Michaelangelo and Klunk 1985 Custom Action Figure

27 years ago in December Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird under Mirage Studios released a one issue micro series titled, 'Michaelangelo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in "The Christmas Aliens"'. It was a Christmas story focusing on Michaelangelo. (!spoiler of the story until next paragraph!) The story goes like this; Mikey is on a stroll to get some fresh air and to take up some sights in a snowy Christmas-y NYC evening. As Mikey is walking around he notices a lost little kitty cat in the middle of a snowy park. Mikey instantly adopts the lil guy and names him Klunk. With his new friend Klunk, Mikey continues his journey and comes across a nifty toy store. Mikey being the awesome guy that he is has to check out the toys. While in the empty store Mikey goes around back and stumbles on to some crooks robbing the stores shipment of that years hot holiday toy, The "Lil Orphan Aliens". The Lil Orphan Aliens that are being robbed were intended to go to the Brown St Childhrens Home orphanage for Christmas morning. Mikey jumps into the scene to stop the thieves but the crooks flee via the delivery truck with all the toys still inside. Mikey grabs hold of the truck in the nick of time and "ninjas" his way into control of the vehicle but now has the cops chasing and shooting at him thinking he is the one who robbed the delivery. Mikey is able to lose the cops, and hide the truck. With the coast clear Mikey regroups with his brothers and April back at Aprils Apartment and they all decide to drop the Lil Oprhan Alien toys off themselves at the Brown Street Childhrens home. Mikey, the guys, April and Klunk wind up saving Christmas for the kids and in return making this my all time favorite Christmas story ever.

Being that its the holiday season and the theme of this contest, it was a no brainer to pick my custom from one of my all time fave Christmas AND TMNT story. I did a lil research and havent found any versions of the turtles sculpted in their bubble coat and skullcap disguises. I always thought those outfits were so cool in a mundaneley way. We first saw the outfit it in the comics when Mikey wore it then later on in the original cartoon where there are a couple episodes when all the turtles wear the outfit.

The base figure I used was a Michaelanglo figure from the new Nickelodeon line. I had to do a ton of dremeling on this guy. All of his knee and elbow pads were completely removed. I grinded down his shell a bit, along with his feet and hands. When I had the base figure grinded down to a size I wanted I then began sculpting his clothes over the base. His head has a high grade earth magnet implanted into it to hold his hats firmly on his head. The hats also have magnets implanted in them making the fit extra snug. Both skullcap and Santa hats were completely sculpted from scratch. In order to get the hats to fit perfectly on Mikeys head and to be removable I made a soft rubber cast of the head and sculpted on to the soft rubber. When the apoxie sculpt was hard I was able to flex the hats off the rubber. I then had perfect negatives to fit on the original head. Klunk the cat is also sculpted from scratch. The Lil Orphan Alien toy canisters are made from painted wooden dowels. The graphics on the canisters are digital drawings done on Adobe Illustrator and were printed out on water slide decal paper. The scarf is made from a piece of felt fabric. Overall when I was done sculpting I was pleasantly surprised to find the apoxie sculpt had added a nice hefty weight to the toy.

THANK YOU for the excuse and opportunity to make this figure its been a BLAST and a pleasure!