Customs Corner- January Interview: King Ranger

January's Featured Customizer: King Ranger
My first experience with Super Sentai was around 1987 or so with the series Dynaman. It was actually a goofy parody that was a segment piece on a tv show called Night Flights on the USA network. I remember recording 4 or 5 episodes on VHS and watching them until the tape broke. After that, I caught occasional episodes of various seasons as friends got tapes of different shows from family members in Korea. Grandparents would send tapes of all these different cartoons and shows just compounded all together on a handful of tapes and we’d watch them over a weekend or so. Sadly, I didn’t get my first full season of Super Sentai until Jetman when a friend, whose mother was teaching me Japanese at the time, just happened to have the entire series recorded. I could only partially follow along, though, as I wasn’t fluent in Japanese… I’m still not fluent. In 1993, I remember Power Rangers coming out and recognizing some of the footage from episodes of Zyuranger I watched at my friend’s house. As I got older, aside from still collecting and customizing toys and building models, I started into the hobby of replica prop building in 1997. In 2002, I joined the Replica Prop Forum which piqued my curiosity about Super Sentai props and where to find them. I was already familiar with the existence of Super Sentai toys but decided to get fully involved into collecting and also more into the community, so, in 2004, I joined Rangerboard and only branched out from there.
Well, if you count this, I started customizing figures when I was 7yo. My first customs were actually just taking apart and reassembling various G.I. Joe parts to make new and interesting characters. Even though it wasn’t hardcore cutting, sculpting, kitbashing, and/or painting, that is where I first developed the mentality that if I couldn’t buy the figure I wanted, I would make it. So, from that point, I would say 32 years.
My first “real” custom figure was a Lego Batman figure I made for myself when I was about 8yo by gathering black parts from various other Lego men. At the time, there were no completely black Lego figures (or at least I didn’t have any), so I had to steal parts here and there from other sets/figures. In the end, I assembled a completely black Lego man with normal head and black cape and used one of those smaller motorcycle/space helmets. I cut the chin strap off the helmet, cut it in half, melted holes into the top of the helmet with a soldering iron and glued the chin strap pieces onto the helmet to make ears. Found a Batman symbol sticker that fit and BOOM, first custom complete. It was all downhill from there.
I use a wide variety of materials and techniques and am always on the lookout for new methods or tools. For parts and materials, my usual go-to list consists of a large assortment of different grit sandpapers, super glue, accelerator, Aves Apoxie sculpt of various colors, an X-acto knife with a couple of different blades, Tamiya plastic scriber, constantly growing supply of styrene plastic sheets, rods, and tubes, airbrush, Mr. Color lacquer paints, the list could go on for a while so I’ll stop here. As far as methods, I generally, try to keep things as simple as possible. I tend to reuse or reimagine as many parts as possible before going the route of making something from scratch. For example, I like to use a lot of existing weapons or vinyl figure parts for making most Super Sentai custom figures. However, for really complex figures or certain series, sculpting is the only option. I just recently started into making Dragonball Z customs and those call for a lot of sculpting.
I enjoy customizing quite a bit. It’s one of the few areas where I truly get to be creative, the other being prop-making. Customizing, for me, has a certain amount of Zen to it that usually outweighs the frustrating parts of the hobby. I couldn’t do it for a living but if I could I wouldn’t mind. But, there is a downside. The toughest part of the hobby is losing your motivation, especially when it’s a piece you’ve made before (or many times before). A lot of the people that want to commission someone for a custom figure usually want something they’ve seen from that person before. My biggest requests are for Kingranger / Gold Ranger, Megaranger / In Space, and Dekamaster / Shadow Ranger figures. It almost turns you off to do point where you don’t want to take the commission in light of some new, never-done-by-you-before project. In this case, though, I have to find some way to improve upon the previous version so that in my head it seems like a new project.


Custom King Ranger


Custom Megaranger Team


Custom Dekamaster vs Custom Wolzard

My favorite piece so far has to be the S.H.Figuarts Wolzard custom I made. He turned out much better than I expected and is my second favorite Super Sentai character. This would be followed closely by my S.H.Figuarts Kingranger custom who would be my most favorite character. The biggest reason I chose Wolzard as my favorite over Kingranger is how much work was put into each custom, the final results, and overall satisfaction I got from finishing the piece. Wolzard was a much more complex and involved build that needed little improvement once he was done, for Kingranger I’m currently working on version 3.0.
Probably the 1/10 scale Dragonranger figure I made using parts from the Super Legends Extreme Green Ranger, a 1/10 blank body, and hand stitched fabric suit. He wasn’t a huge project but he was a big disappointment. I could never quite get the suit to look right because it was actually a spandex suit so it looked too bulky in places and too tight in others. Ultimately, I just scrapped the whole thing even though I still have the parts in a box somewhere.
The Megaranger team. Hands down. While I do like Megaranger, the project was actually a second thought project not originally meant to be made. It was long, it was tedious, it felt like it was taking forever, and I generally don’t like talking about it. Luckily, the final product came out ok even though I never did finish the weapons 100%. Full teams are almost always a pain to do because of the amount of work and repetition.
I’m not sure if I would say REAL soon, but I would say soon enough. I have been working on quite a few different projects including diving into the realm of Marvel and Dragonball Z custom figuarts but I am also working on some new Super Sentai ones. Sooner or later you can expect to see Deathryuger, the rest of Kyoryugers, Mecha Frieza, Majin Vegeta, S.T.R.I.K.E. suit Captain America, Vision, and more.
Don’t let anything stop you. Don’t let some guy’s opinion stop your progress. Don’t let one bad experience turn you off from making a figure. Don’t let yourself not finish a project because you are unmotivated or too tired of working on something. With every project you finish, you only get better for the next.
For anyone looking to get into making custom figures for commission, just know that it’s not as profitable as you might think. Be smart, plan accordingly, and don’t take on more commissions than you know you can handle. Too many times have I heard about artists being bogged down with so many customs because they thought they could handle it or they’ve stopped because it was too overwhelming. Don’t let this happen to you.
Other than that, the sky’s the limit. Use whatever resource you have necessary to make your project turn out how you would want it to. If you have to sacrifice that hard-to-find figure because he has the perfect head, then sacrifice that hard-to-find figure. Mint-in-package figure has the perfect weapon for your custom? Rip that sucker open! You can always replace something you can buy even if it takes some time to do so, but making that perfect figure is a unique experience that has its own level of gratification and, in the end, it’s totally worth it.

OH, and before I forget, stay humble. There is a difference between being proud of your work and coming off as a prick. Don’t criticize someone else’s work just because you think yours is better. Think that yours is better, by all means, but don’t down someone else’s hard work because of it. After all they probably put in just as much work or more into their mediocre custom as you might have in your awesome one. And if they didn’t, well, talk them up, relate by telling them what you went through, and help them improve. After all, if we can all stay humble and look at this hobby as a collaboration and not a competition then we ultimately better the community as a whole and the output we produce.