#custom lighting

Base is scratch-built from black acrylic and real brick and mortar (these little slips are the kind made for cladding dollhouses). Since the brick material is real, it's heavier than it looks. Box was designed to have a removable door on the bottom in order to access the custom LED wiring and the on/off switches. It's just a door with a notch in it that you pry off with any tool that will fit, as it's only being held in place with double-sided tape.

There are two custom LED circuits wired into the figure. One circuit controls the LED in his glasses and runs all the way from a tiny spot just above his left eye (the LED is very small! just .6mm) down through his body, to his feet, and into the base. The other controls the ones in his shoes. The wires are not visible except behind the door in the base, they are routed through many a hand-drilled hole.

The wires are incredibly fragile since they're so tiny... pieces fatigued off when I was putting this together since I was handling them too much trying to figure them out. I definitely could have done a better job here but I've given myself a pass since it's my first foray into this kind of stuff. It also works, so I can't ask for more, really.

The blue color in his eyes is hand-painted. The kit provides a sticker sheet for the details (below) but instead I opted to paint them in with my smallest brush because I'm a masochist I guess

For what it's worth, I think it paid off lol. I did try to apply at least one of these and I thought it looked incredibly jarring, plus I didn't really trust the strength of the adhesive to stick well while I hauled him around.

Similarly, the sticker that is used for the homing glasses radar on the lens that lights up is custom-made. The kit does not come with this detail and I wanted something to justify the trouble of wiring up his glasses. A custom waterslide decal would have been ideal, but the issue with this one would've been finding a vendor that can print white (most run-of-the-mill custom services can't).

Under black light, Conan is knee-deep in UV-reactive paint splatter. I wanted to mimic the look of a luminol reaction on blood. Yeah this might've been an extremely self-indulgent decision because the shine in his eyes glow with this same paint too LOL but there was no way I wasn't completing the look by going for some evil eyes >:) Makes him look like an animal at night and I'm very here for it and also tagging this as Evil Conan now hehehe

With the exception of his glasses, and his eyes, the entire kit is finished with a matte topcoat. Without it, he's got a very plastic, glossy shine to him. The topcoat protects the black light paint, too.