Coach's Customs: Ivan the Space Biker

With customs, "simple" and "straightforward" don't necessarily mean easy. Take Ivan the Space Biker, here. He's pretty much a GI Joe head on an Iron Man figure, but it's not as if I just popped a part of one and stuck it on the other.

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Let's see… I had to sand and sculpt over the arc reactor on the chest, cut the neck peg off and replace with a new one that fits GI Joe heads, cut down and resculpt the stems of the new hands, sculpt the massive beard and sculpt the collar (barely visible under the beard, unfortunately).

Not to mention the head-to-toe silver paint job with Crom knows how many coatings of black wash and brown drybrush. The paint job was actually kind of fun; I didn't have to do a lot of sanding or sealing. So it was all my imagination and a paintbrush.

"Hey sexy."

Ol' Ivan doesn't fit a particular intellectual property… I just envision him as a hulking badass with a big gun. Maybe a steampunk Soviet soldier in power armor. In any case, the name comes from a concept version of Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. The resemblance is mostly in the big, bushy beard. I also had a character in Fallout 3 and New Vegas of the same name who was fond of power armor and big guns.

Ivan missed a career in pro wrestling

Sadly, no literal space biking, which would be cool. Also, no shoulder pads! I know, sacrilege. But how the heck could he rotate his arms more than 5 degrees with them? Homeboy's got a big gun to lift, after all.

Who's scruffy-looking?

My, what a big gun you have!

I also considered loading him up decal "tattoos" for the suit and bandoliers. But they seemed to detract from the beauty of the suit, so other than the faded red star on his chest (barely visible under the beard), his suit remains unadorned. 

Seems the photography works well enough that I can start getting other projects documented. I have a bad habit of scrapping them and going back to the drawing board. Got a few more on the shelf, and a lot more in production. More soon, I promise!