Posts with tag boot-laces

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

Last week, Mike Schramm introduced Abotu (Emerald Dream-US) and his to-die-for custom Troll Rogue action figure. Abotu has been sculpting custom figures as long as he can remember. "When I was little, if there was a toy I wanted that I didn't have, I'd try to make it myself out of modeling clay or construction paper," he remembers. He's done exactly that here by creating Abotu, his own World of Warcraft figure – puts Figureprints to shame, doesn't it?

15 Minutes of Fame visited with Aboto this week, not only to find out more about the player behind the talent but also to get inside scoop on exactly what went into making his Abotu custom. Our two-part look at Abotu the sculptor, the making of Abotu the action figure, plus photo galleries of the Abotu figure and other creations from this talented player ... after the break.

We posted that fan-made Draenei Barbie last week, and a few commenters sent us a note about this figure, custom made by Abotu over on Emerald Dream. The Barbie was just something funny that a few fans did while bored, but this Troll Rogue is the real thing -- custom leather armor fitted onto what used to be a Tomb Raider figure, heavily modified with Sculpey, wood (for the daggers) and even boot laces (for the braids). It's really, really impressive, not only in the way it looks, but in what it took to make: the whole thing took about two months' worth of work (Abotu guesses it might cost over $1000 to make selling these worth it), and many parts of it are completely fabricated. The head is sculpted from scratch, and the hands and feet are from an X-men Nightcrawler figure, but even those have been shaped to look completely different from what they used to be.

Quite a piece of work. We've put all of the image in an easily browseable gallery below, to save you from the trouble of cutting and pasting Photobucket links. Our own 15 Minutes of Fame column has also scheduled an interview with Abotu, so stay tuned for more information on how this all came together (and how you too might be able to immortalize your character like this). And as always, if you've heard of some amazing fan art like this, feel free to send it along on our tipline -- we always love seeing what World of Warcraft fans are putting their crafting skill points into.