CONAN AND OTHER CUSTOMIZED ACTION FIGURES BY MAELSTROM

http://www.freewebs.com/maelstromcustoms/index.htm


I stumbled onto this site and just had to join! I am a longtime Conan fan and a fan of all of Robert E. Howard's works. I have been a registered member of Conan.com for quite some time, and I look forward to getting involved in this community. I hope to learn and contribute some interesting things to this site. For the last couple of years, I have been customizing or "modifying" action figures, I thought I would post some of my customized Conan action figures here. I have some other Conan related figures that I have made, but I either need to retake pictures of them, or redo some detail on them before I post them. I have plans for many other Conan projects as well and I have other non-Conan related figures that I have made, you can check them out at my website (see above), please feel free leave any comments, suggestions, or even criticisms. I hope you like these...

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

I just wanted to depict him in a basic wanderer/adventurer style. This was a combination of pieces from Todd McFarlane's "Conan" and other series figures. The base is a WWE Deluxe Aggression Randy Orton figure. The shield strapped on his back is from a LOTR figure and the shin guards are from a "Vlad the Impaler" There are also pieces from a contemporary "He-man" figure and many other assorted pieces from the old junk box. The sword belt clasps and is removeable, it can also be strapped across his back.



CONAN THE KING

This Conan is made from a WWE Deluxe Agression "Triple H" figure with pieces from the McFarlane Conan series King Conan box set. I wanted to make an ARTICULATED King Conan in the likeness of the McFarlane box set one, so I set to work. I modified a contemporary Masters of the Universe "He-Man's" harness to attach the shoulder pads to. The shield is from a LOTR "Easterling" figure and the sword is from McFarlane's "leaping" Conan figure. With the exception of bendable wrists, this figure retains all the points of articulation that the WWE Deluxe Agression figures have. I imagine this is much the way Conan would have looked in Robert E. Howard's story "The Phoenix on the Sword". The heads on both this and the forthcoming improved armoured King Conan will be swappable.



CONAN THE CIMMERIAN

With this one, I wanted to achieve a balance which maintained as much of the original appearance of the TMP statue (minus the hunched over shrugging pose) as well as the descriptions and visuals surrounding Robert E. Howard's story-The Frost Giant's Daughter. For the waist and below, I used the hips and legs of a viking spawn (with Conan leggings of course). I had to sculpt the left side of conan's face as the original hunching pose had him trying to kiss his shoulder or something, and I made a few little tweaks like turning the horns on the helmet upwards and using an Attila the Hun arm bracelet on the right arm. I added an extra row of leather scales to the abdomen, which I think helped eliminate the hunching look of the torso. This one was a while in the making simply because I couldn't decide how to proceed with the shoulders. I opted to use another WWE deluxe aggression figure for the shoulders and arms. And finally opting for cloth sleeves, I made my first venture into sewing. Anyways, here it is. I'm thinking of doing a couple of Frost Giants and of course Ymir's daughter Atali....



PALLANTIDES OF THE BLACK DRAGONS

While McFarlane's Conan series is extremely detailed, again there is little or no articulation. This is Pallantides, King Conan's General over the Black Dragons. I used a WWE Deluxe Aggression JBL figure as the base. This was a fairly easy custom except for the leathern breechcloth and the boots. I did not particularly care for the extra cloth draped over the left leg and it would have presented a problem trying to make it look right when the figure was standing straight, so I improvised and tried to make the breechcloth look more uniform (it took 2 Pallantides original figures to make one full breechcloth), I also added an armoured plate in the middle. As for the boots, I had to carve and hollow out the armoured toe-plates and cut them to fit the WWF figure's feet . I also took the liberty of painting the hair tufts on the helmet red as that is the way the Black Dragons are presented in the Dark Horse comics series (Demons of Khitai).



