Watching Gladiator the first time around is an experience I will never forget.  It took me a long time to build up my nerve to work on Maximus.  I wanted to make him a long time ago, but my skills were not up to par and I gave up on Maximus several times.  Two years back, I didn't know how to sculpt, sew, paint, or anything.  What difference time and patience can do to you.

Most people remember Maximus as the "gladiator."  I wanted to make him as a gladiator initially too, but I thought back and forth about it and there was simply no way I could live up to Dan Chung's figure (check my "guest" gallery).  Dan's figure set the benchmark.  In a way, it got me hooked to customizing because I realized that, with a little time and effort, anything is possible.

As you can guess, the base figure is a DML Russell.  I sanded his hair down, sculpted his hair and repainted him with acrylic paint.  The body armor, as you can only imagine, was a painstaking task.  I thought and thought about it for a long time.  Did I want to sculpt it?  How about sculpting then casting?  How about leather?  So many different variations and so many different ways to do it, but my ultimate decision was based on form vs. function. Sculpting the armor would look really good.  There's no doubt about that, but a resin cast would be pretty heavy and would weigh the figure down quite a bit.  Factoring in the fact that my resin casting abilities is quite low, I scratched that idea fairly quickly.

When I think of Maximus, I think of him as the "General" and not the slave.  Maximus was hecka cool when he commanded legions of Roman Centurions to wreak havoc. The costume from the first part of the film is also very cool.  He was "war-ready" and was all bloodied up.  I like war-hardened stuff so doing Maximus the General was a better choice I think.