One last burst of preliminary sketches for my Battle Beast entry in the Minimate Multiverse contest. I really should have combined my Battle Beast and Charitymate and cut my work in half.

Busy busy busy lately. Hopefully I can find more time to post stuff, but for now you'll just have to take a look at my final round of Tiki god ideas.

More designs for my Charitymates custom this year. After rejecting the angel monkey idea, I thought about doing a Tiki god, complete with oversized mask. This one I like.

Busy busy busy lately. Not a lot of time to work on Minimates or update the web site. But I can find some time to make plans for future Minimates.

In the photo above are notes for the Battle Beast contest currently being held at the Minimate Multiverse. Going to try to make mine look like an old school style Battle Beast, but without the rub sign.

The annual Charitymates event is on, taking Minimate customs and putting them on eBay to raise money for charity. This year the theme for the customs is gods and mythological beasts.

The above photo is for my first idea for a custom, an angel monkey. While it doesn't tie into any gods of myths that I know, I thought it made an interesting design. I may revisit it again someday, but this design isn't going to happen for this year's Charitymates.

It's Tax Day here in the US, so I'm painting some Minimates gold and sending them in as payment. Hopefully the government falls for it.

Recently there was a Minimate two-pack released featuring a SHIELD agent. Since the SHIELD Agent is a popular army builder, a lot of people (like me) bought a lot of them. That means a lot of people (like me) ended up with extras of the other character in the two-pack, trusty newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Now, Jonah is not an army builder, so what do you do with a bunch of extra Minimates in three-piece suits? Customize other characters in three-piece suits, of course!

First up on our J. Jonah Jameson makeover list is longtime supporting character and career bureaucrat Henry Peter Gyrich, a man who likes order and dislikes super-heroes. Go check him and his law-abiding ways out, won't you?

Now that I've posted my Guardians of the Universe customs, I wanted to share this old work-in-progress shot of them.

Like all things, our run of Green Lantern customs has come to an end. And our final two customs take a look at the management structure of the Green Lantern Corps. After all, there are a lot of Green Lanterns in the universe, and somebody has to be in charge of them. Someone has to be recruiting new members, ordering new power rings and making sure the Main Power Battery is charged. And those people are the Guardians of the Universe.

The Guardians are an alien race of blue dwarfs. A typical Guardian of the Universe suppresses their emotions and remain aloof from the Lanterns, except for the Guardian named Ganthet. Ganthet acts human-like, showing concern for Lanterns, and has been known to get involved in dangerous situations. He also has a bitchin' ponytail. Go check them out, won't you?

7200 active Green Lanterns in the comics. Not to mention all the dead or retired Green Lanterns. And yet, we only got 5 Green Lanterns from DC Direct. That's Reason #30 of my list of "Why I'm Still Angry They Stopped Making DC Minimates". Someday I'll be able to let it go. Someday...

In the meantime, let's take a look at two more Green Lantern customs. First up is Torquemada, a Green Lantern who is also a sorcerer - kinda like an alien Gandalf. Next up is G'nort, the dog-like Green Lantern who's dangerously incompetent. A bumbling comedic character in the serious world of Green Lantern, G'nort was played for laughs in the 90's "Justice League" title. Go check them out, and wander back next week for the last couple of Green Lantern related customs.

Green Lantern - just saying the name bring to mind thoughts of the Ryan Reynolds movie that wasn't very good. So let's stop thinking about that and move on to this week's customs...

First up, is an easy one that uses the Hal Jordan body with a new head - First Appearance John Stewart. Yes, it's not an essential look for John, but how can your collection of Green Lantern Minimates be complete without him? Next is sexy alien doctor Soranik Natu, daughter of the villainous Sinestro. And finally, there's Medphyll, the plant Green Lantern. You can recognize him because his head is a plant. Check these three customs out, then check back next week for even more Green Lantern customs!

Way back in 2009 I did a month of Green Lantern customs I called Lots of Lanterns month. Since there are 7200 active Green Lantern Corps members, there's still plenty more customs to make. So I'm having another Lots of Lanterns month. You might have noticed when I kicked it off last week with all the Kyle Rayner customs.

This week, three new Green Lantern customs, starting with Arisia, the orange-skinned alien that I made to add some color to my Green Lantern customs. Then there's Sodam Yat, who once hosted the Ion entity, the living embodiment of the Green Lantern power and who looks like a transparent dolphin. And finally, there and Kreon, a brilliant tactician and has a golden right hand. No, I don't know why his hand is gold. Go check him out anyway. And be sure to come back next week for more Green Lanterns!

