Tusk (Secret Santa 2020 Entry) — customs by matchu

It’s the most, wonderful fimmmmmmeee of the yearrrrr!! Woo! Around this time every year, I get to reveal a figure that I’ve been working on in secret. My annual Fwoosh Secret Santa custom project is something I look forward to every year. This year’s list was loaded with goodies, but I ultimately ended up picking Tusk (and I packed him with 2 Underlings.)

This year marks the 5th year I have participated in Fwoosh Secret Santa figure swap. For those unfamiliar with how this works, I submitted a list of figs I would want made for me to the event organizer and he provides me with a list from someone else. I pick a character off the list and produce it in secret. When the deadline hits, I mail it to its recipient. The recipient then posts it on the Fwoosh Forum where the creator then claims their praise. It is a really fun event with loads of regulars, many of which really put their best foot forward. This year there is over 40 participants. It’s just a ton of fun, especially once the reveals start.

I’ve been pretty fortunate with the lists over the years and this year was no exception. There was a slew of great 80’s/90’s X-Men characters and lots of nostalgia for the old 5” Toybiz line, which made it a lot of fun for me. Here’s a short list of things that almost got made instead of Tusk: Classic Rocket Raccoon, Skurge, Proctor and Art Adams style Shadow Cat and Longshot. I ultimately landed on Tusk because 2 days prior to receiving my list, I randomly found the Underling (the little dude that grows out of his back) from the old 5” Toybiz figure in a storage bin. It was just too coincidental to not act on it.

Tusk himself was made using a Caliban body with hands from the Gamerverse Outback Hulk. The head is a Green Stuff cast of the SHFiguarts Infinity Wars Hulk. The tusks on the back came from a King Odin BAF helmet and spikes were ordered off etsy and glued into place.

The Underlings were the biggest challenge here as I wanted to make them as articulated as possible, but I wanted to keep them true to the scale. They ultimately ended up being a touch too big, but I was happy enough with their size (they should be about 1/3 of Tusk’s size). For their base bodies, I used 2 Marvel Universe 1/18 scale Wolverine figures. I cut the neck pegs off and repositioned them to eliminate the neck and make them a touch shorter. I’ve never customized figures smaller than 6” scale, so this definitely proved a challenge.

While building the Underlings, I had an elbow joint rip and a wrist peg snap off. I also had some paint rub issues with those stupid ball jointed hip joints (it took everything in me to look past their ugly ass aesthetic and use them here). I ended up sculpting the head using one of the Wolverine heads as a base then adding to it. I then used Bluestuff to create a mold of it and then took a cast of it using Green Stuff for the second Underling.

When it came time to sculpt the scales on these guys, I tried a few different methods. I ultimately decided that it looked best if each scale was individually placed on the body. It took me approx. 4.5 hours to do the scales on both Tusk and his 2 Underlings. Aside from the scales, I sculpted the waistline, the shoulder pads, hair and filled the toe gap on the feet. On the Underlings, I sculpted the boot tops and the shirt design on the torso.

Tusk was super simple to paint, so I decided to have some fun with the scales. I finally got around to trying those contrast paints by Citadel and they gave me a really cool finish on them Definitely digging their results. The Underlings proved to be a bit more challenging to find source images of them. The old 5” version was cast in a single color and hit with a solo red paint app on the face. I found a few images of the Underlings for reference, but every image I found was different than the next. So I ended up painting them my own color scheme. I wanted to stick with red as it was the one color that was present in all the reference pics I found, and I opted to go with Black for the secondary color so he would match Tusk.

Tusk was a really fun project to work on. The scales were a great little challenge, and the Underlings definitely kept things interesting working in a smaller scale. Overall, Im really happy with how this figure turned out, and as per usual, im sad to see him go to a new home. This year, my figure went to the event organizer, Ethan Suplee Customs (@ethansuplee_customs). Last year, I received a black suit Magneto from the Marvel Now Uncanny X-Men team from him, so now, the circle is complete. lol. I hope he enjoys his new custom.

If you want to follow along with the reveals from this years Secret Santa Figure Swap, head on over to the Fwoosh Forums and check it out. If you click here, you will be redirected to the very first reveal of the thread (http://thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=93013&start=195#p2823797). There are about 40 participants this year and the stuff that has been revealed thus far has been FANTASTIC! Do yourself a favour and check out the thread to follow along.