Branjita's Finished Custom Figures

Uranai Baba
Difficulty: 1/10
How to make: I originally had planned to make my own Baba entirely via sculpting on top of a glass decanter lid (the lid that goes in an antique liquor bottle, but looks kind of like a glass door knob). You can see that in a pic below. But when I purchased the WCF Baba, I was really satisfied with the size. Her head is the perfect size for 5 inch scale and her body is only maybe 10% to 20% too small. I'm actually ok with that, as I don't really care when it comes to a character like her--a slightly small body is just fine. I wanted to make the figure look more deluxe for my DBZ collection though, so I boil and popped the original crystal ball off, cut off the peg, and then shaved the inner part of her robe to fit a glass marble I've had for years. I epoxied that marble on. I would have liked to have used the much larger glass (crystal?) decanter lid, but cutting the knob off of it (which is what the masking tape prototype of my old Baba is covering), would be impossible. It also weighs a LOT, so she wouldn't be able to float if I did that. I'm actually quite satisfied with the result. She still gets to float. I probably should have repainted the WCF base white so it wouldn't reflect red, but I can always do that in the future.

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She's pretty great even without customization! In fact, she's arguably better without the new marble, but I bought a second Baba for my DB DWC/WCF display, so I wanted one that was just a bit different in my DBZ display.

Majin Tomato I just started doing that too, since I haven't taken a trip down memory lane lately. Page 1 isn't very good. Pages 2 and 3 have some of my most incredible stuff though. Those are really fun pages to look at. You know, from a now-outside perspective, I really see how easy it is to not really appreciate the time and effort these all took. What seems pretty minor and may not even seem perfect, can be over 4 hours of work to just make the hair and ears look a bit better sculpted and painted. I'm really proud of this stuff, but gee, it is hard to appreciate all of the hours and hours of time it takes to make something look this good. I mean... looking at my Dende figure (page 2 I think)... it's hard to appreciate just how hard that figure was to make even given how he turned out, and how he still doesn't look perfectly like Dende, especially when seen at 2 or 3 times his real life size. But that figure looks fantastic in my collection at real life size and is/was incredibly important. It's really hard to make something that looks even that good.

Here's a pic of the one I'm talking about... the one on the right.


And then you see stuff like my Burter, Nail, redone Irwin Piccolo, Nappa... my gosh... I spent ages on all of them. The sacrifices for 5 inches of plastic to go in my collection. It's kind of amazing and I'm unsure I'll ever have that much dedication in me ever again.

And then I'd go to the effort to make funny little comics too, and I still think they are funny lol.


It's hard to imagine myself doing that again. I found it to be such a chore just to find my watermark to put on the Baba pictures the other day. I don't think I'd waste time making comics again.

But my gosh... this has been great to go through again. I forgot just how much I improved this figure and how much I love it now.


And then there's the magic of spending ages doing minor sculpting and massive repaints of figures...


I'm just so lazy now and unwilling to devote my free time to sitting when I spend 8 hours a day sitting at a computer for work. It's exhausting and hurts to sit that long.

That Piccolo though... my gosh... I did so much work to him and am so happy with him... And that Nappa! Made from so many things and so much custom sculpting including the head!


Gosh... the amount of crap I'd go through just to make a figure I bought look more like the anime... this was pretty minor work compared to major customs, but it was still hours of painting.


LOL...


That day I finally finished making ALL the Krillins I ever needed to make and I could finally say that I was done making Krillins forever! (But then I later on made two IF Labs Krillins and I still have to make an early DB one and repaint some of a mid-DB one...)


Finishing all these Gohans... and then a few more later on...


The way this Goku made from random spare parts turned out...

Well, for what its worth im very glad you did all the hard work on these and shared them with all of us. Its inspiring to see that someone cares so much. Ive looked at these pictures for years now. It gives a person hope to see that even once they check every last figure off ther list, theres still a new frontier. Likewise most dbz fans gave up years ago on seeing their favorites come to life. Part of me is truly depressed because i know ill never hold the dragonball ox king figure in my hand that ive been imagining my whole life. But when you see people like you who have done so much.... it makes you realize that anything is possible. With such skill, such meticulous precision and care at your disposal you're almost obligated by fate and circumstance to continue customizing less you disrespect the gift youve been given.
By the bye your funny captions are the best part. They remind me of those hilarious skits they did with mego figures in the toyfair magazines when i was a kid. I imagine your work is important to far more people than you'd ever realize bran. And always try to remember that every obstacle worth overcoming is challenging. No one calls their favorite game the one they beat in 3 days. No one records the name of men who climb any mountain other than the absolute largest. The fact that you pour countless hours into your customs make them badges of honor and you probably wouldnt respect and treasure them if the process wasn't absurdly laborious.

Ive thought about buying him in the past. He's on my list for dragonball figures but i habnt really had a chance to get to those yet.
My favorite group of characters has always been the "extras". They make such a large and diverse group. There just really needs to be a big brown and white oxking taking up the scenery behind them. I think its my ultimate non existant figure goal. I used to really want a launch, but now dragonball styling handled all that. Maybe dbz ox will get that random production luck someday too.

They used to make books that were just compilations of those mego theatres. I remember seeing them in comic shops around the turn of the millenium. I may have to track those down. I bet if a person made a dbz book like that people would buy it.

He's beautiful!!! You two did a fantastic job. I figured that Frieza would make for a perfect Cooler, and it really did!