So you want to make your own custom Stan Lee Funko Pop? Of course you do!
A little background on this project – a friend of mine shared an image that was going around of a custom Stan Lee POP where he was holding the Infinity Gauntlet. With Stan Lee’s recent passing, it seemed like a perfect tribute to the man who brought so many of our favorite comics and heroes to reality. However, a quick eBay search turned up a listing (with the original image I’d seen) selling them for around $125. Now, I’m all for supporting artists, but I also can’t justify spending that much on a POP, custom or not.
So, I set out to figure out how to DIY the same result. This isn’t my first foray into the world of custom POPs. You may be familiar with my previous post on making my wife a custom RBG POP. Turns out, this one was even easier than that one! Minimal custom molding required, and Stan is a bobblehead, so the head just twists off and back on!
Here’s the basic formula for success on this custom:
= awesome.
You’ll need a Stan Lee, obviously. I opted for the Guardians of the Galaxy Walmart Exclusive version because it matched the reference image, and it was the cheapest. (About $20 on eBay.)
Then you’ll need a set of aviator sunglasses. For mine, I opted to use the Captain Marvel from the Marvel vs. Capcom 2-pack, which also comes with Chun-Li. I found one of these duo packs on an Amazon Warehouse deal for $8. Full price they’ll run you closer to $20, so if you can find another figure with the glasses for cheaper, you could go that route, but the color matched Stan’s frames pretty closely..
Lastly, you’ll need Thanos from Infinity War, as he has the Infinity Gauntlet. Again, look for Amazon Warehouse deals or used eBay options to keep the overall cost down.
In addition to the POPs you’ll need an X-Acto knife, some assorted paint (for touch-ups), super glue, and a paperclip. (Yes, a paperclip. One of the bigger ones.)
So, to start, we’ll have to cut off some hands, Empire Strikes Back style. I used a small hobby saw, you could also go at it with an X-Acto knife. Cut off Stan’s regular left hand, and Thanos’ gauntlet hand. In order to help strengthen the connection between Stan’s body and the Infinity Gauntlet, I drilled a super small hole in the front side of his arm, and in the back of the gauntlet. I cut off a small portion of a paperclip and superglued it into the arm hole. Once you’re done with touching up the gauntlet, you will glue the other end of the paperclip into the corresponding hole on the gauntlet. This acts like a skeleton, so it doesn’t make the glue do all the work holding the gauntlet onto his arm.
Now, the gauntlet has a little divot from where Thanos’ arm was bent. I used a little epoxy putty I had left over from previous projects to fill that in, but really if you just touched up the paint, you probably wouldn’t notice it too much since it’s kind of obscured. I also took the opportunity to sand the back side of the gauntlet to smooth it out a bit.
For the two sets of glasses, I just cut the front of the frames off the side arms for each. You CAN remove the entire frames, however, they tend to be glued into grooves cut into the side of each figure’s head, so trying to dig those out can damage the surrounding areas, or the glasses themselves. Plus, the frames are slightly different, so the arms of Captain Marvel’s glasses will not fit the grooves on Stan’s head. So, only cutting off the fronts keeps things simple.
I will say, the one downside to this Stan Lee POP is that the weird futuristic glasses are also attached to his forehead, but you can cut that center point relatively smooth to the surface with your X-Acto knife. I attempted to dig out the center and patch it with some of the epoxy putty, but the texture doesn’t quite match, so it’s a little noticeable, although the aviator glasses mostly hide it in the final product. Then you use some super glue to attach the aviator fronts to the side arms of Stan’s other glasses. I had to do a little paint touch up where the strange, scissors-looking side piece had to be removed.
And really, that’s pretty much it!
If you want to get super crafty and have some extra epoxy putty laying around, you can rebuild Thanos a new arm, like I did. I mean, I didn’t need the Thanos POP, but it seemed a waste to have him laying around without an arm. The final result wasn’t perfect, but he’ll look okay from a distance! The same can be done for Captain Marvel, just patch in the divots from her glasses frames to blend with her hair, and she looks fine from a distance too.
Otherwise, now you have a fitting tribute to the man, the myth, the legend to proudly display with the rest of your Marvel Funko POPs!
Excelsior!
nerd4all 