WONG FEI HUNG
Tsui Hark's epic martial arts masterpiece. One of the first films to revamp the entire martial arts genre thought dead after the Shaw Bros.' old-school kung-fu films of the early seventies, Once Upon a Time in China equally balances out martial arts with wire work. Never over using either or. Master Wong was my very first real-haired figure. After seeing IPKevin's Van Damme mullet for his "Hard Target" custom, I began a hunt for the perfect type of hair and method to initialize Jet Li's immortal role as Fu Shan martial arts master, Wong Fei Hung.

The base figure was a BBI Asian American bodybuilder which I sanded the hair off and glued real doll hair on. I braided the hair and custom made his clothes. This is one of my very first hand-sewing jobs. It was extremely excruciating (especially if you know nothing about sewing) and took me almost a whole month to complete just his outfit alone.  His shoes are from the Bruce Lee figures.  I repainted the shoes to reflect the color of his shoes in the film.  My next project is Donnie Yen from "Iron Monkey."  I've put in a private commission with Jim Maddox to sculpt the head, but it's going to take some time with Jim's super busy schedule so look for it soon.

My Favorite Quotes from the movie:
"Fu Shan No Shadow Kick!"

"Without revolution, there is no future."

"Heroes are still men and men can be killed."
 

The hardest part about doing Master Wong was his face paint.  At the time, I had no (and I do mean no) experience with painting so I didn't know how to mix paint.  While pretty "doable," the resulting touch-ups on BBI's face looked a little thick and you can clearly see the paintbrush marks.  I've since learned to water down paint and smooth out brush marks so I think Master Wong will get a repaint one of these days when I run out of ideas or things to do.

The pictures on the right was sort of a photostory I was playing around with. The monk was an early bash I did using Dragon Stan and the clothes from the "Stormriders" figure.  I didn't know how to do anything at the time so the monk was a pretty simple bash.  Master Wong needed an opponent and I had a lot of free time on my hands.  The tri-pole nunchaku used by the monk was made from craft sticks, painted gold and chainlinked with a picture frame screw at each end.  Hey, I was at a hardware store and was just browsing alright?

Overall, I wasn't very thrilled about Master Wong.  I was happy that I was able to complete him because Wong Fei Hung is such an extraordinary figure to do.  I was just glad I was able to make something for a change instead of buying parts and kitbashing a figure.  My sewing and painting skills is no where near I want them to be.  Maybe I'll remake him one of these days when I have some free time and when I get better with making stuff.  We'll revisit Master Wong again soon.
 

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