Shang (Mulan)

Mister, I'll make a man out of you!

 

In my Shan Yu and Hades posts, I mentioned the DBZ pops I'd been given to use in customs. Trying to think of who might work for the remaining pieces, I thought of Captain Li Shang, the love interest in Mulan. The clenched fists of Goku just made me think of the training montage, and subsequently put I'll Make a Man Out of You in my head.

I used the head from Grey Worm as it had the right sort of hair to be my basis for Shang. I repainted the skin tone and added in his little man bun. For the body, I used the Goku I had laying around. I added in the various layers for his clothes, including the cape. I was happy with how it was looking at the bake phase, but he randomly cracked in his cape, skirt and sleeves. I repaired this with more clay and rebaked a few days later, but it still didn't really cooperate. I've made a few customs now, and this was the first I've had cracking issues with, so I was a bit let down by it.

After how beautifully Gaston turned out earlier today, I have to admit that I'm disappointed with how Shang has turned out. Can I tell that it's Shang? Yes. Is it my best custom job ever? Not even close. But he's done now, and I'm glad of it! Hopefully my next one will be a little more cooperative.

The Run Down:

Base Pop/s: head- Grey Worm (Game of Thrones 32), body- Super Saiyan Goku (Dragonball Z 14)

Biggest Challenges: I'm not sure why, but the clay kept cracking for me with this one. I struggled not to rage quit.

How I'd Improve It: Redo it from scratch, and hopefully not have the clay cracking issues. I also don't like some of the aspects of the paint job, as they're details that are hard to read. I'd also have liked to have added his training stick in his hands, but their positions didn't make sense for a rigid pole's necessary angle.

Shan Yu (Mulan)

Nice work gentlemen, you've found the Hun army

 

The upcoming Mulan Pop vinyls were announced a while ago now, and at the time of writing this post are still only seen via the concept art. Unsurprisingly, the range (only 2 Pops) did not include the movie's villain, the Hun leader Shan Yu. To keep with my trend of creating forgotten villains, I decided to customise my own Shan Yu to keep poor little Mulan/Ping on her/his toes.

Shan Yu has an intimidating physique, with very broad shoulders. To combat this, I was originally just going to use the clay to bulk up the Tobias Funke body, since I was using his head. However I happened to receive some secondhand DBZ Pops from one of my students, since he knew I customise. The big shoulder pad thingies on the Vegeta Pop, as well as his cranky stance, just spoke to me as being a better basis for Shan Yu's lower half. Serendipity, really.

Tobias Funke may seem like an unlikely candidate for Shan Yu, but my reasoning was pretty simple- I find sticking polymer clay to the vinyl difficult if it's just small pieces that can't be smoothed into the surface surrounding it. I know I could use glue for this, but I figured that if there was a Pop head I could work from, I may as well use it. Tobias has a moustache and hair around the sides and back of his head, not too dissimilar to Shan Yu. Sure I had to slice out the middle of the 'stache, as well as adding extra hair to both, but it was a starting point that I was comfortable working with. I've also saved his glasses in case of future custom jobs needing them, naturally.

The Run Down:

Base Pop/s: head- Tobias Funke (Arrested Development 116), body- Vegeta (Dragonball Z 10)

Biggest Challenges: The little brown dot between his eyes from the glasses.

How I'd Improve It: Finding a better way to camouflage the dot. From a distance, looking at him from across the room, he looks awesome. Up close isn't good enough for me though.