by Chris Galdieri

Getting Started

The first step in this process is to take a look at the Superman figure we're using as our base, and identify how we need to alter this figure. So let's take a look at Green Lantern's costume. It's a very sleek design, so we won't have to sculpt shoulder pads or boot cuffs. In fact, the majority of our work will consist of removing smoothing down the Superman figure: those boot cuffs, belt loops, and sleeves will have to go.

Green Lantern won't need the red cape, either. 

Prepping the Figure

To smooth out the protrusions we've mentioned, we'll use two handy tools no customizer should ever be without: an X-Acto knife and sandpaper. We took our X-Acto knife, always being careful to point it away from us, and sliced off the belt loops and boot cuffs. We made sure not to cut away too much; we're trying to create a uniform surface, after all.

Once we cut away all the protrusions, we took our sandpaper and slowly started to sand down the areas we'd cut. This process takes a while; we recommend doing it during the half-hour break between Friends and Seinfeld. In addition to smoothing out the belt and boots, we'll also sand down the line between Superman's sleeve and hand. Our particular figure also has really visible seam lines, so we'll sand them down as well.

The sanded figure looks like this. As you can see, the base Superman figure is now sleeker and smoother. He's nearly perfect for our purposes -- but there are three more touches we have to add.

Modeling Clay Is Your Friend

To keep the cape in place on this figure, the folks at Kenner put pegs on the inside of the cape and two holes in Superman's back to hold the pegs. That's fine when you've got a cape covering the holes, but it's just not cool for Green Lantern to have two gaping holes in his back. So we need to fill those holes in.

To do this, we'll use an air-drying modeling clay. We'll take a small amount of clay and fill up the hole with it, let it dry, and then smooth it out with sandpaper. You can also do this with Super Sculpey, but you'll have to bake your figure in the oven to cure the clay.

The next minor touch will fill in the gap between our base figure's body and its belt. For some reason, Superman's belt extends outward about an eighth of an inch from his body. Sanding down the belt fixed the gap as far as the torso is concerned, but we'll have to build up the crotch area to even things up. Once again, we use our handy-dandy air-drying clay and apply it sparingly until all is even; then we'll let it dry and sand down any irregularities.

The final touch before painting is a small but crucial detail. Green Lantern needs a ring, and we're going to give him one. We'll take a very small piece of our modeling clay, shape it into a circular, um, shape, and affix it to the middle finger of his right hand. There! That looks like a ring!

Priming and Painting

Now that we have the base figure cut, sanded, and sculpted to our specifications, we need to paint him. We're going to use acrylic paints to do this, because they're easier to use, easier to clean, and they don't stink. To make the paint application easier, we're going to coat the figure with white primer.

In applying the primer, spray it gently and lightly over the entire surface of the figure. Don't apply too much -- it's easy for primer to congeal and run if there's too much of it. Your best bet is to apply a few light coats. You may want to hang the figure by an ankle or wrist to do get the most even paint application. Be careful not to breathe any primer or get the stuff in your eyes; that would be bad. Let the primer dry overnight before moving on to the next stage.

Painting the figure! You probably thought we'd never get to this. Keep a picture reference of Green Lantern handy, so you can make sure your figure looks right. We'll work our way up from light colors to dark ones, so we'll paint GL's white gloves first.

It's important not to use too much paint; this will cause giant chunks and globs of paint to accumulate. As with the primer, brush the paint on lightly. We won't worry too much about where you stop; we'll just paint about two-thirds of the way up the figure's forearm. GL's sleeves are black, after all, and we'll use that color to determine where the gloves end.

Next we'll paint GL's face, using a paint called "peaches and cream", which is the closest approximation to Caucasian skin tones that we've found. After that come the boots, mask, torso, and ring, which we'll do in a deep green. As with the gloves, we're not going to worry about stopping on the boots or torso; we'll paint the exact outlines when we add our black paint to the figure. The only exception to this is that we need to be careful painting the neckline of GL's costume. GL's costume has a high neck, and to represent that, we'll have to carefully paint the figure's neck green up to an imaginary line just under his chin, running around his neck.

We'll be even more careful with the ring and the mask. On the ring, we're simply going to be careful to paint only the ring and not GL's fingers. The mask is a bit trickier. We'll start by brushing a faint outline of the mask on the face, taking care to check our reference as we do so. Once we've got an outline, we'll fill it in very carefully. Don't worry about the eyes -- we'll take care of that with some white paint later.

Now that we've gotten the green areas of GL's costume done, we'll paint his hair before we add the blacks to his uniform. We'll use a deep brown and carefully paint over Superman's hair, following the line of the base figure's hair and making sure not to paint over his skin.

Once that's done, we'll carefully paint GL's tights and sleeves with black paint. We'll need to be extra careful here since we're using the black to define the figure's gloves, boots, and torso. There's no magic trick or special advice we can give you on doing this right; it simply takes patience and a steady hand.

The final touches are the eyes and the Green Lantern Corps symbol on GL's chest. We'll take care of the eyes with a tiny bit of white paint. For the symbol, we'll carefully (there's that word again!) paint a white circle on the figure's chest. When that dries, we'll take a small brush and slowly paint in the GL symbol. An alternative to this, as it is very hard to make it look good, is simply create one on your computer and print it out on a sticky lable and just stick it on! Once that's done, you may want to seal your figure with a spray varnish to prevent the paint from chipping.

And there you have it! Another fine addition to your action figure gallery. Place Green Lantern on the shelf with the rest of your figures and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Editors Note: Try painting Hal's suit to that of his first version, for that extra unique look.  Checkout GL #101 and up for reference.

To order the Superman base figure, go here!

Next Time: I will attempt to do a Alan Scott figure. Checkout my Lord Malvolio figure!