Custom Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain

[M-bot]

These 2 pieces were commissions I did for a friend who is a die-hard MOTU fan and collector. They both started out as junkers before I gave them a spruce up. Descriptions from my custom's Facebook page:

"This was a custom for a good mate - took a junker vintage Castle Greyskull and turned into something special. The door was broken at the hinge, which I repaired with styrene and epoxy putty, the whole thing was washed, base coated and repainted both by hand and with an airbrush, with several coats of custom mixed colours, texture paints, and washes. I finished off with modelling 'moss' on the rocks at the base. It was only a shell, so no interiors done."

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5557/14560280400_20c65532b8_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/obDf6f)IMG_1238 (https://flic.kr/p/obDf6f) by M-bot2011 (https://www.flickr.com/people//)

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"The commissioner of this piece asked for it following the MOTU Castle Greyskull I did for him. Greyskull was fun and more or less straightforward, so I agreed eagerly. He had a junker Snake Mountain for me to spruce up. 7 weeks later...
Firstly, the detail in this mould is intense. When you look at it closely, there's 5 hidden faces in the sculpt that I had never seen before, and the vines are everywhere. My goal was to bring out all that detail with paint apps, and really give the city a creepy, slimy vibe. It features:
- Airbrushed base coats, including 5 shades of deep purple to fluoro pink to give the playset depth.
- Airbrushed and hand painted vines over the whole shell, bringing out the existing detail.
- Hand painted eyes, somewhat mimicking the original stickers.
- Texture paints with custom mixed blended acrylic colours over the 'stone' areas and steps.
- Drybrushed archway and gate, with 'rust' effects to bring out detail and give it a dank, worn metallic look.
- Partially scratch built chains and cuffs for the 'prisoner platform', using a costume jewellery chain from a $2 shop, and some original cuffs from the model.
- A partially scratch-built bridge which extends the walkway around from the front to the back, using and extra segment of bridge from another junker Snake Mountain. It includes scratch-built support struts on the underside of the walkway and some of the left over chain to secure it, as well as epoxy putty. It's strong enough to support a couple of figures.
- A repainted snake from the top of the mountain, with the tab underneath dremelled off to allow it to swivel from back to front while the playset is closed (the bridge pieces do not allow the playset to be opened anymore).
- A repainted 'wolf's head', without the microphone feature. The wolf's head can be removed.
- A airbrushed and hand-painted 'glowing egg' at the rear of the playset.
In all it was a marathon job, but heaps of fun, except maybe for the scratch-built portions - not one of my talents I'm afraid. I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out."

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[Starscream77]

They are bloody brilliant dude!
Great job

[loophole]

Absolutely amazing job!!

[gamblor916]

Wow that looks fantastic. Nice work!

[SMHFConvoy]

Wow. Nice work!

[liegeprime]

Fantastic!! Especially the Snake Mountain one, that's how it should've been colored! :)

[Hursticon]

DUDE! - M-Bot, those 2 jobs are insanely wicked! :eek::cool:
Absolutely amazing efforts with both Castles man, almost sells me on wanting to pick one of them up - Except I'm reminded of my lack of room and the entirely lacklustre factory deco each has! :D

[M-bot]

DUDE! - M-Bot, those 2 jobs are insanely wicked! :eek::cool:
Absolutely amazing efforts with both Castles man, almost sells me on wanting to pick one of them up - Except I'm reminded of my lack of room and the entirely lacklustre factory deco each has! :D


Fantastic!! Especially the Snake Mountain one, that's how it should've been colored! :)

It's funny, it took a heap of work an time to paint these up - total of 10 weeks for both - and while it's obvious that the manufacturers couldn't possibly put paint apps that extensive on the factory releases, I always wonder how the original sculpters feel about all the detail they put into the moulds get basically ignored. Snake Mountain particularly is a very intricate and even beautiful (in a perverse kind of way;)) mould. There was a lot of time and care put into it. I hope in some small way I honoured that.

Thanks all for the kind comments. :)

[janda the red]

I had both of these as a kid... they didn't look anywhere near this good though!

awesome job M-bot... they look really sweet :D

[Skullcruncher]

Wow is right, these a great - amazing effort! So do you think you can do it again? :D:D

[Trent]

Awesome. :eek: