Question for the day: Did you make childhood Mego customs

[dr_cyclops]

Sad but true, all the Mego playing I did as a kid only involved using the characters they were. I really don't remember ever considering making other character. I drew a lot, sculpted in oil-base clay. Even built model kits. I even kit bashed some model kits. (The vehicles not the figures.) So it's kind of weird, that I didn't make the connection, until I came here in '09, and found this fantastic group of people. All my failed custom SuperPowers figures, are reflected here. Because of you members here, my Mego customizing has been a wonderful experience. Thanks

[Confessional]

After seeing BTPOTA I had Ursus fever… that led to taking one of those large metal-barreled toxic markers and coloring the good General's helmet, face and clothes completely black. He smelled bad and I got a little high, but I had my first custom! My memory is that the toluene, or whichever god-awful chemical was in those markers, disintegrated and melted his clothes to his body.

[apes3978]

After seeing BTPOTA I had Ursus fever… that led to taking one of those large metal-barreled toxic markers and coloring the good General's helmet, face and clothes completely black. He smelled bad and I got a little high, but I had my first custom! My memory is that the toluene, or whichever god-awful chemical was in those markers, disintegrated and melted his clothes to his body.

I would never have expected that-Sounds like a mess...

[Mikey]

Masking tape mummy

[Action Martin]

I put Alan Virdon in Mr. Fantastic's costume for an instant Johnny Storm. Then Mr. Fantastic got the POTA Astronaut flight suit with a Star Trek holster (phaser and communitcator), piece of black cloth, and became Nick Fury.
I didn't get too creative with clothing for my Megos.

[PNGwynne]

I didn't have any customized Megos but my Grandmother was a a very crafty person and she made custom characters for me with cardboard and scrap fabric.

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I love that these still exist, they are wonderful.

[Krypt0nite]

I put the Shazam suit on Mr. Fantastic, and then Hutch blue pants over that, and had Earth-2 Flash.

My grandmother made a white body suit and white head covering along with a green cape. I added Robin's green shorts and shoes to it for a Spectre.

[powersthatbe]

I had found some green fabric so I used the Ivanhoe suit,with Iron man head,boots and gloves covered in aluminum foil to make Doctor Doom. I put Falcon's suit over Aquaman to make Red Raven(remember him from the Invaders?). My shazam was a stand in for both Peter Parker and Bruce Banner. I cut off the tail of the lizard and used his suit and purple pants. I used shazam also with Thor's suit and conan's sword to make a warrior from another world figure.( I called him Killraven,even though I never read the character in the comics and I was thinking of John Carter from Mars). My cousin told me he had a friend who painted captain america's head red, made the "a" into an "f" with shazam boots and suit and made the flash. I never had a spock but I know If I had him I would have made him into Namor.

[Type3Toys]

No. I had friends that the second they broke or lost a mego, mommy would rush them to Kmart or jamesway so get a new one. I was the kid that had to wait till Christmas or my birthday.
So I was too afraid to damage or brake one to even take the clothes off.

[monitor_ep]

My brother & I did expand our Batman 66 lineup.

*We used WOZ Scarecrow & Cowardly Lion into Batman Scarecrow & DC Comics Lion-Mane.

*We also added in the LJN Rookies/Swat as Gotham City P.D..

*I just found our original Kojack head that we used as Lex Luthor.

*We also used extra Captain Marvel figures to make Lt. Marvels.

*We also made Bizarro Superman. I wish I had known of the rest of the Bizarro World because we would have made them also.

[apes3978]

I wanted a Julius from "Planet of the Apes", so I cut the sleeves off a Soldier Ape tunic, which in reality was bass ackwards because as you know, Julius' sleeveless shirt was fabric, not the leather vest part of a gorilla uniform.

Looking back, I'm sure if I would have asked, my mom probably could have sewn something up for him.

I remember another one I made: A custom Taylor.

I used Hutch, repainted his hair a darker blonde and added a beard. I even went as far as taking a lighter to his right shoulder area to give him the "burn" he received from the Gorillas torches while out in the compound.

I used the only paint I had available at the time, model paint, so the paint never completely dried and was always a little bit tacky.

[rykerw1701]

The first Robin I had, which was a T1, ended up wearing a mishmash of his green undies, tinfoil outfit and white AJ boots from an outfit a relative gave me, probably thinking it fit GI Joe. He's still in a box someplace wearing that, along with major bite marks on his leg from a puppy we had. Classic stuff. Batman and Robin were the only Megos I had that were ever replaced, like in the post above. New toys were for Christmas and birthdays.

[scott metzger]

The reason I started customizing was so I could have characters Mego didn’t make, so there’s a long tale there. My first “custom” was taking the parts from my older, not-in great shape Batman and Superman suits (yeah, the original solid box suits; one had ravelled at the trunks and the other had a run through the top) and cobbling them together for a sort of Flash. Before long, my grandmother took some spare material (my mother and grandmother made most of their own clothes) and sewed up a black and then a red bodysuit. I put those on two figures, taping the back together, and then made the rest of the parts for Green Lantern and Flash out of construction paper and tape. Hal used the Bruce Wayne head, and I honestly forget who was under the paper and tape Barry mask. I re-did my Batman with a long, enveloping cape my grandmother sewed for me and made a paper/tape mask with Berni Wrightson “I have to duck down going through a doorway” long bat-ears (and I still make the Bronze age Batman with those ears today; draw him the same way, too). I got a Rookies figure with the hands and feet that popped off to make Elongated Man. My grandmother made another red suit and four long red tubes to slip over the arms and legs when the hands and feet were popped out. Regular and elongated gloves ad boots of paper/tape with a little ball on the end to attach the hands and feet let him “stretch” (and, again, I still use a version of this idea today). Another red bodysuit gave me Red Tornado, with a red paper cone with a whirling pattern drawn on that could tape around his waist gave him his “powers” (he also had a smaller cone for his hand). Eventually, I learned to sew myself, primitively at first, and between that and paper/tape, I eventually had versions of Lex Luthor (I emery boarded an Action Jackson head for not-so-great results), Sinestro, Scarecrow, Huntress, Black Canary, Hawkman, Solomon Grundy, Capt. Cold, Johnny Storm, and others slipping my mind at the moment. I had to cycle through some characters and take off costumes as I went along because of the limited number of Megos I had to work with until I got older (the Sears bin full of clearance Dukes and the French carded figures at Lionel were godsends). But I still had a lot of fun with characters I never would have had without customizing. Most of the figures back then have had upgraded versions in later years, but the Grundy and Captain Cold, thought they have a few minor upgrades, are versions I did actually play with before I shifted from playing to collecting (well, admitting to playing with my figures, anyway). I could completely re-do both these days, but I’m happy with them as they are now and the memories they hold.

[MIB41]

Shazam seem to always be my go-to figure for customs. I made him Peter Parker (never knowing Wards had done that). I enjoyed him as Robin the Teen Wonder. But my favorite was Shazam as Nova. I took a Tarzan flesh suit and colored it to match Nova's, then crafted the helmet pretty much from paper, crudely wrapped and tapped to fit on his head (but removable). I spent countless hours playing with that one.

[PuckRobin]

Spock head on a Mego body without the black boots, green shorts from Robin, poorly drawn widow’s peak — and I had a Namor to go with Cap and the Torch for the Invaders. Although I think I worked to restore Spock to his pristine Trek form.