The Art of a Custom Figure (Part 2) 
By Adam McFarland Last month I chronicled the beginning of making my custom Pat Tillman. I finished last month with the primed figure ready to go. You may recall that my biggest problem was that the original Urlacher figure had taped shoes and Pat never taped his shoes. I decided to remove the tape by sanding it off. What I was left with was a flat surface from shin down that hardly resembled a shoe. I began this month by using clay to build a shoe on to the surface. I used air dry clay (obviously I'm not going to stick this thing in an oven to dry it) and shaped it with an exacto knife. After quite a bit of playing around, I finally got it to a point where I was content.
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Next I painted the white and flesh on to the figure. It is important to paint from light colors to dark colors in case you make a mistake. It is easier to cover a slip with a light color by painting over it with a dark color than the other way around. It also would have been nice if I had used white primer because I had to paint white onto the areas that decals would be applied to as well as the areas that would end up being white permenantly.
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I applied the decals next. A lot of people like to apply the decals after doing all of the painting. I figure that you are going to have to paint around the decals anyway so you might as well have them there to begin with. In this case, what would be the point in painting the red jersey and leaving white squares where the decals would go? I might as well apply the decals first so that when I am painting I can blend them in. I think it saves a step in the whole process.
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I finished up all the painting by painting the red jersey, red socks and white on the helmet to blend the decals in.
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Next month I will concude the three part series. I will touch up some of the painting, glue the figure back together, and figure out a way to display it. I am not sure how I want to display it. I am thinking about a piece of wood with a Pat Tillman card mounted on to the wood. It would be cool to cover the whole thing in plastic or glass...but who knows. I guess you'll find out next month! If you have any ideas for me let me know.