A very sad day for comic book fans and "True Belivers" everywhere. RIP Stan Lee, Excelsior. The Characters you help create and stories you told will live on for generations to come. I was lucky enough to meet Stan twice and he really was the man; funny, witty and really patient and kind to his fans!



The first time I meet him was at San Diego Comic Convention in 2006 he was so funny and loved seeing the old 1960's issue of the Incredible Hulk I got him to sign he turned and said to his helper "WOW Now this is an old one!" and had a good laugh when I showed him my travel diary entry for that day "Today I meet a fellow True Believer! NUFF SAID!



I was luck enough to meet Stan again in 2014 when he came out to Sydney for Supanova. I knew I had to do something special so I made a custom Mego action figure of him. He absolutely loved it and all the work that went into it! Especially that I modeled his head off a Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes figure. To top off such a wonderful meeting his aide had me custom make another custom action figure of Stan Lee for his private collection, truly one of the greatest moments of my life. you can read more about this magical day here!

Sad day indeed the world is definitely a little less super today Nuff Said!

When I heard that the one and only Stan Lee was stopping by Sydney's Supanova Pop Culture Expo as part of his last major comic convention tour, it was a dream come true. As a life long Marvel fan he (in collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) is responsible for creating many of my favorite comic book characters. At 91 years old his continued creativity, positivity and energy is such an inspiration to me.


Nuff Said! I knew what I had to do and over the subsequent few weeks I made it my mission to create a custom made Mego Action figure of Stan the man Lee!
 

I took the figure along to the convention and was lucky enough to have the opportunity to show Stan my work. He loved it and was blown away that I had made it, he grabbed it off me to take a closer look and upon closer inspection declared "Couldn't you have made me look a little more like Brad Pitt?" When I told him that the head was based off Charlton Heston from Planet of the Apes he joked about their similar likeness! This whole experience was Amazing and will be a memory I will cherish forever!!!

I thought I'd include this post to show the Wedding cake toppers I created for our Wedding last year. As you have probably already read on this blog, I'm a bit of an action figure fan and there is nothing I like more than cutomising a 1970's style Mego style action figure! So when we it came time to find a set of Wedding toppers to sit on top of our cake... I think you can guess what happened next.... I built Emma and I in Mego form.

As you can see from the photos the likenesses were pretty good and some clever clothing choices helped add to the appearance. I also put together a custom built platform and spinning base to give it the look of a traditional tiered Wedding cake. I used a model of our favourite Jukebox the trusty Seeburg SX100 Marauder as a backdrop, a record as a base and positioned us in a way that when we got spinning it gave us the appearance of having a little Rock 'N' Roll Dance!

I was recently lucky enough to have my Pack of Heroes action figures awarded Custom of the Week over on the Mego Museum website and message board.


 EMCE Hammer, Board Moderator wrote:
"There has been a ton of great stuff posted in the past three weeks or so. The Pack of Heroes set by John D-C really jumped out at me, both for creativity involved as well as the execution. These figures just have a neat vibe to the. I'd probably buy them on sight on appearance alone."

As a long time Mego fan and collector, its safe to say I was pretty chuffed by this recognition of my work!

For those of you that don’t know, The Mego Corporation was a toy company that dominated the action figure toy market during most of the 1970s. The Mego Corporation was founded in the early 1950s and was mostly known prior to 1971 as a producer of dime store toys. Starting in 1971, Mego began purchasing license rights to a variety of successful motion pictures, television programs, and  comic books, and started producing lines for Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and the Wizard of Oz. Mego used various licensed Marvel and DC superhero characters to create their World’s Greatest Superhero line, which became their most successful toy line. They also produced an original character, Action Jackson, an unsuccessful competitor of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. The secret of Mego’s success was that their action figures were constructed with interchangeable heads. Generic bodies could be mass produced and different figures created by interposing different heads and costumes on them. Mego also constructed their figures primarily in an 8-inch (200mm) scale - setting an industry standard in the 1970s.

I prefer to customise using the Mego’s 8-inch figures for a few reasons, firstly I love them as a base because you can really go crazy with the cloth costuming secondly they have a very classic look to them, and thirdly there is a really established community around customizing Mego Action Figures and it is pretty easy to purchase reproduction parts and accessories.

This kinda mess can only mean one thing.... Yep, I'm getting for another exhibition.

We caught the new Amazing Spider-Man film on the weekend! It was great to finally see old Web-Head battle the Lizard on the big screen, my megos have been fighting for a few decades now! Although I was skeptical of another reboot, the movie was pretty solid. The plot was very comic booky, Andrew Garfield was great as a brooding Gen-Y Peter Parker, Emma Stone was a text book Gwen Stacy and the 3D was very, very nice!

I'm off to see Joss Whedon's film the Avengers at midnight tonight and I am as excited as my Mego's.... We've been waiting for this movie for a long, long time!!

For my exhibition Haunted House Rock I list Toy Customisation as one on the many mediums I use to create artwork. For me toy customisation has very humble beginnings. As a kid growing up I used to love to play with toys in particularly Super Hero Action Figures. As with most kids my age I  went through a Superman, Superman, Superman phase. He was my favorite toy I used to fold his legs up behind his head, put him in my top pocket and take him everywhere with me, I liked him so much I lost his cape and wore the “S” right off his chest. For Christmas that year I received a second brand new and (in my opinion) all powerful Superman Action Figure It was great I was so happy, but there is one problem, when your playing Superman and you have two Supermen there is only so much flying around you can do before you need to find a bad guy to beat up. I remember taking to one of my supermen with some plasticine to make him “more muscily” and a coiled up pipe cleaner crown which I placed  on top of his head, he now became the mighty-evil leader known as King Spring, and a new hobby was born.

Now days I mainly start my customising with a Generic 8-inch Mego styled body, I sculpt the head or add facial features to a resin cast of and existing head with modeling clay. I then go about creating a costume and accessories for the figure via many different means. 

For those of you that don’t know, The Mego Corporation was a toy company that dominated the action figure toy market during most of the 1970s. The Mego Corporation was founded in the early 1950s and was mostly known prior to 1971 as a producer of dime store toys. Starting in 1971, Mego began purchasing license rights to a variety of successful motion pictures, television programs, and comic books, and started producing lines for Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and the Wizard of Oz. Mego used various licensed Marvel and DC superhero characters to create their World’s Greatest Superhero line, which became their most successful toy line. They also produced an original character, Action Jackson, an unsuccessful competitor of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. The secret of Mego’s success was that their action figures were constructed with interchangeable heads. Generic bodies could be mass produced and different figures created by interposing different heads and costumes on them. Mego also constructed their figures primarily in an 8-inch (200 mm) scale - setting an industry standard in the 1970s.


I prefer to customise using the Mego’s 8-inch figures for a few reasons, firstly I love them as a base because you can really go crazy with the cloth costuming secondly they have a very classic look to them, and thirdly there is a really established community around customizing Mego Action Figures and it is pretty easy to purchase reproduction parts and accessories.