I have been an artist for years but this will be my first time writing an article about a custom I have made. When we received the DIY Pops from Funko to show what they could turn into, I had zero experience customizing Pops. For years I’ve customized Vinylmations or painted on canvas. The DIY Pop intrigued me though and I wanted to give it a shot. My first custom piece you can see in the article Matt wrote last week. Mystique turned out quite well especially for my first time. The one thing I forgot to do was take photos during the creative process.
After making a comic book character, I wanted to do something different. I walked into my husband’s “man cave” to ask for some suggestions when I noticed what he was watching.
To say Matt loves survival shows is an understatement. He’s the only person in our family of 6 who gets excited when we lose power. I’m pretty sure he’s hoping for the zombie apocalypse. Anyways, of all the survival shoes he loves, Dual Survival on the Discovery Channel is his favorite.
It doesn’t matter if they change stars or not, he still watches. Because he watches it a lot, I watch it a lot. I’m not planning trips out into the wilderness with just a knife like Matt does, but I like the show. Both of our favorites from Dual Survival would be Joe Teti.
He’s retired military just like my Dad and Grandfather. I’ve lived all over the world before graduating from college and then getting married. I always have mad respect for our military so I decided to make my 2nd DIY Pop! to be Joe Teti from Dual Survival.
Let’s start with the beginning process. I began by adding a flesh coat to the face and sketched the goatee
Next I took super scupy and crafted a bandana doo rag to cover his head. I also added details to make his boots. I know how much Joe Teti appreciates footwear. 😀
After the super sculpy was finished hardening, it became time to start the paint process. Here’s the first coats of paint added to Joe. First I painted his tank top on. and thenI painted the doo rag, pants, and shoes.
It took approximately ten coats of paint for me to be satisfied with the final look.
I added one last detail from one of Matt’s favorite episodes of Dual Survival l when Cody used ant pinchers to close a deep cut on Joe’s arm. You can see the scene below that inspired the cut!
Matt Norris