toybox

Being a 30-something fanboy of various franchises over the years I have acquired many, many different toys and collectables; you know, crap that may or may not increase in value but it’s a moot point because I highly doubt I’ll ever sell any of it anyway. As such, one of my biggest dreams (aside from the movie deal, of course) is to see action figures and other types of collectables based on The Quest Saga characters. Well, having grown tired of waiting for the toy companies to return my calls, I decided to make my own. Thus, I present to you, my dear fans, the Quest Saga Toy Box, a collection of Quest inspired toys and collectables custom-made by myself! Enjoy and let me know what you think! Oh, and aside from the t-shirts, I’m afraid that these are not for sale. Yet.

Starting things off, we have Sir Kain Viccon, 113th Grand General of the Kingdom of Arcainia. Kain may look a little familiar to you, especially with his movies tearing up the box office. Yes, that is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, or more specifically his WWE action figure counterpart. Why did I choose a Rock WWE figure as a basis for Kain Viccon? Well, if you’ve seen my Quest Movie Wishlist, you’d see that Dwayne Johnson is my top pick to play the role of Kain! =D

Kain is from the WWE 4” mini-figure line. As wrestling toys come only wearing a speedo and boots, obviously I had to paint pants onto him; gave him steel toes on his boots, too. The armor, shin and elbow guards, helmet, and shield are all molded from a polymer clay. He is wielding the Element Sword, the hilt of which is again polymer clay while the blade is translucent plastic, the same plastic from the blister pack of the original Rock packaging (recycling is cool!). Although it is difficult to see, he has a belt scavenged from an old G.I. Joe on which there is a rope, sword sheath, and dagger. If you look closely you will see Kain’s glok, which is attached to a backpack.

The figure is remains pretty articulated considering how much polymer I put on it so it works great as a playable toy. One more thing of note: the star both on the shield and on his chest armor. Not sure if you can see it in the picture, but there is an eagle fighting a snake atop a cactus as mentioned in the books. Yes, that is the very same image as seen on the Mexican Flag.
This is one of many subtle clues that the Arcainian culture is influenced by Mexican culture, obviously because of my own Mexican heritage.

This is actually the very first action figure I custom made, and I must say that I am very, very proud of it; I consider it my masterpiece. This Noknor, Scourge of Evil, as seen in The Quest, Book I: The Roots of Evil. {I have made a Book II: Evil Rising version of Noknor, I’ll be posting that one soon}. Again, it is made from a WWE action figure, an 8” to be exact. This time it’s the Big Red Machine, Kane (ironic, no?) that was mutilated in the name of art. I took a razor to the head to try and round out the face and elongate the nose and chin, I also shaved down the brow. Then I painted him green and filled the eyes in with bright apple red, and in keeping with attention to detail I painted his fingernails black. This wrestling figure at least had pants (which I painted over anyway to cover the barbed-wire decals), but I made him a robe with sleeves from polymer clay; I’m not much of a tailor with regular sized clothes much less the miniature variety. The Swuenedras Amulet (I can’t believe I STILL have to check the spelling on that!) is also polymer clay with a red gem sticker normally used to be-dazzle girls’ notebooks. Check out the cape, real cloth!!! Yes, real cloth cape! Red velvet super glued to black felt and OH MY GODDESS IT WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS!!!! But a well worth it pain as it came out really well, definitely much better than it had any right to be. The removable Crown of King Edward’s Skull and Bones is a nice feature if I do say so myself, made from an old Halloween skeleton decoration chopped up and glued to a polymer clay cap.

I’m not too fond of the staff, a wooden dowel with polymer clay for the blades and a plastic diamond for the Volar stone. It looks okay, I guess, but it seems a bit disproportionate, especially between the enormous blade and skinny shaft. It’s also a little tall for the figure, but it actually acts as a prop and holds Noknor standing on his own. I’ve toyed with the idea of making a new staff, but eventually moved on to other things.

This one is not quite as posable as the Kain figure due mostly to the polymer clay robe. I had seriously thought about making a real cloth robe but after the battle I suffered through with the cape I said screw it and went with the clay. I made the sleeves out of clay also, but tried to leave spaces for the joints. It looks okay and gives it a little free movement but it’s a somewhat limited and you can see little specs of green poking out at the elbows and shoulders. All in all, I must shed any sense of modesty and admit that it’s pretty exceptional, particularly for a first try.

Kain Viccon

Noknor
The Quest
Book I: The Roots of Evil

Box for Noknor
The Quest
Book I: The Roots of Evil

I didn’t make Noknor’s box right away; I actually didn’t get the idea until a few months after. It was still a few weeks before I found the perfect box, which happens to be an American McGee’s Alice Alice box. I have a few of these lying around, as previous mentioned I’m a fanboy collector and AM’s Alice was certainly one of my big obsessions. I didn’t collect any of the other figure, though, just about six Alices. Thus, I had a box to spare. It really is perfect for the Noknor figure, it’s just the right height and depth and the large plastic blister really shows off the figure.