KULL OF ATLANTIS

Before Conan (and way before He-Man), there was Kull. A barbarian from Atlantis who rose from slave to outlaw, to gladiator, to soldier, and finally to usurp the Valusian throne from the tyrranical King Borna. I wanted to do a Kull for a long time, but I never found a head that I was satisfied with. Yep, that's a vintage He-Man head there... I don't know how many times I talked myself out of using it for this custom, but I kept coming back to it. Anyways I think it works, and besides, I think He-Man is basicly a rip-off of Kull anyways. Here are some comparisons: He-Man's nemesis Skeletor is not unlike Kull's Skull-faced Thulsa Doom, and While Kull constantly battled the Serpent Men, He-man has the "Snake men", also He-man rides that green tiger and Kull's totem is the tiger. He-Man's realm is called "Eternia" while Kull's kingdom is called "Valusia" (sounds slightly alike). Anyways enough of that, this is a WWE Deluxe Aggression Triple H base figure. The extra hair is sculpted with Fixit (my first time to use the stuff-I highly recommend it). The belt is from a Marvel Legends Namor, I added some studs and other pieces. the tiger head is from a crappy Kull figure from the crappy Kull movie, I used Fixit sculpt to blend it in as well. The kilt is hand sewn and painted with a gold paint pen and acrylic colors. The bracelets are from the crappy Hasbro Hercules figure (of which I took great pleasure in dismembering). The necklace is from a "Scorpion King" figure and has been slightly modified. And finally the sandals...the feet are from the boxed King Conan figure by McFarlane. I shaved the existing sandals down and used rubber bands for the sandal straps. The gold studs are also courtesy of the crappy Hercules figure. Axe and sword are from Stan Winston's "Realm of the Claw" line. For those interested, the diorama is something I bought on ebay. It is from a Silent Screamers (Mezco toys) Stone Golem. It stands about 20+ inches tall (almost twice as large as I thought it would be), it makes a great backdrop and the door handles also seem to resemble some depictions I have seen of Kull's god, "Valka."

Hello and Welcome to the board! I've seen your customs around before and enjoyed them. I like the mix of parts and bodies.

* Not to crazy with the He-Man head on Kull(looks like Charles Bronson with balloon arms if you can pardon the humor), but I can see why you used it.

Ey, man!

Very welcome!

Your works are very interesting, and the pictures look great.

May I ask you, how much of these figures is actually the real figure and what was made by you? For example I can't see what's the difference between the Mcfarlane's Pallantides and this custom made of yours. Excuse my blindness.


On the other hand, I specially like that "GARRADOR" dude from your page. But as you can see in my avatar, I have a weakness for hard-gay dressed gladiators

The viking-like amazon is great also, I wonder if you wouldn't like to make some figures based on the movie, like a Valeria, a Subotai, maybe a Thulsa-Doom and of course some Arnolds with the armour and dresses from the film? The sword of that amazon could fit with Valeria's.


In other topic, your picture of King Conan made me remember the movie I imagined one day when i heard Milius was going to make that suppossed thing. I had the image of a roman-like black-armoured old bearded Schwarzenegger using a roman spatha with japanese kendo movements -as he was tought to use swords -.

Only a dream about nothing.

Cromulus- Thanks bro!

Flaming Turd-In answer to your question about Pallantides, it is really just a modification (as is the case with most of my customs), McFarlane's Conan series are in reality just statues or "stactions" as we customizers and collectors call them. Therefore they are forever 'frozen' in a single pose. Basicly, I stripped the armour and pieces and attatched them to a fully poseable figure. However, I did also modify the leathern kilt and added an armoured plate to the front. I thought it looked better that way and it also allowed for more range of motion. In most of my customs, only a minimal amount of sculpting and painting has been involved in their construction. I am fairly new to this hobby and I am gradually making more advances in skills and techniques. As for Mcfarlane's original concepts, I felt that very little change was required to them as they seem to faithfully adapt Howard's descrptions. I have more Conan themed customs planned in the future, which will largely be based on his stories.

