This figure is my submission for Robert Atkins’ Cobra Commander custom figure contest that’s being hosted over at Joecustoms.com. I tried to go as all out as I could on this figure. Almost every body part has some kind of modification to it, be it something removed or something new sculpted onto it using “Green Stuff”. I also did a digital painting of the character to put on a cardback mock up.

The prize for this contest is a commission piece drawn by Mr. Atkins. As someone who is into digital art and coloring I’d love to have the opportunity to color a page of his art as much as I’d like to own the art. So, I really wanted to put in the extra effort on this submission.

The figure is made from the fallowing parts:

• Head: Pursuit of Cobra Viper with a custom outer sculpted helmet.
• Torso: Rise of Cobra, Cobra Commander, heavily modified
• Arms: Resolute Zartan arms with Pursuit of Cobra, Cobra Commander hands
• Upper Legs: ROC Cobra Commander
• Lower Legs: Captain America Red Skull
• Shoulder Pads: Modified Marvel Universe Dr. Doom knee pads
• Holsters and Web Gear: Custom made
• Alternate Krake Head: Modified Iron Claw Trooper head cast
• Cape: MU Dr. Doom, cut down and modified
• Pistols: 2x Marauder Inc. 45 Pistols <- there are none better!
• Rifle: ROC Impact Armor Ripcord
• Staff: Renegades Cobra Commander

This figure was a lot of fun to work on and I really tried to push myself to try new techniques. This was the first time I’ve done a custom with a custom sculpted, removable helmet (but I glued it down in the end. It’s also the first time I’ve attempted to make my own custom web gear using ribbon. I think both of these came out pretty good for my first shot. The Cobra decal was added using Testors’ Printer Decal sheets. I’ve included a work in progress shot so that you can see what was modified on the figure.

I’m to the point now where I don’t really think a custom is complete unless I’ve created a cardback for it.  In this case I also needed to create some painted artwork for the cardback. I did this in Photoshop CS 5.1 and it came out better than I ever could have hoped for. I think this part really makes the whole project come together. I used a different process for the shading on this piece and it made all the difference. Once I had the artwork and the card template I added some shots of the figure and accessories and mocked up what a carded version of the figure would look like. You can read more about the art in this post.

Let me know what you think about it.