9). Turn your garment inside out again so that all of the I-sides are facing you (fig. S). Stitch the legs closed but leave them open at the end so that the leggings are like fabric "tubes" (fig. S). Turn the garment right side out again and clothe your figure in it. Cut off the excess amount of fabric in the feet/boots, but leave at least 1/8" for seam allowance (fig. T).
10) Turn the garment inside out again so that the I-sides are facing you and stitch the feet closed as shown in (fig. U.1). Cut away the excess. With your garment still I-side out, fold the hems of the back toward you and stitch them as shown in (fig. U.2). (I wonder if Bono would play with a Mego of himself...). Now stitch the back halfway closed, from the butt to the middle of the back, taking up any excess give in the fabric along the way so that it fits snugly. Sew snaps on to the back near the top (fig. U.3).
11) I make gloves as arm bands and then paint the hands, much in the same way Mego did with Green Goblin. The gloves I made are from flimsy white vinyl folded over and cut with a flair (fig. V.1). I then glue the seam and presto, a nice vinyl glove! (fig. V.2). I use contact cement to glue the gloves shut. Some people I know use a thin piece of PVC tape of the same color as the vinyl and tape it along the seams. Either way, it looks pretty good.
12) Making the insignia. You can do this a number of ways. You can draw the insignia yourself on round stickers (fig. W), you can color copy one out of a Green Lantern comic and glue it to his chest. For those of you looking for the easy way, I have drawn you a pretty good insignia right here (fig. W). Simply print this page. Now either Xerox reduce or enlarge it until you've got your insignia to the desired size. Now color it in with a green marker. Now take it to your local Kinkos, or scan on your scanner and color print the sucker out. Color copy paper is usually of sufficiently high enough quality for my tastes to use as a sticker, however, if you want something a little more sturdy, place your paper insignia between two layers of clear packaging tape. Then cut out along the circle and you have a nice flexible laminated decal. Affix this to the front of your costume using Elmers glue, a thin smear on both the decal and the fabric itself. Press in place.I tend to place decals on when the figure is actually wearing the costume, but place a bit of masking tape over his chest under the garment so the glue doesn't bleed through and glue to the garment to the figure.
13) The easiest way to make a ring if you don't want to sculpt one out of Sculpt is to cut one using manicure scissors out of an only margarine tub lid. You can get the hole in the center of the lantern ring by pressing a needle through he plastic. (Fig. X). Now glue this to the hand using cyanoacrylate glue. Allow to dry and then paint your hands and ring. Note: You should paint the hand while the figure is dressed in the costume but with the sleeves pushed up. This will keep you from scratching off the paint when pull the costume on the figure. When dry, place the gloves back on carefully. Your costume is now done!
Onto the head!
PROCEDURE: [Head]
1) Get your hands on a Sir Galahad/Will Scarlet head. As is often the case, this is the perfect base head for this figure. Some people will swear by Superman, but I don't like him for this. As someone pointed out, he looks like a young Hugh Hefner. Some people think Shazam works (which I used as the mock-up model when posing this figure inside his box. See photo), but I think his nose is too small and not enough chin. Some have used Mr. Fantastic, but I don't like his sunken in cheeks. Here are the reasons I used Will Scarlet as the base head. You are, of course, free to use whatever base head you prefer.
- Has a great nose, eyebrows, eyes, and cheekbones
- Neck is nice and thick and heroic looking
- Easily alterable hairline
- perverse curiosity to see just how many customs I can make using him
as base head, a list which between Phil Noble and me includes characters
such as Bruce Banner, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Phantom Stranger, The Shadow,
Custom Zorro and now G.L.
Okay, so that's settled. Let's get on with it now shall we?
2) Make a 2-part mold of the head (fig Head A+B). Refer to my previous articles on Dr. Doom or ,The Greatest American Hero for procedure. Produce a copy.
3) Take out your files and X-acto knife and sand paper and start filing away (Fig. Head C+D). You want to file down his hairline and sideburns until he vaguely resembles Michael Milken sans hairpiece.
4) Roll out some small gobs of sculpey and lay them in thin sheets onto his head. Using your finger to smooth over any imperfections. At first, all you are trying to do is build up the general shape of the hair (fig E). Use your fingernails, fingers, smoother or anything that helps with this. Make sure you wiped all the dust off the head prior to the application of sculpey, or it won't adhere. Smooth over the seams where the Sculpey hair meets the actual hair of Will Scarlet. Now define the edge of the hair with your X-acto blade. Add a small rope of Sculpey for the spit curl (fig. F). Take your finger and with a quick, light wiping motion, rub out any marks or fingerprints. Now take your sculpting prods (or needles if you have none) and scrape some grooves into the hair. Imagine the way actual combed hair looks. Mak the lines long and curvy and flowing (Fig. F). To remove any final imperfections in the clay prior to baking, paint a THIN smear of isopropyl alcohol over the clay with a SOFT paintbrush. Alcohol is a polymer clay solvent and will remove things like fingerprints. It may also, however, dissolve some of your hair grooves which you will need to redefine. Blow on it gently to get the alcohol to evaporate more quickly. Now place the whole kit'n'kaboodle in the over at 275 F for 12-15 mins. (fig. G). Allow to cool.
5) Now paint your head. I like to mount the head on the body first before painting it (note, some filing down of the neck plug may be necessary as it is now made of hard plastic as opposed to PVC). That way, I don't ruin the paint job trying to force the head onto the body. This should be done prior to the final clothing of the figure, and hence painting of the hands and ring. I painted the head a base coat of flesh. Then I painted the hair a base coat of light brown so that the grooves on the hair would be lighter. I then painted the darker brown of the hair, going at right angles to the direction of the grain of the hair, so that the new paint wouldn't get in the lighter grooves, and now the grooves would stand out. I painted a final coat of flesh, then the whites of the eyes. Finally I painted in the green of the mask and the neck. (Fig. H). I painted a clear coat of falt acrylic sealant on at the and to protect the paint job as well as on the hands.
And voila, here is the final product. Incidentally, I gave him more muscular arms from a LJN type body. Since the ball of the shoulder is larger than the Mego type II body shoulder socket, he really looks like he's got broad shoulders. Very heroic, don't you think? The lantern is just a mini-Coleman key-chain lantern available in the camping departments of most Wal-Marts and Meijers. I haven't gotten around to customizing it yet to look Like Hal Jordan's Lantern. Someday soon though, with an addendum to follow.
Click here to see Matt's finished Green Lantern
Thanks for joining me and for all the good feedback. I hope you all enjoyed and can now go out and make the most requested Custom Mego there is for yourself.
Later,
Matt
Next time: Making your own Custom Packaging & Odds and Ends
My customs:
- Long Bow Green Arrow
- Dr. Strange
- The Phantom
- Animated Series style Batman
- Animated Series style 2-Face
- Green Lantern*
- Universal Studios Wolfman
- La Tarantula (Spidey villain)
- The Shadow
- Animated series style 7" Robin
- RM robin*
- Carrie Kelly Robin
- Dr. Doom*
- Greatest American Hero*
- Phantom Stranger
- The Red Skull
- Namor, the Sub-Mariner*
- Robert Smith of The Cure
- Green Hornet
- Alex from "A Clockwork Orange"
- Karloff Mummy
- The Spectre
- Zorro
* previously written article