I would very much like to make customs based on the CTB movie, but I am waiting to see what Neca has to offer that I can destroy and rebuild.

One more thing...in your previous post, did you mean to say hard-GRAY gladiators?

Ever notice that the McFarlane King Conan head looked closely modeled on Triple H?

You mean ugly?

Welcome here, though! Say, are you useing some kind of "blank" figure as a base? The all seem to have the same body, and I thought they spaned different manufactures.
(I'm really sick this weekend, so I'm sorry if you already stated it and I missed it))

Cromulus-I guess I never made that conclusion, but I thought the face on his Conan the cimmerian could pass for Mel Gibson (I am picturing doing a BraveHeart custom....) other people have compared it to Robert DeNiro...(I guess I might could sqeeze a Neal McCaulley custom from "Heat" out of one too)...

Aoster-I edited my intial post to include some details of how these were made. I love those quotes at the bottom of your post, especially the one by Chaka-Zulu.

Well, I guess some of you have checked my site and I have gotten some positve feedback about my custom Tara, I wasn't going to post it here since it is not one of Robert E. Howard's characters, but I guess I'll put it up after all.

I would love to tell a nice narrative about this character but I'm not much of a creative writer. I would have made this as a character within the Conan mythos, but as I was really just wingin' it on this one, I really wasn't inspired by any particular character. "Tara" is the name of a longtime family pet we had that passed away and I just thought that would be a good name to use (it was better than Cone-Ann the Boobarian anyways). I figure that Tara is just a female barbarian who's life kind of mirror's Conan's in many ways. She has probably been a slave, a thief, and a warrior at different stages in her life and has led an adventurous one at that.

This was just an exercise in fodder that I wanted to experiment with. For a while now, I have wanted to create a basic female barbarian like those in the cheesy 80's B-movies. I think the base figure is a WWE wrestling figure called Torrie?, while the head is from another wrestler called Lita or something. (I'm not a wrestling fan). Tara's outfit and boots are courtesy of some "adult superstar" figure. I did some minor touch up work on the head and sculpted some fur arm bands. The belt is from a Pirates of the Carribean Admilal Norrington figure. The sword is from a Lord of the Rings elf, I cut the long handle off and did a little resculpting on it and the scabbard. The cape is from some Xena figure.

Thats not bad..though have you ever tried for movie accurate Conan figures?

I am holding out to see what Neca releases. I really hope they do some of the supporting cast, at least Valeria and Thulsa Doom! I made a really long list of Conan projects that I want to, I am primarily focused on Howard's stories and the characters therein. For instance, I would love to do a couple of Frost Giants and Atali to go with the Conan the Cimmerian that I did. I may perhaps do a Heimdul as well. Anyways, for every story, I have cataloged the main characters and will attempt to put them together. I have done the same for CTB, but as I said, those are not on my priority list as of now. The "Orgy scene" Conan figure that they have released a picture of looks pretty dead-on accurate, but it looks like it may also be devoid of articulation, so if that's the route Neca takes, I will definitely be using some of the parts from their series for any CTB customs. As far as CTD, well I do not have near as much appreciation for that film as CTB, but I think Bombata would make a neat figure, maybe even Jenna as well, so we'll see...

maelstrom wrote:

One more thing...in your previous post, did you mean to say hard-GRAY gladiators?

No.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqDtUtAOUyM

I was actually thinking of adding Mcfarlane CONAN clothing/armor to the NECA's movie figures. They should be near identical scale, if the AVPR figures are any indication.

Sounds like a good idea! Many of the armor pieces are easily removed from McFarlane's figures, and could easily be placed on a different one. If you've never done customizing before, check out figurerealm.com, it has some sections in the forum with tips on customizing. I am anxious to see the full Conan lineup that Neca will release. I am pretty sure that they will leave out some versions of Conan and other characters from the movie that I will want to make.

