This custom represents a lot of firsts for me. For one this is my first custom in the 12 inch scale. Also this is my first airbrushed custom. And finally this is the first time I have installed led lights in a custom figure.

Well I got the idea to make this custom surfing the bay looking for Hot toys to buy for my birthday. I saw that there were many hot toys parts there and I already had a repulsor power iron man figure I bought on clearance years ago. So I decided I could get some hot toys parts and use the repulsor iron man as a base and build a hot toys replica since the original is so expensive. Also recently I acquired an airbrush machine and thought this would be an excellent first experiment with it.

So the first thing I did was take apart the repulsor Ironman figure and rip out the electronics and hideous yellow lights. Then I put new joints in the legs to give it more range of movement. Finally I sanded each piece down to remove as much of the factory paints as possible. Now I was ready to paint. I have heard of Alclad chrome lacquer paints before and was anxious to see how well they worked. Well I have to tell you they are AMAZING!!! The paints come out so clean and shiny. It really looks like real metal. The difficult part was matching the paints to the hot toys parts. I used different shades of metallics over the base coat of chrome to achieve this.

Before reassembling it I added white leds in the eyes and chest.I put the battery in the original battery housing for easy replacing. The hardest part of making this custom was attaching the arms. The trick was attaching the arms in the figure's torso snugly and allowing enough room for the range of movement that the hot toys arms has but not too much that there is a noticeable gap in the figure's shoulder joint. This took me days of trial and error but I finally got it and it is super tight and poses great.

I know this is a subpar substitute for the original Hot toys Mark II but it was a fun project and it allowed me to experiment with alot of different techniques. I am currently working on an Iron patriot custom for HulkSmashedme using the Alclad chrome but I am painting clear blue and red over it. I am excited to see how colors look over the Alclad chrome. Thanks for being patient dude and I will get you WIP's soon. As soon as I am done with that I will be working on MOTU customs for the the Power of Grayskull contest. I have a few ideas that I am super psyched to start on and hopefully I will make a prize worthy of the first place gold trophy winner. Thanks for looking at my custom and I really appreciate all the positive feedback and awesome comments on my other customs. Have a great day and God bless!!!

Recipe:

Hot toys Iron Man Mark II arms,head,and chest
Repulsor power Iron man torso and legs