Working on a new face right now. You won't see it next week, but if you come back you'll see more Green Lantern customs!

The last time I redesigned my customs site was October 2009. That is far too long to go without an update. So I am happy to present the new design for my customs site. If you're still seeing the old design, keep hitting Refresh.

But that's not all that's new! How about some new customs? How about I start showing off all the Green Lantern customs I've been promising to post forever? How about we get started with Kyle Rayner, the newest Green Lantern from Earth? I've got three different Kyle customs to choose from - his First Appearance Kyle Rayner, modern Kyle Rayner and Blue Lantern Kyle Rayner. Go forth and enjoy all the Kyle, and check back next week for more Green Lantern customs.

And if you see any bugs with the new design, please let me know. Thanks.

With any luck, what you see here will be launched Monday. Be there!

Hat party!

Scene from a photo shoot I did for a very special project that with any luck should be ready next week.

A lot of the Minimates that got primered this week wear black. And no, I'm not making the Sprockets.

So while my latest group of customs drying from their primer shower, I turn my attention to a few small sculpting projects.

February - it's a busy month for me, with all the birthdays and President's Day and Valentine's Day and the occasional Leap Day. And I've been too busy with various customs and special projects to give regular updates on the site. So to make up for the lack of content during February, I'm presenting Workbench shots all week. First up - a look at my next batch of customs to eat primer.

This is another recent success from my sculpting binge. He's missing his gun, though.

A quick shot of some details I'm adding to an existing jacket. Oversized furry lapels are always in fashion.

Super heroes get new costumes all the time. And they should, because their costumes probably smell pretty gross after fighting bad guys all day. So let's take a look at some new custom Minimate looks for popular heroes.

First up is Thor, wearing the Destroyer armor. If you've read Walt Simonson's Thor run, you know the details on why Thor seizes control of the most deadly weapon his father Odin built. If you haven't read Simonson's run, then I don't want to talk to you and you should just move on and look at the next custom.

Next is Iron Man in a brand new armor of my own creation, made only because I had the parts and no better idea what to do with them. So check out Heavy Metal Iron Man and his electric guitar and bask in the musical metal glory.

The AoA Magneto hairpiece. Normally it's hard to reuse, but give it a haircut and do a little sculpting work later, and suddenly it's useful to me.

Now with the Flashes done, I can move on to the next batch of customs. And they involve a bunch of sculpting.

Lots of characters have been the Flash. And back when DC Direct was making Minimates, we've got a couple of them. But there are gaps in the Collection of Flashes. Gaps like the Barry Allen Flash, and the Wally West Flash in his most recent costume. Gaps that may never be filled. Unless you're a customizer with some extra Flash Minimates. Go check them out, won't you?

This update is by special request for Moo2172 - Flash has now gained decals and painting, and should be completed soon. You shouldn't be in suspense much longer.

Sure, he may be the fastest man alive, but when it comes to repainting him, he's slower than a broken car full or turtles. My fault for using a new glossy red paint, I guess. Hopefully he'll be finished up soon.

Coming up in 2012 - more customs! More irregular updates! My long-delayed big bunch of Green Lantern customs! A web site upgrade! And these two Minimates will be painted!

With Christmas mere days away, there may never be a better time to post the holiday-themed custom I made for my Secret Santa gift this year - Christmas Captain America! The birth of Jesus and the birth of America - now as one convienient Minimate! Go check him out as you have a wonderful holiday season.

And in case you missed them during CustomCon, I've gone ahead and added my Crayonmates to the site as well. Now you have no excuse to not look at them.

My customizing activities go at a much slower pace so I can enjoy the season. But one of my recent projects premiered today at CustomCon 30 - Crayonmates, the perfect combination of crayons and Minimates. Go check them out, and check out some of the other great Minimate entries from earlier this week. You'll be glad you did.

One of the best things that Diamond came out with this year was the Calico Jack Pirate Ship for Minimates. Wonderful detail, lots of playability - it's perfect for all your Minimate pirate ship needs. And Diamond is coming out with many different versions of the ship (including a great glow-in-the-dark ghost pirate version), but I think there's a lot more they could do. For example, they could make a bright pink version that my daughter would love. Instead I made one. So go check out the Pretty Pirate Ship, won't you?