Zombies and Halloween bears!

All sit. Thanks for joining me for lesson 4.

Relax! I am only kidding, to be honest all the basics are now out of the way so it’s time to have some fun. I was not sure how long I could keep the teacher role up anyway, hehe. Modding is all about enjoying yourself and when I found out that everybody was having fun without me at the Zombie event I felt a little left out. (I was sunning myself in Florida though!!) You can see where this is going right?

So, I rummage through the damaged bears I have left and I find poor Moe! I knew he would make a good zombie and so I put him to one side and watched TV whilst thinking about what to do with him, (as you do). At this point my little 8-year-old brother came in with his happy meal in one hand and the TV remote in the other. He pulled his toy out of the box, “Ahh cool a brain!!” Naturally before he could take the toy from out of its plastic bag I had swapped it for some sweets!

So I was now the proud owner of a McDonalds toy, and the brain was inside a bowl thing. To be honest I did not pay much attention to what the toy did because a few seconds later I was whacking it with a great big hammer much to the disgust of my brother! :)

To cut a long story short I drilled the top of Moe’s head and then continued to hollow it out until the brain sat snug. Whilst the drill was out I also gave my zombie a bullet wound. The trusty old clay, (You’ll be sick of hearing about the damn clay), was used to extend the bloody pulp and blend the brain into the bears head.

After a quick paint he looked pretty cool.

Well that had only taken me a few hours and so whilst my creative juices were still flowing I began another zombie mod. The only problem was I decided I liked the brain I had just used and wanted another one. I did feel like a bit of a plonker walking into McDonalds on my own, covered in white dust which had made my hair look grey, and asking for a boys happy meal, eagerly checking inside the box to see if I had got the correct toy.

So I carried out my second batch of brain surgery that day, and my brothers face as he watched me smash a second toy was very funny. Whilst playing surgeon I added lungs, a heart and other bits and bobs to my zombies open chest. With some white-coated wire I added small bones and arteries.

I wanted the second bear to look lifeless so I gave it a pale blue wash. In all honesty I don’t know how well this worked and I prefer my first zombie attempt, but hey, its all fun and I learnt a few new things along the way. I now felt satisfied knowing that like most others I had also been able to create a few zombie mods, even if I did not have the chance to display them. Having just got back from Disney World I had got big ideas for my next mod.

Pop back tomorrow! :)

The Joy of 5 a day ;)

Righty then!

So at this point I knew I loved modding but I also knew that I was fed up of modding Archibald’s. I spotted a post in the forums sale section for 20 slightly damaged bears and they were at a price I couldn’t resist so I snapped them up. Here is the great part, I am a confident painter so when I received the bears I was able to repair half of them and confidently put them in my collection as perfect looking bears. I had already saved myself a bundle of cash! (Yet another reason to start modding). I have been able to do this a lot, as the most common damaged bear I receive will simply have a chip to the nose. This is easily repaired with the right colour paint, but I’ll save that for another day! Sometimes I look at a bear I have received and think to myself ‘What is wrong with that?’ You hardcore collectors must be a fussy bunch, hehe.

When looking at the remaining bears I did something I tend not to do very often and that is to think, ‘What can I do with that particular bear’ rather than have an initial idea and then find the bear to match. Generally mods do not tend to be as good when you don’t already have an idea prior to looking at a bear. At this point I just wanted more experience and as I was still learning I went ahead and picked up Joy. The handle was missing on her vacuum so I thought to myself, why not remove the whole vacuum, and so I did. Sometimes bears with additional ‘add-ons’ like this are cast as separate pieces and are then glued together. As a modder pieces that are glued into place are much easier to remove, with enough strength they will come away cleanly and in one piece.

I filled the void in the same way I did with Mario, and that was with clay. Once dry I cut the texture back in using a craft knife, this is really easy to do but I recommend doing it when the clay is dry rather than wet. Without the vacuum Joy did not stand by herself so I had to mod her feet. I did this by filling in the heel and then flatting the bottom of the shoes with a file.

Now it was time to add the ‘bad taste’. Joy’s hands were in the perfect location for an ‘insertion’ and what better than a cucumber?

Finally the bear was ready for paint, this time I used a mixture of paints and introduced some tubed watercolours. This type of paint will spoil should it get wet but as my bears are safely in a cabinet I decided I would be ok to use them. Obviously watercolour can be used as a wash, (with lots of water) or neat, (great for detail). The fur requires a ‘wash’ of paint. Games Workshop paints can be used in the same way.

The bear looked ok but I decided it would be funny to suggest Joy was attempting to get one of her ‘5 a day’. Originally I was going to add text to her freshly painted apron but this would have been tricky. Instead I printed a small information leaflet and laminated each side with a strip of thick sellotape.