I started by painting over the entire box; I found out early on that I had give it a priming coat of white before applying the blue so that the Alice box art wouldn’t show through. I outlined all the edges with a metallic gold paint pen while all the stickers were made using PrintShop. The front features the Quest emblem and a sticker with Noknor’s name. On the right side is a sticker listing what the figure includes: Swuenedras Amulet, Crown of King Edward’s Skull, Bladed Staff, Velvet cape. The left side has an “Also Available” sticker; listed are Kain Viccon, Nancy Viccon with Uni, Battle of Qinling Hua Li, Final Battle Noknor, and More! I really don’t have any active plans for any other 8” scale figures at press time although I’m certainly not averse to making them if I find the right base figures. As you’ve already seen I do have the 4” Kain figure, but as Dwayne Johnson’s been out of the WWE for quite some time now, I don’t foresee coming across an 8” Rock figure at a price reasonable enough to justify vandalizing it. I do have ideas for a Final Battle Noknor figure/playset, but as for the others, anyone know if there’s any Brenda Song or Maggie Q dolls floating around somewhere?

I really like how the back of the box came out, especially with Noknor’s picture peeking out of the darkness; PrintShop is such a neat little program! The back gives a brief background on Noknor and a synopsis of The Quest, Book I: The Roots of Evil. That’s actually the same brief from the back of the book, but since I wrote it I really don’t think it’s stealing.

The bottom of the box is pretty simple, just the usual legal mumbo-jumbo found on boxes for toys. There are a couple of gags, most notably the Made in Arcainia sticker, but also the UPC barcode. Each set of letters and numbers has a specific meaning, but I’ll let you try and figure it all out. ; )

The top is pretty self-explanatory, but I did want to mention that the original box plan had much smaller stickers. My brother Mike advised me to make bigger stickers, in fact so big that they covered up as much empty space as possible. They really made the stickers and the box as a whole stand out, so major props to my bro Mike for the advice!

Replica of
Li's Weapon of Choice
The Dragon Claw

Ah, Li’s Dragon Claw. Mentioned in Book I: The Roots of Evil, actually used in Book II: Evil Rising, the Dragon Claw is one of my favorite weapons. I’m not sure exactly what made me want to construct a replica of it, I guess one day the idea popped into my head and I ran with it. The base of the glove is a woman’s white spandex evening glove I bought specifically for this purpose; not quite sure if the saleslady at Dillard’s believed that one either. I used regularly old acrylic paint for the color, metallic amethyst to be exact. The metallic paint gave it a sort of glittery luster that is subtle but there, but the paint itself played hell of the spandex and made it tough and rubbery. That’s really not so bad except that it made the stitching brittle. To paint it, I put a rubber glove on and then put the evening glove over that, so I painted it while it was on my arm. I used foam-board for the blades, but for the fingers and back of the hand I cut up and painted a rubber costume knight’s glove I bought at Target. The plate on the back of the forearm is yet more polymer clay (that stuff is aweSOME!) and the tubes holding the Dragon Oil is plastic bead tubes covered in polymer clay. The spout on the back of the hand, interestingly enough, is a rubber nipple from a baby’s medicine dispensing syringe.

Again, I do have to say that this one came out beautifully. It works great as a costume piece, although as I said it is a little brittle so I try not to put it on often except for photo ops. It really wasn’t difficult to make it, more than a little time consuming but not nearly as much of a physical chore as I thought it would be. I have even considered making more and selling them, especially since the experience of making this one will no doubt make for an even easier and faster production. Provided I can get the proper supplies I may just do that, so if’n you’re interested just drop me a line and I’ll let you know if it’s a go or not.

Quest Saga
Official T-Shirt
featuring Noknor

The idea of the t-shirt came to me, no joke, literally while I was driving to the pharmacy one evening. That’s how these things usually work for me, I’ll be doing something completely unrelated to writing and an idea for some or other marketing ploy will just come to me. On the way to the pharmacy I got the idea and by the time I got home I had the whole idea mapped out and planned. I actually came up with 2 shirt ideas, but this one was a hell of a lot easier to actually produce so I went with it.

The three names all are from the original idea. I wanted to pick names of villains people would immediately recognize, but also a broad range of names so that I would have a larger number of people recognize at least one name as a bad guy. The saying under it took a bit more planning. The original ideas to say: Vader, Voldermort, Lecter… They only WISH they were this evil! However, it was a little long and besides, ultimately seemed a bit…I don’t know, cheesy I guess. I still like it, but I’m glad I went with Amateurs! because it’s simple and more important, effective.

I often wear the shirt when I’m out and about; it’s really cool to actually wear a shirt inspired by my story. It’s even cooler when I get complimented on the shirt, and it happens an awful lot. I’ve given a few out and sold a few to the point where I’m actually back ordered on them. If you’re interested in one for yourself, definitely drop me a line.

