of gorillas in comics.

Grodd ties a cruise ship to a bunch of pterodactyls and flies off with it (jump to 3:11 for the madness).

And finally, while it’s not Grodd, here’s a cake shaped like a fire-breathing gorilla driving a tank.