Hellooo! This post is a bit of a different one but it is still stagey! I love a good craft project and as you can probably tell from previous posts, I also love Funko Pop! Vinyl figures. As a Christmas present, I had a go at making a custom Funko Pop! figure for my friend where I used one of the plain DIY figures as a base. I loved working on it and was pretty happy with the end result and thought I'd had a go at making one for myself!
I was browsing the Zavvi Boxing Day sales and they had a 70% off sale on selected Funko merchandise. I was looking through the items in the sale and spotted the Funko Pop! vinyl figure of Betty Draper from Mad Men which I immediately thought looked just like Wicked The Musical's Glinda when she first enters in her Shiz uniform. The vinyl figure was priced at £10.99 but then ended up being the bargain price of £3.29 so I thought I'd see if I could remodel it to be a custom Glinda Funko Pop!
When Glinda (or Galinda as she is known at that point) makes her grand entrance at school on a stack of suitcases, she wears an off-white jacket and skirt with pleats, accessorised with a small bag, beret and hair bow, all in the same shade of off-white. Glinda's outfit is completed with a pair of off-white heels, with dark tealy-blue toes and heels. When I first saw the Betty Draper Pop! vinyl figure, the first thing I thought of was this outfit!
After watching a few tutorials and reading a few blog posts about how to create a custom Funko Pop! vinyl, I started by using nail varnish remover to remove the paint from the figure. This left a yellow base, with the head being the same colour as the hair and the body being the same colour as the dress. I removed as much paint as I could and then snapped off as much of the cigarette as I could and used an emery board to file down the rest.
The next step was getting stuck in sculpting the clay additions! I used the Hobbycraft White Superlight Air Dry Clay and I will say, this clay has a very strange texture! However as the name suggests, it is very lightweight which is perfect for adding onto a Pop! vinyl. I added a jacket and pleated skirt and added details along the bottom to match the underskirt Glinda wears. Next, I added a little handbag to Glinda's arm and a beret to her head, along with a tassel on top. I left the headband and earrings as they were as they matched the overall style of what I was aiming for. Next, I painted the whole thing white to give a neutral base however looking back, I don't know if I needed to do this.
Onto painting! First I painted all the off-white parts including her outfit, accessories and earrings. I also painted the part of her headband that was still visible in the same colour to match the bow Glinda wears in the musical. Next, I painted Glinda's face, legs and hands, followed by her hair and I then completed her outfit by adding the teal-blue accents to her shoes. Finally, I attempted to paint on Glinda's eyes and eyebrows which was a tense moment! I'm pretty happy with how the eyebrows turned out but her eyelashes are a little wonky however, I'm still happy with how they look! To complete the Funko Pop!, I added two coats of matte Mod Podge to seal in the paint and give it a more mattified finish.
Overall, I'm very happy with how this one turned out! The only issue is the beret addition affected her balance so she now needs to stand on a base to keep her upright but I don't mind this too much. I think I could do with a bit more practice in sculpting clay and particularly working with this kind of clay but I'm still happy with the end result. I also had a great time making this figure and I am now working on a friend for her! I wonder who that could be...
Thanks for reading and stay safe!
Sophie
