MotU Origins - Oo-Larr custom

While waiting patiently for the new Origins MotU range to come out in the fall, I've been itching to use the bodies I had from the Masters of the WWE Universe and some spare parts from my customs box to create some characters that aren't all that likely to get original figures and one such is Oo-Larr. This character is the original minicomic He-Man, before he became He-Man and before the Filmation cartoon changed his origin story.

I happened to have an incomplete Classics Oo-Larr I picked up cheap, missing the head and spear. I decided to steal its loincloth and bare feet. Classics feet are a bit big for Origins, but for this figure, they are just right enough to work.

I hollowed out the inside upper edge of the loincloth and shaved down one of the WWE crotch pieces, glued the new loincloth on to it and filled the gap with putty and then covered that with some brown paint. The loincloth is a bit wide, being made for Classics waists, but that actually works well for this figure, as it's a primitive rough fur thing. The main body is the Ultimate Warrior figure, for its bronzed skintone, with the chest tattoo removed and the shins are from the Cena figure, repainted along with the feet to match the rest of the body. I did make some minor changes to the insides of the feet to make them fit better on the Origins pegs and while it works well enough, it's still an imperfect solution. Regardless, they're not falling off if I don't provoke them, so there's that.

The Ultimate Warrior happened to come with Classics Oo-Larr's spear, molded in yellow, so I used that with a trim to shorten it and some paint. The head is a resin cast of the SDCC Origins He-Man head made by Ken Coleman. I may replace it with an actual one when He-Man comes out, but this one works just fine for now. I did convert an actual vintage head to fit the neck peg, but decided in the end the new head with the longer hair works better for Oo-Larr. I kept paint applications on the head and spear simple to stick to the toy look of the figures.

MOTU Classics - Custom Anti-Eternia He-Man in alternate colour scheme

Let me start by saying I don't feel there is anything wrong as such with the nearly all black colour scheme on the official AE He-Man figure, but I have always found the alternate colour schemes depicted in some fan art which use more red and sometimes grey, make for a more contrasting figure that is ultimately more interesting to look at. So it only makes sense I ended up doing a custom version that incorporates all these elements.

The base figure is another copy of the Chinese AE He-Man bootlegs. I used a spare set of Faker boots because I figured the purple would be a better base colour to paint red and if some paint rubs off, it would be less jarring. The loincloth, belt and wrist guards were repainted. The harness and weapons were moulded in red by Barbarossa customs, then painted, leaving the handles bear to avoid paint wear in that spot. I prefer to have the accessories as close as possible to the paint colour, so that eventual wear will not stand out (much). I also painted the hair to be slightly lighter and painted yellow in the centre of the eyes instead of the original white.

The original artwork that inspired the alternate colour scheme the most:

MOTU Classics - Hellscape Skeletor

After He-Man defeated Anti-Eternia He-Man and closed the portal, the Masters thought that would be the end of trouble from that evil place. But Skeletor hadn't given up on his plans to harness the powers from that forsaken place and, through many spells and trials, he finally managed to summon Anti-He-Man's sword of power. When he called upon the dark power of Castle Hellskull, the magic answered and he was transformed into an ever darker version of his self, the one that would become known as Hellscape Skeletor.

The idea for this one was born when I got my hands on a couple Ninjor bodies without heads or accessories. The body shape and colouring made for a perfect base for a different take on Skeletor. I Threw together some bits I already had and ordered a couple custom casts to fill in the gaps. The chest harness is a repaint of a spare Faker harness I had left over from a different custom and the black sword is, fittingly, from one of the China Anti-He-Man figures. The Alcala head is a resin cast from Eternal Customs. The staff is a black resin copy made by Barbarossa Customs. I painted Skeletor's skull and the one on the havoc staff to match and Skeletor's your uncle. I left the loincloth as is, figuring it worked well and didn't need to be changed for the traditional Skeletor leather loincloth.

MOTU Classics - Custom Anti-Eternia He-Man in Hellskull Battle Armour

Having suffered defeat at the hands of Eternia's He-Man, Anti-He-Man descended in the deepest catacombs under Castle Hellskull in search of ancient weapons of power to enact his revenge. It is there that the spirit of the Castle bestowed on him the Hellskull Battle Armour, infused with all the evil of that place and a set of weapons to match. Armed with these, it is only a matter of time before Anti-He-Man will find his way back to Eternia and destroy his paleskinned double...

