The Toxic Avenger - 1/12 Scale Handmade Action Figure
“not just another pretty face!”
At one point in time, I wanted to write and direct movies - that’s what lead me to eventually move out to LA and try my hand at “making it”. Long story short, you actually need to make movies in order for people to give you money to make movies but you also need money to make those movies. Rinse, lather, get screwed over because you’re not a nepo baby, repeat. Anyways, when I was a rebellious teenager with dreams of making movies I found Troma movies at the video store and became hooked! Most of them were pretty terrible, but The Toxic Avenger (1984) was both terrible AND inspiring - and despite not being a filmmaker, I like to think that I try to incorporate the Troma ethos into my current art projects (especially the recycling part - many scenes and special effects sequences get reused over and over again in their movies).
If you want to learn more about Troma, the movies they’ve made, and the fact that James Gunn - current head of the DCEU for Warner Bros. - once masturbated on Lloyd Kaufman’s desk on a dare, then there are websites and books that talk about that stuff. I’m just a guy that decided to make an action figure of the Toxic Avenger.
Toxie started as a project for the 16th Annual CRAZY4CULT art show at Gallery1988, but also as a passion project with a challenge. In the Tromaverse (a term I just made up), Toxie is played by different actors across all four of the movies and looks completely different in each one. Troma is pretty notorious for having a high turnover rate and shrinking budgets, so the challenge for me was how to create THE Toxic Avenger - the one that incorporated all of the design elements and was recognizable by Tromafans all over - but still put my own spin on it.
I had a really fun time creating this figure, and I ended up creating a display stand to go with him - I know I normally make “sets” for the photos, but I kind of wanted to create my own version of a “play set” too.
Also, in the spirit of Troma, many parts of the figure and base are recycled: the base body is a VToys body I had laying around, the costume is made from an old (washed) t-shirt that I dyed the appropriate colors, the dirt from the base is real dirt, and the mop is made from thick thread and a bamboo skewer.
He even looks different on the poster…