Back in 2012, toy company Super7 had a contest that I forget the details of, but it involved doing a custom paint job of one of their original characters, Mummy Boy, over a “blank” figure — One that was just molded in off-white, with no details painted on.
My friend Danny Duoshade — a big fan of vinyl toy art — had seen some of my action figure repaints, and thought it would be a good idea for me to enter. He even paid for the blank Mummy Boy so that I could enter. Well, there was literally no downside to this for me, so I painted up my Mummy Boy and mailed him in.
My mummy was featured on the contest website, but I never heard back about it, and Mummy Boy was never returned to me. It’s been mostly out of my mind for the last decade, but every so often I wonder whatever happened to the little guy.
Earlier this week, I discovered some photos of the toy that I had taken before I sent him in! So I thought I would share those now.
While vinyl toys usually go with very simple one- or two-color paint jobs, I wanted to go super gritty and “realistic” with mine. I mixed up a pretty grody bone white and covered the entire toy in it. Then I gave it all kinds of brown and black washes to make it look extra ancient. Cover that with some dark red blood, some flat brown eyes and mouth hole, and some red washes to look like the blood was seeping through the bandages, and you’ve got the kind of thing I was super into painting in 2012.
It’s a shame I never got him back, but I don’t think Super7 not returning the toy was malicious. I think there was just some kind of miscommunication. Maybe someone there liked my paint job so much that they decided to keep it!
Who knows, maybe somebody there will see this and contact me about returning him?