Thanks for the link. I do in fact make customs from time to time, mainly GI JOE and Star Wars figures. I am a little surprised though NECA didnt reveal more of their CONAN line-up at Toy Fair in New York last time around.

I think Neca has either fallen behind schedule a little bit, or has pushed other licenses ahead of their proposed Conan line. Their website was supposed to have pictures of the line posted long before now. But the pics of the "orgy battle" figure look pretty good, so I'm OK with a delay as long as the quality of the series is A-One.

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, I never really liked the Conan from the LCBH two-pack from Toybiz/Marvel toys. While the figure was based on a decent piece of artwork, I don't think Conan would have ever been caught dead wearing all of that gaudy get-up! My goal was to pay homage to some of my favorite Marvel era Conan artists, namely Ernie Chan, Alfredo Alcala, Pablo Marcos, and of course the late John Buscema. I never really liked the "fur diaper" and I never thought that the plain, golden armband that magically stayed in the middle of Conan's bicep was practical or had any feasible use or purpose. Nevertheless, this is the way Marvel depicted Conan for the majority of their run, so I included them here. The recipe is pretty simple, besides the LCBH base figure, I used boots from a contemporary (2002) He-Man figure and added ankle articulation. The fur diaper was from a Hanna-Barberra "Thundarr the Barbarian" figure, and I sculpted extra fur that laps over the belt. I'm pretty lazy and did not want to remove the dagger straps on Conan's leg, so I left them there, but I replaced the dagger with one that could be unsheathed from some LOTR figure. I shortened the original sword hilt and placed a thinner blade on it. The scabbard is from a McFarlane "Conan the Cimmerian" figure, I added a spare belt from the fodder bin with some chain links to attach the scabbard to the figure. I lengthened the right arm so it would be the same length as the left, and re-sculpted the arm bands. The round pieces were shaved from a ML Moon Knight's staff. The necklace was CAREFULLY shaved off of a McFarlane "Conan the Indomitable" figure. The axe is from a Blizzard Entertainment Diablo Barbarian. I intend to do a series of Marvel era Conans with different outfits and including interchangeable heads such as the one in the third picture. The helmet is from a ML X-Men movie Juggernaut and the horns are from some demon figure from McFarlane. The fourth pic is just for a little entertainment purposes, anyone familiar with Robert E. Howard's original Conan story "Rogues in the House" will know who the ape figure represents. Of course that is the build a figure Gorilla Grodd from DCUC. I shaved off the electrodes from his head and resculpted the hair. I also trimmed his mutton chops down to look less like Grodd and to make it a better multipurpose figure for interaction with other characters that I may make in the future. Anyways, hope you guys like!

Yep, thats another beauty. I would like to see that head on the King Conan body above and maybe work in an Atlantean sword from old Bust they made a few years, but not sure on the scale if its compatible or not.

*Non-Conan related, but here are some custom Sith Lords I made:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=3395943&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=93&fpart=1#3395943

Those look pretty cool Cromulus, I know it is pretty difficult to work with that scale of figures. Any plans to try your hand at Conan?

Thanks man! I like and primarily work with Star Wars and GI JOE figures when I am taking a break from Military Modeling.

I have toyed with making CONAN figures, I just may finally dabble in it, if NECA fails to produce Arnold CONAN figures and just a more generic line. I know its supposedly hard for secure his likeness. I think Hot Toys lost out again on securing it for their Predator figures.

http://thearnoldfans.com/news/1331.htm

Maelstrom, any plans about Frost Giants and Atali?

Btw, that Conan looks great. As long as you make articulate figs I really would like to see a whole battle scene with 3 or 4 figures of yours in it.


