My Custom Mods [mod 6]: Experienced AQUAMAN (Icons)

Experienced AQUAMAN (Icons)

After the success of my Emerald Eye of Ekron mod, I decided I now had the experience I needed to take the plunge into customizing this:

based on his then-current Vet incarnation.

into this costume from Aquaman’s 1990s pirate look:

"Arrrrrrrh!"

As Icons Experienced version is the only Aquaman with the range representing that extendable harpoon, my inner continuity nerd compelled me to make the sculpt match. That Aquaman is one of my absolute favorite DC characters didn’t deter me, either. :)
Here’s what I did:
  • Cut off the blue hand.
  • Worked off the head of a Hypertime version of Aquaman (it’s a separate piece from the main body).
  • Used an exacto knife to shave the long hair from the Hypertime head so that I could put it on the Icons sculpt’s head like a wig.
  • Glued the “wig” onto the Icons head.
  • Cut off the harpoon from the Hypertime sculpt.
  • Glued the harpoon to the left arm stump.
At this point, the sculpt was looking pretty good! I only had to paint his torso in flesh and silver, and paint on his beard. But I shelved the whole thing for well over a year as I dealt with more pressing issues.
Then, as I was about to resume the project, a water pipe burst in my bathroom and spewed high-pressure water in my little house for hours on end, soaking my carpet, collapsing my ceiling and attic insulation and essentially rendering my home unlivable for the next several weeks.
The Aqua-mod was somewhere in that mess and was swept away by the cleanup crew.
(Ironic…Aquaman done in by water.)
So I had to start all over after I got the replacement equipment, long after things settled back to normal for me.
Here’s how I re-did it:
  • Used a black Sharpie to color in the dark part of his two-toned pants.
  • Cut off the blue hand.
  • Worked off the head this time. (It’s a separate piece from the main body.)
  • Worked off the head of the Hypertime version like before.
  • Used an exacto knife to shave down the neck peg so the Hypertime head would fit on the Icons torso.
  • Used a needle file to shave down the raised collar on his neckline.
  • Glued on the harpoon again. This time I inserted a bit of a straight pin to  strengthen the glue-job, a trick I learned doing a much later mod I’ll share well down the line.
  • Repainted the torso to a flesh color with acrylic paint.
  • Glued on the Hypertime head.
  • Painted on the gladiatorial half-armor using Testors silver enamel.
So, from a project begun in 2007, destroyed in 2008, restarted and completed in 2009, in 2010 I present:

Looks great. It would've been much, much simpler to just put the Hypertime Aquaman on this dial. No regrets, though.

Next week: a most simple fix to a most disturbing sculpt.

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