Around last October/November, a friend of mine was looking to make a custom Funko Pop. Specifically, he was inspired to turn a 10″ Spyro into Maleficent (source of inspiration). This would be his first custom Pop, so with me having a whopping 2 under my belt, he came to me for advice.
I did my best to advise, giving nuggets of wisdom such as “take your time” and “it’s okay if it’s not perfect”; along with a few other helpful tips such as paint selection and the use of masking/detailing tapes. In the end though, I wanted to leave a lot of it up to him so it would be a good learning experience. After a few months, he wasn’t pleased with how his custom was coming along. He ended up choosing spray paint for his method of painting, and that combined with spraying in a cold garage in winter resulted in various defects in the paint job; drips and orange peel.
Wanting to help out, I offered to fix it up for him and he agreed. Within a few weeks I had his half finished custom on my work bench and started formulating how I was going to approach “fixing” it.
As I started my side of the project I knew I couldn’t just paint over what he already had. If I did, the drips and orange peel spots would show through. That left me with either sanding the paint or removing it with a solvent. As I looked more at what was already done, I realized I would have to remove most if not all the paint. In a lot of spots the paint wasn’t fully adhered to the figure and chipped off in places. Despite using a primer, we both had overlooked that Funko most likely makes these pieces through a molding process, as such they would use mold release, which would result in paint not properly adhering to the surface. And so began the long process of chipping the paint off, then using a mild solvent (& toothbrush) to scrub any spots that couldn’t be chipped off, followed finally be sanding to ensure everything was smooth and the mold release was fully gone.
At this point I felt fairly bad. Here was a custom that my friend had worked on and I erased all of that progress and work. But knowing that I was here to help him out, I pushed forward and destroyed it even more by dismantling the Pop.
All Funko Pops are not one single piece. Due to the molding/painting process, it’s easiest for Funko to split a Pop up and assemble the pieces together. Some Pops it can be hard to tell what pieces are separate, but Spyro was pretty easy. The head fin and horns were clearly different pieces since the plastic color was different and it wasn’t a paint job, and the wings were also separate due to the crease around the base of the wing. There were probably a few other spots where the Pop would split, but I decided those would be the easiest/most beneficial to split off. With the use of some hot water and some careful prying, I was able to remove the pieces, and from there prime all the pieces a basic white.
The next part was a little more difficult. What type of finish was I aiming for? My friend was going for a more metallic look, but I didn’t want to just go back and redo what he was planning to do (just in case he ever wanted to revisit this project in the future). That left me with a few options: just a plain paint job, glow in the dark, or black light.
I wanted it to be somewhat special, so I decided against the plain paint job. As for glow in the dark, I’m still working to figure out the best method for doing that. As a result, I settled on black light paint.
With the black light paint, I airbrushed it on, not caring if I over sprayed certain areas since I knew I’d just go back over with black paint to cover it up. For the black paint I ended up using a brush instead of an airbrush since it gave me a little more control and I didn’t have to worry about masking all the small details.
Once I thought my coverage for the entire Pop was good, I reassembled it, gluing the various components back into place. With it all glued up and ready to go, I gave it an overall satin clear coat finish through my airbrush. This ensured that everything had the same finish/shine, making it more cohesive overall. And with that, I considered this project done and hope my friend likes the finished Pop.
One final note to leave you on. This is by no means a perfect custom, it’s filled with flaws. Brush strokes, edges that aren’t clean, etc. But that’s okay. When making customs, don’t get discouraged by your mistakes. Nothing is perfect, and so you shouldn’t expect your customs to be perfect as a result. Just do your best and know that you’re learning as you go. The biggest thing is that you’re having fun as you go.
Eccentric Platypus Creations 