One quest, how many figs do you actually buy? I mean, you buy just one fig and then you modifie it or you own severel versions? Don't you keep any original for you collection or something? I would like to do some customs some day but I don't want to ruin my figs, you know

Thanks Turd, Yes, I do have plans for Atali and some Frost Giants as well (complete with snowscape diorama)! I just don't know when I am going to get around to it. As far as what I buy, well, let's just say that I blow a lot of money on this crap...I keep thinking I'm going to outgrow it all, but it just seems like I get into it deeper, and deeper. Yes, I buy multiple copies of many figures, and I also try to keep at least one in it's original form (most of the time) for instance the "Conan the King" boxed sets...I bought at least 5 of them, and let me tell you they weren't cheap either. It's a good thing I made a run on them when they were first released because they are selling for a lot more in the secondary market now. As a customizer, I am always on the lookout for parts that I can use, sometimes I buy a figure just because I know just what I'm going to do with that certain head or accessory. Other times, I am just in need of a certain type of base figure or a unique type of articulation. With the different toy companies churning out so much product these days, it's getting kind of tricky to figure out what to get and what to pass over. I've been working really hard the last couple of weeks trying to track down all of the DC Superheroes line (Predecessor of the current and popular DC Universe Classics line). I've been kicking myself for not getting these when they were in stock at stores, it seems especially hard to track down all of Batman's enemies. At several different times, I have convinced myself to only concentrate on Conan, medieval, and Fantasy themed figures, but I just get caught up in all of the new stuff coming out, DCUC, movie themed figures, even the 25th anniversary G.I. Joe stuff (I used to have a lot of them back in the '80s). I've been thinking of cataloging all of the stuff that I have, I've got shitloads of stuff packed away in boxes. Lots of people get into customizing and sell their figures on ebay...a lot of them make a lot of money doing it as well. There is a customizer by the name of Darth Leon who sold a custom movie style Conan the Barbarian on ebay that went for over $300.00 a few years ago (before Neca ever released the latest movie figures). I do not sell any of my stuff, although I have had some requests by other people to buy some of my customs. I'm just not to the point yet where I am ready to let go of these things, but sometime in the future, I may start making multiple copies of figures for selling purposes. If you are interested in getting into customizing, figureream.com is a great resource most users there post the recipes of their custooms and the site itself has how-to tutorials and tips. I would highly suggest that anyone start with something simple like a headswap, or basic paint job. Customizing takes a lot of time, patience, and error. I can't tell you how many times I have been disappointed. The only customs that I post are the ones that turn out good, and I have screwed up a lot of stuff learning how to customize. Although it has been quite a while since I inadvertently destroyed something...

Mael, have you checked out the new He-Man figures?

http://www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38177

http://www.toplessrobot.com/king_grayskull.jpg

I was thinking of maybe using these too. Beastman's armour could be used for say Thorgrim.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

Mael, have you checked out the new He-Man figures?

http://www.sideshowcollectors.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38177

http://www.toplessrobot.com/king_grayskull.jpg

I was thinking of maybe using these too. Beastman's armour could be used for say Thorgrim.

Sorry, Cromulus, I don't know how I missed your post. Yeah, the new He-Man figures look pretty cool. I have yet to get any of them, Damn, they are pretty proud of those thing$...

Well, It's been a while since I posted anything here. And not much has been posted the last couple of days, so forgive me if I'm a little out of line here (not Conan related)...

Here is my latest custom figure, it's Marvel's Thor from "The Ultimates"

Yeah, it's not Conan, but I've always thought that the Asgardian mythos was not too far removed from the Aesir Pantheon.

Oh, and if you haven't read or heard about it yet, there is a "Thor" movie scheduled for 2010 or later. It's supposed to be directed by Kenneth Brannagh...






Of course I will be doing some more Conan customs soon as well...

Looks good, the face looks right!

You should definitely consider making a Thulsa Doom, Rexor and Thorgrim

Great.

Cromulus The Destroyer wrote:

You should definitely consider making a Thulsa Doom, Rexor and Thorgrim

Absolutely. Also a Subotai would be great.

Is there any Atlantean swords which are compatible for these figures?