Anti-Eternia He-Man in Hellskull Battle Armor and enchanted weapons

I picked up a couple of those He-Man, Faker and Anti-He-Man figures from China that, according to some are factory rejects and to others bootlegs. He-Bro made a good case for the bootleg theory with some notable differences, so I'm going to go with that. Regardless, these make for some great custom fodder as they are relatively cheap basic bodies and there is no guilt over destroying an expensive collector figure.

I wanted to make a Battle Armor variant out of one of the Anti-Eternia He-Man figures, and was hesitating which armour set to use (Skeletor's or He-Man's), but then I saw a loose chest armour for sale from a Castle Greyskullman figure and I thought that would look great in dark red, plus the skull with wings motif also figures on the shield that comes with Anti-Eternia He-Man, so the choice was made. As a plus, no complete figure had to be (expensively) sourced and harmed in the process as this was likely leftover from someone else's custom work.

A quick proof of concept was done by painting over the green stone of the flexible armour pieces in diluted black. Then that was followed by a drybrush of dark burgundy red and topped with a drybrush of scarlet. The grey emblem was just drybrushed with a lighter shade of grey to bring out the detail and the same red from before was used in the eye sockets to give a red eye effect. I felt it looked good enough to soldier on.

A quick mock-up on the body told me the colour scheme was off balance, with all the red touches being in the upper half, so I decided to give the boots the same treatment as the armour, for a worn, scuffed red leather look.

Finally, his all black plastic weapons got some touches of red and grey. Normally I would aim for a smooth covering in successive thin layers, but here I decided to continue the rough stone theme from before, so I went with more drybrushing. Finally, to help protect the paint, all the repainted parts got sprayed with varnish and added back onto the figure.

A more heavily edited picture to get a movie poster effect, for fun.

Mega Construx - Robot He-Man Custom

Based on the Filmation episode where Man-At-Arms used a robot version of He-Man as a decoy when Prince Adam was captured, this is another minor Megaconstrux custom. It combines parts of an almost complete He-Man with the head of a Terminator and some custom sculpted eyes.

Will the real He-Man please stand up?

Robot He-Man with his brothers from another mother:

All the He-Man based customs so far:

Mega Construx - Wun-Dar Custom

Another easy custom consisting mainly in paint applications over an existing Megaconstrux figure. This Wun-Dar figure is essentially a repaint of the He-Man figure (just like the original vintage one). I did use Faker's dark grey belt and wristband as I figured if the black paint chipped, it would be less noticeable with that base. The weapons are repainted copies from a custom Lego weapon supplier (Brickwarriors I believe). I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the Megaconstrux Battlebones though as it looks like he comes with the correct weapons for Wun-Dar.

After taking the pictures I noticed I hadn't actually put on his wristarmour. Here's a quick pic to show it's there though:

Mega Construx - Snakeman-At-Arms custom

With the slow speed Mega Construx is trickling out characters, I did another quick custom to turn a regular Man-At-Arms into the snakeman version. The face was resculpted, including a new nose and open mouth and a dab of paint to the armour to match the Classics design.

Mega Construx - Beastmen Armybuilding

The Beastman figure creates a great opportunity to armybuild into some cannon fodder for Skeletor. On these, I simply removed all or most of Beastman's armour bits and equipped them with suitable lego weapons. The lego weapon grips are a slightly larger diameter, so I shaved them down a bit with a hobby knife.

Mega Construx - Battledamaged Faker Customs

A rather easy set of customs, these battledamaged Fakers were made combining parts from a Faker and Terminator figure. It's mainly just swapping them around, although I did add some additional damage to the face and chest of the lightly damaged Faker.

The heavily damaged Faker got the unused Faker bits from the first custom, and the hairpiece from another Faker.

Three stages of Faker: regular Mega Construx Faker, lightly damaged Faker, heavily damaged faker:

Between this and the Keldor custom, I had some unused bits left that I combined into this Skelefaker for laughs. I added in some orange parts from He-Man (belt and wristband) as well:

Mega Construx - MOTU - Keldor Custom

The first of my Mega Construx customs was Keldor, aka King Randor's Gar halfbrother who would eventually become Skeletor.

The base for this custom was a combination of bodyparts from Skeletor and Faker, with Skeletor armour and 2 copies of Skeletor's sword. The head is based on a Mega Construx Spock head, with the hairline and hair resculpted and some facial hair added. Then painted to match the rest of the figure. I'm rather pleased with the way this one came out.

Days of future past, Keldor and Skeletor: