Lizard's Rant

My absolute favorite part of SportsLizard is our Custom McFarlane section. I started the section in late 2004 as I myself was becoming addicted to the idea that I could make my own collectibles (particularly since I loved collecting SLUs and McFarlane’s). I had heard of SLU customizing as a kid, tried it a few times, and then never thought of it again. But one day I thought “I wonder if people do that with McFarlane’s” and sure enough I Googled it and they did.

I spend quite a bit of my time each day answering eager questions of new customizers, and I absolutely love it. I’m proud that SportsLizard has helped thousands of people learn about customizing (we rank #1 when you Google “custom mcfarlane“). But in the last year I’ve been devoting so much time to the web side of things that I haven’t had the chance to make a custom myself. So I recently decided to pick up my paint brush and attempt a Ray Rice custom.

I chose Ray for several reasons. Primarily because I absolutely fell in love with the Rutgers story last year - that Thursday night game against Louisville where they lit the Empire State building in red is one of my favorite sports memories ever and it gives me chills every time I think about it. I also wanted to make a Rice figure because Ray is one hell of a running back and probably deserves more attention for the Heisman this year. He rushed for a whopping 1,794 yards and 20 touchdowns as a Sophomore last year and Rutgers has begun their own campaign at SeeRayRun.com.

Here’s the look I was trying to replicate:

I chose to start with an Ahman Green NFL 8 figure:

Here’s the figure disassembled:

And primed:

Before decals:

After decals:

Painted, before assembly:

A few shots of the completed figure:

Overall I give myself a B/B-. I forgot how damn hard this hobby can be! I obviously know what to do, but my painting skills weren’t where they were a year and a half ago. It took me about 30 hours to complete, which is longer than it should have. On top of that, I used some old supplies (notably paint, glue and clear coats) that were at least two years old, and I could tell the consistency wasn’t correct…I should have replenished my supplies before starting.

I also learned how much I hate photoing stuff (next time I’m going to have a friend who is a photographer take care of that). And I forgot WHY it’s best to do white or black jerseys - it’s hard to match decal colors to paint colors, and it shows that my red doesn’t exactly match the red on the decals.

But most importantly I rediscovered how much freaking fun customizing can be, and I can’t wait to tackle my next project. I really WANT to do a Fab Five custom of all of the Michigan bball players standing together in a huddle, but that’s a large one so it might wait until next year