There we have it, my first female mod, but not my last. For my next mod I would try creating a few zombies!!

Thanks for reading, and please let me know if you would like to know anything in particular. :)

Making Mario.

Here we go again!

So I knew I wanted to create a Mario bear and so feeling rather sensible I got my pencil crayons out and drew up a sketch to work from. (This was my first major mod after all!). My initial drawing was of a bear standing up but being new to modding I had no damaged bears to work from. I did however still have 4 identical Archibald’s!! That being said I changed my design so that the bear was sitting, and I must say that the design looked better for it. (Perhaps the World’s unluckiest lucky bag was not so bad after all!)

I thought I would be clever and post my progress on the BTB forum. I did this in small stages and waited to see how long it took until the bear’s new identity was guessed. Amazingly this only took 2 days and my fun was soon cut short! That didn’t stop me from having fun with my new mod though.

Firstly I had to give my bear its dignity back. Once again I *cough* carefully *cough* removed the bears penis and then filled the recess using air-hardening clay. I find that if you mix this stuff with water it is much easier to work with. I then came across my first major task, and this was to remove the wax strip from Archibald’s arm. Now at this point I did not own a dremel or any other rotary tool so the next best thing in my eyes was an angle grinder! A few seconds later Archibald had lost what he was holding and I had been covered from top to bottom in fine white dust.

I focused on Mario’s head to begin with, filling Archibald’s mouth with clay and adding a hat from one of my figures I had collected as a child. It pained me to do this but with a bit of trimming I knew it would look perfect. Sorry,.. Did I say a bit? After 2 hours I had the hat fitting how I wanted it. I filled any gaps with PVA glue. This was a big mistake as I found PVA glue reacts with most paints! The hatless Mario then came in handy when I decided I was going to ‘find’ a moustache rather than make one and whilst I was destroying the figures face I stole his large bulbous nose, this later became the mushroom that Mario would hold.

Now the head was looking rather Mario like but the body looked like that of a normal bear. Using clay again I sculpted overalls and smoothed over the texture of the bears fur. For finer details like the tongue and straps I cut the correct shapes from plastic and super glued them into place. Once happy with the bear I painted it using paints from Games Workshop. The great thing about making your own mods is that you don’t have to worry about copyright, and so I could make this bear look as close to the actual Mario character as I liked. As I was applying the last few spots to the mushroom I decided that Mario should have a pool of sick to accompany his magic mushroom and so once again the clay came out. Oh by the way, this stuff can be dried with a hair-dryer if you are inpatient like me!

Now earlier I mentioned I drew 2 sketches, well at the time I decided to send these to Peter Underhill. A few weeks later I had an Email from Pete to say that a Mario bear was going to be made! As you can imagine this made everything seem very worthwhile and that’s why I suggest everybody gives modding a go!

So, that was Mario, from start to finish. What did I do next? Find out tomorrow! :)

Welcome / Bloody Archibald!

*Drum roll please*

Introducing Mr Mini’s Mega, Mighty, Magical Mods!! The audience go wild, … and lets stop it there.

I already know what you are thinking. Who’s this guy think he is? I remember as a kid I spent ages on some homework, I took it into school convinced my Teacher would love it. When handing my teacher the work I had spent ages on he looked at me and simply said, ‘Nobody likes a show-off’. Those words have stuck with me ever since and with that in mind I welcome you to my blog. I am not here because I think my mods are the best thing on this planet and hell I know for a fact that my eventful life story would be more interesting to read. I am here to hopefully inspire others to mod, I am here to show you my techniques and to even show you the mistakes I have made and continue to make.

So where did it all start?

Well I once brought the Worlds most unlucky ‘lucky’ bag on Ebay and received 5 identical Archibald’s, I looked at them in disgust and thought to myself,’ I’m going to rip that fucking bears dick off’, … and so I did as I tossed it to one side. When looking back up at the bear I couldn’t help but laugh as the bear lay on his side looking at his newly amputated penis. I had somehow created what I found to be a very funny bear by accident. I picked the bear back up and decided all he needed now was some blood. This is the point in which my planned attempts to mod a bear began.

I created a bloody pool by mixing acrylic paint with PVA glue and left it to set. This took 4 days to dry! At the time I was pleased with the bear, although now I look back and think it is rather basic. I now think clear resin would have made a better puddle. Anyway, I must stop babbling! I went on to post the photo up on the Bad Taste Bear forum and was very surprised by all the positive feedback I received. From that moment onwards I knew I was hooked.

'Bloody Archibald' had been created by accident, now it was time to think of an actual idea for a mod. Being a hardcore Nintendo geek and selling retro games for a living this came easily to me. It just had to be one of my all time favourite characters. Mario!