Customizing start up help
 

Hey all,

I used to customize when I was much much younger with my Joes. Its been years and I got back into collecting recently and I'm actually wanting to start doing some customizing now, but I'd like to ask any of the amazing people who do wonderful work here for some pointers with some basics.

Two questions that I would like to know: First what is a good paint for figures?

Second, what kind of brushes would you suggest...particularly for doing the heads?

I've seen some amazing customs here. If anyone has some good custom "recipes" that you think a beginner might be able to try as well, any help would be appreciated.

Basic headswaps, hands swaps, weapon swaps are easy for starters. Then you go into basic painting, such as painting the iron man figure from the MU avenger boxset silver instead of gold. Or paint deadpool grey and black for xforce. Next level of difficulty is sculpty and construction work, envolving tools, sanding, gluing etc.. I suggest looking up jin saotome's website he has an awesome how to tips thread, and go to marvelousnews.com and look at the custom thread, there's lots and lots of how to pages. other then that simply ask questions directly to customizers on here, the rest is just trial, error and personal style.

Thanks guys for the help finding some good info. I appreciate it.

Invest in a Dremel if you can. You can drill, cut, sand, and grind. It'll come in quite handy regardless of what you do. I use a Stylus...I've had mine for 5 years.

I'll give you the two best tools to have as a customizer:

1. Patience

The ability to sit back, and make a plan. But have the ability to go off said plan if it benefits said project. Learning to have enough patience to set aside a project until the right part arrives and not force something to work, physically, artistically, or conceptually. Think like a chess player 4 or 5 steps ahead of where you are.

2. Boldness.

Try to do something beyond your skill set, push yourself to be better. Don't be afraid to fail or mess up, this is an integral part of the learning process. If you can't afford a 10 dollar figure thrown in the trash, you may want to wait until you can afford to trash a few figures. I learn how to Wire LED's in MU Iron Man, but I learned about 10 ways not to wire up IM, LOL.

what finish spray do you guys recommend? i have testors dullcote and it doesnt give it to the nice finish shine like i want but still seals in the paint nice