2Dtoy's custom Venture Bros Brock Samson Figure

Brock Samson is a character from the adultswim show, The Venture Bros, one of my favorite shows. I've been wanting to make these for awhile now, especially since no figures of them have been made by a toy company. Partially an experiment in mixed mediums, he was sculpted in wax, castilene, Willow Product's waxes and Apoxie sculpt. I decided to make him in the 6 inch Marvel Legends scale, so he can beat up my other figures.

Surprisingly enough I had a hard time finding reference material for him so I decided to plop in the dvds, and kept them running in the background. Occasionally I'd look up and pause it as I sculpted along. About halfway through the first season, it became apparent that Brock's design was constantly changing, and by the 2nd season he bore little resemblance to the rough sculpt that I had made. I didn't want to start over completely so I changed just a few things, mostly the head, and kept some elements from the early designs and hopefully nobody notices. I made 2 versions of Brock because I looove the fact he has the most diverse wardrobe of any cartoon character. Plus the outfits were different enough that I didn't break my no duplicates rule.

While working on this, I had decided that if I ever ran into the creators of the Venture Bros. I'd give them a Brock as a sign of my appreciation for the show. So I rushed the 2 Brocks, finishing them in time to bring to the Custom Action Figure panel at the San Diego Comic Con. After attending the custom panel, I gave one of the Brocks' to my friends Katherine and Shawn. While I was walking the floor looking for something to get my girlfriend, I passed an immense line filled with guys dressed like giant butterflies and girls dressed like Jackie Onassis. Sure enough it was a line for a Venture Brothers signing, and at the end of the really long line was Jackson Publick (creator of Venture Brothers, and the voice of Hank Venture, among others) and Michael Sinterniklaas (The voice of Dean Venture).

Having seen the absurd length of the line in it's entirety, and having spent the past 2 days of the con miserably waiting and ultimately getting burned out, I feared it was too late to get in line (I couldn't get in the Venture Bros panel the previous day, the line was already 3 hours long) But I knew I must give Brock to them personally some other way.

I am a complete nerd and therefore socially inept. The fact that I was giddy and excited like a schoolgirl by my mission wasn't going to help me out. So I quickly ran to the booth next door to seek the aid of my friend Carl, a fellow Venture fan, and Gentleman of Leisure. Through a series of birdcalls, grunts and some minor telepathy, I explained to him my intentions and we soon became deadly and directed.

We synchronized our swatches and devised a multi-tiered plan filled with chicanery, bribery, and seduction. We also had a plan to judo chop everyone that stood in our way, just to get to them. But a 7 ft tall, impeccably dressed bodyguard/assassin was carefully monitoring the lines, and proved problematic. So we bookmarked that plan as a contigency.

Things started smoothly as we garnered minor attention from Venture fans in line and those passing by. They were all nice and cool to talk to, and a few of them wanted to take pictures of the figure. Which then led to Jackson Publick noticing us beyond the partition, pointing to the figure and proclaiming "THAT DOES NOT EXIST!" The two of them were about to take a picture of it from a distance as I can only muster a "Nooo!" while Carl eloquently explained "You get to home this!!" They seemed happy. Phase one was successful. Carl and I looked at each other. Mental high five.

But our ingenious plan was soon thwarted by the realization that we quickly devolved into really pathetic stalkers.The line was moving much quicker than expected, and Jackson and Michael were cool enough to stay longer than they were originally scheduled. So we decided to abandon the contigency we dubbed "Operation: Judo Chop Massacre", and wait in line just like everybody else. Soon enough we got up to them, and they were just as nice as can be. "Did you sculpt that yourself?" was a recurring joke in the 7th episode of season 3 entitled "What goes down must come up", so hearing that out loud made me smile. By the way, did I mention I am a complete nerd?

Jackson was complimentary and after we talked briefly, we left telling them we want Venture Brothers toys. Don't care who makes em as long as they get made. So thanks to Michael Sinterniklaas and Jackson Publick for giving a tired, jaded con goer something to get excited about again. Big thanks to Carl, thanks to the nice people at the adult swim booth for putting up with us, and thanks to the 7 ft tall, impeccably dressed bodyguard/assassin for not ending our lives. Though now I regret not spending more time working on these.