So maybe you don't like some of the new sculpts. Maybe you don't like the detail, the pose, the scale, or who knows what. Well, maybe it's time to add to your heroclix hobby by making your own! It's not too hard to get into and if you've ever painted miniatures before you've already got a great start. I'm not the worlds greatest customizer of clix, but I've done my own fair share. So come on in for some great examples of customs and I'll tell you how I pulled them off!

I've customized hundreds of pieces, some simple and some a bit more complex. First I'm going to show you the easiest customizing in the world to do. That's to make your own duo figures.

When duo figures came out my imagination went nuts. There are just so many cool ways to put this together. I had plenty of extra old figures too! All you have to do in order to make your duo is manage to fit both sculpts on the same dial. Here's some nice examples:

My tools: Dremel with cutting/grinding wheel; small putty knife; super glue (I have all sorts of other tools, like long tweezers for tiny pieces, but these are the basics).

Clea and Doctor Strange: For this, I used the Veteran Dr from Fantastic Forces. I used my putty knife to gently pry the flight base loose so I could reglue it closer to the edge. I pryed Clea off her base and used my dremel tool to cut away plastic around her feet so she would fit better. Glue them into place and voila! The only thing that didn't work with this pieces is that the purple energy dagger points at Clea's head, but it does look like the two of them are cooking up a nice spell. House rules for them is litter more than custom duo attack ability. They keep the Spidey TA and are worth an extra ten points.










Thor and Lady Sif: I did this the same way as Doc and Clea only no grinding needed. Sif is just Valkyrie from Defenders with a new paint job. I put them on an old Veteran Thor base and it takes to being a duo dial quite nicely. Their defense may be low, but they can deal one heck of a mean pounding. I know, I've tested them.













Silver Surfer and Superman: All repositioning and gluing. No grinding or repainting needed. I put them on a Veteran Silver Surfer dial from Super Nova. House rules gives them both Power Cosmic and Superman TA. House ruled them for the Multi-attack ability as well. Revalue to 400 points because that's how much they can take on by themselves. They are the pride of my duo customs and I have over a hundred made so far. Just think, who can you fit together?

These next ones were either to repair or just make the sculpt more creative to my own liking. This is where I suggest, if you don't like it, remake it!




Green Lantern: That weak ankle of his has a tendency to break on his original figures from Cosmic Justice. That's just what happened with this one. So, I took this cloud form from anther figure called Gravity and used a tool to open up the end where Gravity's feet were originally. I glued in Green Lantern and gave it a paint job. Now he's taking off in a green cloud, you can still see his dial easily and I think he looks much better. Yeah, he's just a rookie, but he sits nicely on my shelf.











Silver Surver: My rookie Surfer from Super Noval came with a broken flight stand. Well, since that cloud worked so well for GL, why not for Surfer? I think it works even better for him! I had to use my dremels cutting wheel to open up the cloud so the surfboard could be glued in and then give it a nice white cloud paint job. You can see the results for yourself.













Skrull Generals: You know, I've never liked how much they don't use the full potential of a Skrull's shapechanging. These guys can turn into big, sharp clawed monsters if they want to. So I dug into my body shop and pulled out some old tentacles from an old Doctor Octopus. I used my dremel to cut and smooth connections for arms and tentacles and then glued things into place. I even painted one of the tentacles metallic blue. It gives a whimsy to their shape changing you just don't see.





Super Skrull: There's only one Super Skrull sculpt that I've ever liked and before that came out, I said "Forget it! I'm making my own!" So I did. All sorts of parts went into this figure. I started with the legs of a flying Sentinel. I just cut that robot right in half. I got the upper torso of Mr Fantastic, the head of a Skrull Commando, one forearm from the Thing, and the other arm is from a Sandman. I even had a special technique for the flames. The flames are made of toilet paper, mixed with elmers glue and carefully placed on the hand. Once that dried, I gave it a coating of brush on crazy glue to harden it. After that, it was all paint job and it stands on a Jack of Hearts dial. The only thing you don't see in him is the Invisible Woman, but I don't care. I love how he turned out. It looks like he's admiring his skill and muscle in one arm while preparing to deliver a beat down.

Now what about those pieces that they haven't made yet? Well, there are customizers who do a pretty awesome job and you can pay them to make who ever you want. Or you could do it yourself. Here's three examples.

The Unknown Soldier (DC Comics): It's amazing what changing a head and doing a repaint can do. I had to use pliers to remove Joker's head and then I used a razor to cut off an old Easy Company Soldier's head for replacement. I painted the face out white with some shadowing for the bandages and repainted the rest to look like his trenchcoat and WW2 uniform pants and boots. He's seen using that exact style of machine gun in the old comics too.

Sometimes customs are even easier than that. Sometimes I find a figure that's just screaming to be someone else.



Madcap: What you are looking at used to be Clayface. Thanks to a total repaint, you get Madcap from Marvel Comics. I don't have a good dial for him or Unk Soldier, but I just did them for looks anyway. All this needed what some good detail brushes and paint. I'm sure most of you with steadier hands can do even better than me!







Beyonder: The first Samson they put out was okay, but he makes a way better Beyonder in my opinion. Again, nothing but repaint to make this work and it's the easiest repaint you could ever hope to do. Just white and black, the rest falls into place perfectly.

Customizing figures can be fun, but do be careful of sharp tools or hot glue. People can hurt themselves and I know I've stabbed my fingers more than once. In most places, so long as you don't alter the dial, a custom figure is legal. So, don't like it? Make it yourself and have fun!

Anyone who wants to see all my works need only add me at my Facebook page and go to my photo albums! So feel free! http://www.facebook.com/dave.wilde3

These are very cool. Unknown Soldier, that is awesome!!!

Great mods, and great tips. Love the GL and Surfer with the Gravity cloud.

Unknown Soldier Rep!

I like Thor & Sif, Unknown Solider, and Beyonder. Great work!

Thanks guys :D

Nice, I've had a few ideas for custom characters (Red Son Superman Robots?) but I haven't gotten around to doing any yet.... I might have to now after seeing these

Dude! I did the exact same thing with my Skrull whose arm snapped off. I snapped off the other arm and attached two Doc Ock arms. I love that sculpt so much! It's so simple, it's stupid, but I think it just makes the figure so much more intense.

Another of my favorites that I had commissioned is just a HT Changeling figure who was repainted as X-Men TAS Morph in the middle of shifting into Beast.

EDIT: Found a pic of Morph for you.

Modding can be lots of fun and very personally satisfying when the project is done. But what you need most is time and inspiration. I've got some ideas I'll need to make when Summer rolls around.

Always a good article BTW.

Great ideas and creation on all mods shown here! If anyone hasn't tried it, modding can be really fun.

Oh my god! I'm a HUGE Strange fan, how did the idea of a Strange/Clea duo never occur to me?!

These are amazing - I've always considered modding figures and such, but it never occurred to me to make my own duos. As someone who loves the concept of heroes teaming up, I'll need to look into doing that.

Superman and Silver Surfer...wow, I'd read that comic in a heartbeat!

Very creative. Nice work!

Speaking of customs - look for an exciting announcement for July's Clixathon event later this weekend!

I love it! Great photo too! It's not easy to get good close ups like that, I should know lol.