As I said, I have an idea already for a second shirt, but I’m also coming up with other ideas. One I’d like to do is a girl’s shirt feature either Li or Nancy. I’ll let you know if anything pops up.

STAY TUNED FOR OTHER
QUEST COLLECTABLES
COMING SOON TO A WEBSITE NEAR YOU! =D

Final Battle Noknor
The Quest
Book I: The Roots of Evil

Final Battle Noknor, during the final battle with Kain and Nancy at the end of Book I after the Swuenedras Amulet has turned him into his ultimate warrior.

I'm really, really excited about this one. I've been wanting to do a Final Battle Noknor for a really long time, but was never quite sure how to go about it. I wanted to keep it to scale somewhat with other action figures I had planned, which were the 8" versions, but finding the right core figures seemed impossible. Thus I stuck with the 8" scale and used a WWE Kane figure similar to the one used for the very first Noknor figure. I went through the usual painting/reshaping I did for the first, even using the same color green. However, for this one I had to cut off the legs. Let me tell you, wrestling toys take a LOT of abuse and the toy makers obviously took that into consideration because even with a hacksaw, slicing through Kane's waist a la the magic show cliche was a pretty grueling process. That, or I'm amazingly out of shape. =/
I also removed Kane's bottom jaw, because he was in the traditional tight lipped scowl common on wrestling figures (the after effect was pretty creepy, let me tell you!). I shaved both jaws down just right and glue it back on, leaving enough room to glue on the white fangs (after painting the inside of his mouth red, of course.

The wings and extra set of arms are actually from a Disney's Gargoyles toy circa 1995, a Broadway figure, if I'm not mistake. I used to love the Gargoyles show and bought quite a few of the figures, which were really quite well crafted. Yes, I realize it was a cartoon show meant for kids, and in 1995 I was 18, but if you've paid attention to this website you'll know that the age demographic for anything really doesn't pertain to me. Anywho, I had a few Gargoyle toys collecting dust in a box in the storage shed and salvaged some pieces from ol' Broadway with the aid of my trusty hatchet. I used a drill to bore holes in the Kane torso and inserted the intact arms, thus the extra arms are actually articulated and can be moved freely up and down. Can't say the same for the wings, I considered articulating them in a somewhat similar fashion but ultimately decided I'm very lazy and ended up just hot gluing them onto the back.

The spider body is an old Halloween spider decoration, a rubber squeakie. The legs, all eight of them, are custom made from scratch. The rubber legs were...well, rubber, with rubber hairs and looked stupid. So I cut them off, all eight of them, and used wooden dowels and polymer clay. That was actually the most time-consuming part of this and the most mind-numbing. Eight legs doesn't seem like a lot, but trust me, it is a LOT of work to mold eight legs; actually, 16 since each leg is made of 2 pieces.

The top of the figure is attached to the spide body using polymer clay and hot glue,
not exactly technologically advanced toy making, but it gets the job done.
The Swuenedras Amulet is also polymer clay and it is to scale.

Yes, this figure is basically to scale with the 4" Kain Viccon figure I made (see above). So, I realized my dream of both making a Final Battle Noknor,
but also making it to scale with Kain and Nancy figures.
2 Words, Bad Ass!!! =D

Mara Raptor

Mara Raptor, Jestura to the Ladys of the Elements, Kain ex-lover, and Li's sister-in-law. Mara is one of my favorite characters to write, right behind Li and Nancy, so doing a figure seemed right. It helps a whole lot that it's actually a pretty simple figure to make. The core figure is a Lisseth figure from Humberto Ramos' Crimson line. I know absolutely nothing about Crimson or Ramos. I saw the Lisseth figure (name known because it's on the box) at Suncoast Video or possibly a comic book store and thought that it looked pretty cool. This was years ago, long before I thought too much about making my own figures. At the time I would collect toys, any toy that struck as cool, and so I built up quite a collection. I came across the Lisseth figure will cleaning my closet one day and thought it would be great as a Mara figure. The face is decently similar to the real Mara and I liked the stance. The Lisseth figure is painted with a bodysuit, so I made Mara a dress using polymer clay. I repainted her boots, painted the hair brown, painted the lipstick and nails, and gave her a keen real leather belt adorned with plastic bedazzle gems. Also gave her a diamond necklace for no other reason
than I thought she needed a little something extra.
You'll notice that the figure has her hand pointed out, this is the pose of the original Lisseth figure. I wanted to have Mara shooting a fireball an indeed I made one out of polymer clay. Unfortunately, it came out like crap so I didn't add it. I'm still considering adding a fireball if I find something good enough.
One more thing of note: I had to give the Lisseth figure a breast reduction using a razorblade. If you've ever read any comics, particularly recent one, you'll know that comicbook gals are...shall we say, well-endowed. Not mincing words, the Lisseth figure had a HUGE rack, and her girls were very implant-esque. I'm not really a big breast kind of guy, so I toned them down a tad. Actually, the interesting thing is that the surgery was necessary as the figure was too top heavy and wouldn't stand up by herself.

New figures added
04/04/10