Today I made my very own toy, and below you'll find how you can do it too for only $25 US and some free time. Now the fun thing here is that the only limit is your imagination. Relax, have fun, and be patient. Those beautiful McFarlane toys weren't built in a day so try not to rush it. That said, I rushed the hell out of mine and it still turned out fairly well.

Why would anyone do this?

I'm the kind of geek with more toys than pencils. And I have a lot of pencils. But haven't you ever wanted to make your own ultimate action figure playset? You know, the one where Batman is finishing off Wolverine in Castle Greyskull. You can start an illegal eBay empire of ceramic thing-a-ma-jigs today.

And when creating your very own comic book or animated characters creating 3d models can be helpful as well. In my case, I molded the main character of my next book "Welcome to Pixelton". The book now stands at well over 100 pages, and with multiple drawings on every page I've gotten very familiar with the form and weight Kirby needs to bring to the page. But when sculpting him I found that I had to ask myself new questions that go largely unanswered on a 2d surface.

- How do Kirby's eyes form against his head?
- Are his tiny legs even possible to hold his massive noggin?
- How deep are the edges of items such as his helmet and shirt?

While these sound like minor questions, they're answers go a huge way in adding consistency to the character. Plus, it was fun to see him come to life!

Be a Good Little Consumer

Everything you'll need can be found at any decent Arts and Crafts store. You'll have enough supplies for a few toys, unless you build some sort of giant unholy toy monster. And if you do I really want to see this thing. Anywho:

- Sculpey clay - 1lb. box - $9.99
- Ceramic Paints - $1.29 per small bottle
- Cheap Assorted Brush Set - $9.99
- Sand Paper - $1.99

Choose Your Adventure

Now for the fun part! Open your box of Sculpey and begin molding away. Give up any doubting thoughts about your skill as a sculptor. This is a fun project meant to test your mind and creativity. Even if you made a pet rock toy it would be worth the time and effort.

What you're aiming to do is to build the separate shapes used in your toy individually. These include parts like arms, legs, as well as important details like clothing or hair. This helps for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is to form the proper area without accidently messing up the others. As you build try and think about adding little details (such as clothing folds) to make your figure seem more realistic. Once you are complete you will have a mishmash of individual pieces that need to be combined. You may also find it easier to press the pieces you make against a table before applying so they have an outwardly smooth appearance.

Combining Sculpey segments is easy. By pressing the areas together and smoothing out their joints the clay will bond. This works well will large or small appendages.

As you combine you'll begin to see why we made these elements by themselves. When forming your character it is far too easy to accidently mash an arm or leg. Try and find a place to hold the toy where fixes are not as time consuming.

Whew! We're all complete. It took me about 3 hours to get to this point but I had fun. I now have an action figure that is mine alone. Mua-ha-ha!

Baked

The baking process is easy. Toss your sculpture into an oven until nicely brown-ish. The Sculpey box says to wait 15 minutes for each 1/4 of an inch, but my figure was different widths across each limb. I simply checked on him until he looked battle hardened and everything was ready for the next step. After baking and a short time for cooling you have the chance to sand down any rough spots you may have left behind. It takes a few minutes but will change the way your piece looks drastically.

Paint Shop Pro

The only step left is to apply some ceramic paint. A little trial and error, a couple of touch-ups, and a renegade magic marker and we have a complete action figure toy. Not too bad for my first try!

-Josh