Spotlight On: Vinylmation Custom Artist Joe of War

Joe of War has given us some great video game based customs in the past and now he is back. Here, in his own words, are his new Super Mario Bros. customs.

One of my favorite video game series of all time - like countless other gamers - is Super Mario Bros. And out of those games, I must have played a thousand hours of Mario Bros. 3!  In this game, you could find outfits for Mario to wear that gave him special powers.

This first custom is based on the incredibly awesome raccoon costume from Mario Bros. 3, and helped Mario to fly!!!  

I also wanted him to have a detachable raccoon tail in case he had to be stored in a tight space. To achieve this I used 2 rare earth magnets and a Dremel. While I was sculpting the tail I hung it by magnets from my metal lamp to not leave fingerprints on it when it dried - yeah that was fun.

Mario uses so many things in his game environment, so I thought it would be fun to give him at least one accessory! I used a spare Vinylmation head to make this turtle (koopa) shell.

I painted half of the shell red and the other half green to represent a few of the different koopa shells you encounter.

On the bottom of the shell I painted arm, head, and tail holes.  Also painted some eyes to make it look like the koopa was ducked in his shell scared. I Left the neck hole unfilled in case I want an interchangeable Mario head just for kicks!  

Here's my second Mario suit custom, and this time I've created a 3" Frog Suit Super Mario! He also comes with a sculpted lily pad for when he's tired of jumping around. It could be used as a simple base for the figure. The lily pad was sculpted with Aves 2-part Apoxie, and everything was painted with Citadel acrylics.

I Added some bubbles to the side of his head for when he breathes underwater.

Here is my third Mario Suit Vinylmation. I decided I'd dress Mario as his beloved dino friend, Yoshi. I don't think it was a wearable suit in any of the Mario games, but I know you could ride on Yoshi's back in a few of them.  But I thought it would be cool to add to my series of suits!

I consciously left out Yoshi's pupils so it didn't seem like Mario was wearing something he just caught in a bear trap.

I painted the Mickey ears to look like Yoshi eggs. And I know Yoshi doesn't wear gloves, but I kept the white gloves to match the rest of the Mario Suit set. Now to think of more suits....